Deniss Martinez Receives the UC Regents Award at UCDavis!
From left to right, current Student Regent Marlenee Blas Pedral, Mary Tran, Student Regent-designate Merhawi Tesfai, William Carter and Deniss Martinez. The Regents awarded Tran and Carter with the inaugural Regents Foster Youth Award, and Martinez and Karly Hampshire (not pictured) with the 13th annual President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership on Thursday, Sept. 22 at a meeting of the Board of Regents at UC San Diego.
Erik Jepsen
Deniss Martinez, a former graduate student researcher with the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (SW CASC), has been awarded the 2022 University of California President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership. We want to congratulate Deniss on her award and recognize the remarkable work she has done!
Deniss conducts research related to forest management policies and restoring cultural fire practices for Indigenous communities across California and teaches cultural Indigenous practices, environmental justice and policymaking to undergraduates. Her work has furthered University of California climate action goals by helping to create sustainable solutions through local community partnerships with impacted Tribes and collaborating with state agencies to mitigate and respond to climate disruptions. She is also a board member for the California Public Domain Allottee Association, a nonprofit that works to help Native American allotment holders understand their options for stewarding land allotments granted to their families.
President Drake and Chair Leib also honored the recipients of the 13th annual President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership at the meeting. The honorees included Deniss Martinez, a Ph.D. student in ecology at UC Davis, and Karly Hampshire, a medical student at UCSF. The two students were chosen from a field of 11 nominees from five campuses.
We wish you all the best in your future work, Deniss!