Emily Fox is a PhD student in the department of Sociology with a doctoral emphasis in Feminist Studies. Her research considers how gender (particularly masculinities), ethnoracial identity, socioeconomic class, and sexuality shape friendship experiences. Most recently, she used nationally representative data to show that young adults' reported closeness to their best friend is not only stratified by gender, but also ethnoracial identity. In another on-going project, she employs an original online survey and virtual interviews to explore how undergraduate students understand, experience, and rely on their friendships in the context of COVID-19. Moving forward, she plans to qualitatively investigate how men create, maintain, understand, and benefit from their friendships with each other, paying particular attention to the intersecting roles of race, class, and sexuality.

Yifan (Flora) He is an environmental social scientist and doctoral student at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara. She studies rural land governance in the Global South using a combination of political science theory, causal inference methods, and geospatial tools. Current projects include the relationship between rural out-migration and land governance in South America, and the social and environmental impacts of collective tenure regimes in Brazil.

Prior to UCSB, she worked as a social scientist at Conservation International. She holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Hong Kong in 2015 and a Master of Science in conservation ecology and environmental informatics from the University of Michigan in 2017.

Grants, Awards and Distinctions:
Schmidt Family Foundation Research Accelerator Award. $8,000.

James D. Kline Fund for International Studies. $5,000.

Michael J. Connell Memorial Fund Research Award. 2022-2024. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara. Assessing socioeconomic and environmental impacts of land use restrictions in Indigenous lands in Brazil. PI. $15,000.

Environmental Justice Research Fund. 2022. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara. $1,000.

Individualized Professional Skills Grant. 2022.  University of California, Santa Barbara. $1,000.

I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Economics at UC Santa Barbara. I hold a BA and a MA in Economics from the São Paulo School of Economics - Fundação Getúlio Vargas. I am originally from São Paulo, Brazil. My primary research interests are Environmental Economics, Demographics and Macroeconomics. My current research focuses on the macroeconomic and demographic effects of environmental shocks, in particular volcanic eruptions. Previously to my Ph.D I have worked in the asset management and insurance industries.

Jimena Rico-Straffon is a Ph.D. student in Economics at UC Santa Barbara. She holds a Master of Public Policy from Duke University and a B.A. in Economics from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). Her professional experience includes conducting research on inequality, deforestation, monetary policy, and environmental policy at Mexico's central bank, the World Wildlife Fund US, and Mexico's National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change. Her research interests include natural resource economics, development, gender and racial inequality, and intergenerational social mobility. Her current research focuses on forest policy, as well as on the role of skin color on teenagers’ aspirations and investments in education.

Grants, Awards and Distinctions:

Deacon Fellowship, UCSB Economics Department

UC MEXUS- CONACYT Doctoral Fellowship (2019-2024)

UC Berkeley and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Diversity Fellowship for participating in the Berkeley/Sloan Summer School in Energy and Environmental Economics, $1,000

CAF Development Bank of Latin America, Research Grant on Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, co-PI, $6,000

Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, UCSB Economics (2023)