Our Vision
To foster a community of people who integrate climate action into their lives, and help reduce the barrier to action for others.
Our Mission
To execute our vision, we organize a variety of events and actions that build community, leverage existing efforts, inspire new plans, and find innovative ways to communicate with each other.
Who We Are
We are a group of Berkeley graduate students and community friends who are trying to make a dent. These are all the amazing individuals who have been involved in the project over the course of its lifetime.
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Organizers
Neem Patel
Neem is a PhD student in Microbial Biology and lives for fire, soil and microbial phoenixes. In her free time, she enjoys a lot of movement, writing and creating art, collecting vinyl and being a proud plant mama.
Mira Liu
Mira is a chemist who is jealous that microbes can do her job better than she can. In order to deal with that, she makes prints, sews fungal-patterned clothing and collects photos of trash.
Nanticha Lutt
Nanticha is a PhD student of Plant Biology who cares deeply about the future of our agricultural food systems, biotechnological innovation, and the warming of the earth. In her free time, she dances, aggressively urban gardens, and collects tattoos.
Brandon Wood
Brandon was a graduate student and outdoor enthusiast who is deeply concerned with the possibility of rouge jellyfish taking over the planet due to favorable conditions made possible by climate change.
Andreana Rosnik
Andreana was an UC Berkeley theoretical chemistry student who models photosynthetic protein organization by day and illustrates surreal, nature-inspired introspections by night.
Mika Endo
Mika is a cheesemonger at a wine and cheese bar in San Francisco. A lover of dirt, food, and all things fermented, Mika is driven by the connection that food provides to land and the people who tend it.
Jonathan Morris
Jon is was a PhD student in Applied Science & Technology and the former Vice President of the Graduate Assembly External Affairs.
Steven Liu Yi
Steven comes from a landlocked state. He is greatly concerned with rising sea levels, since he can't swim.
Julia Roma
Julia is an amateur geographer interested in the connections between science, capitalism, and global disarray. She can be found poking mushrooms in forests or curled in her bed drawing scenes from the apocalypse. Ever since being asked to give her family a brief lesson on the connection between changing climates and their Zika diagnoses, she has been a staunch advocate for better science education and outreach.
Workshop Leaders
Christopher Thomas Keckler
Chris Keckler is a nuclear engineer interested in sustainably generating enough energy for everyone. He is a musician, a biker, and a minesweeper.
Milos Ivo Atz
Milos Atz is a nuclear engineering PhD student at UC Berkeley. In his free time he enjoys hiking, skiing, weightlifting, and eating.
Claudio Núñez
After stints at Mission Cheese in San Francisco, Unti Winery in Dry Creek, and Blue Hill Farm in NY, Claudio returned to California to become a rancher and farmer at Paicines Ranch near Hollister. A working ranch since the 1800's, Paicines Ranch takes a holistic and regenerative approach to land management, striving to strengthen as much habitat and biodiversity on the land as possible. As a result of their thoughtful work, Paicines Ranch is now home to a great diversity of thriving plant and animal wildlife. They were also one of the first California ranches to take part in the Soil Carbon Challenge.
Monika Fischer
Monika is a chef turned microbiologist who is completely in love with fungi.
Julia Persky
Julia is an amateur mycologist and enthusiast, and an undergraduate at UC Berkeley studying Molecular Environmental Biology. Being raised in Mendocino County and mushroom hunting most of my life, she has developed a deep passion for the beauty and functional aspects of fungi. She creates spore prints from their fruiting bodies and preserve them as a form of artistic expression with aims of spreading awareness about the diverse uses of fungi.
David Romps
David M. Romps is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Chair in the Physical Sciences at UC Berkeley and the Director of the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center. Professor Romps focuses on the fundamental physics of climate, and on educating students and the public about global warming. He received a B.S. in math and a B.S./M.S. in physics from Yale University and a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University. Motivated by concerns about climate change, he left the field of string theory to work on climate policy at the Woods Hole Research Center and on atmospheric dynamics at Harvard’s Center for the Environment.
Elyse Hochstadt
Elyse is a designer, artist, and most importantly a lover of nature. Her adventures in travel and backpacking around the world opened her eyes to the problems with waste, in particular plastic, and inspired her to find non-harmful alternatives in her own life. She's excited to share these options with others.
Graham Wooley
Graham is a senior in the UC Berkeley Physics department. He will be working in renewable energy upon graduation and is toying with the idea of graduate school afterwards. He enjoys conversations centered on science, the universe, and his dog. He take naps in the sun and love to swim.
Thai (Dat) Dao
Dat is a PhD student who studies plant stem cells at UC Berkeley while also eating, cooking, and baking A LOT. As a result, he is always looking for chances to balance waste reduction with spending limitation.