The UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science is pleased to announce the recipients of its first annual grant awards for graduate student research. The La Kretz Center supports field and laboratory-based research projects that address fundamental problems with direct management implications for conservation science in California. Although we do not limit the geographic scope or academic discipline of the work we fund, we are particularly interested in projects that are centered on southern California problems and their solutions.

The La Kretz Center’s graduate student research grants program is made possible by the generosity of Morton La Kretz, UCLA alumnus and philanthropist.  This year a total of $10,000 was distributed among nine graduate student researchers. Their smiling faces are shown above, and their names and project titles are listed below:

Lauren Nicole Brown: A Long-term Vegetation Reconstruction of Mugu Lagoon, Ventura County
Gary Bucciarelli: The effect of invasive crayfish on tetrodotoxin levels in California newts within and between watersheds throughout the Santa Monica Mountains
Marissa Caringella: Improving prediction of climate change impacts and conservation of alpine plants by including mechanistic influence of traits on modeled responses
Rachel Chock: Effects of competition on reintroduction success of the endangered Pacific pocket mouse
Devaughn Fraser: Assessing the exposure risk and effects of insecticides on free ranging bats
Grace John: Conserving resources by quantifying plant water use and drought tolerance for the Los Angeles urban ecosystem
John Mering: Changes in the water budget of the Mojave and the drying out of the Southwest: New constraints from the study of ancient deposits
Zachary Schakner: Startling Sea Lions: A Possible Solution for Southern California Fishermen
Katherine Willis: Field validation of baseline land cover maps for SoCA coastal National Parks

Published: Saturday, March 09, 2013