Program activities revolve around recruiting, training, and mentoring diverse cohorts of postbaccalaureate and PhD student fellows. Fellows will co-design and conduct research projects with community partners, with guidance from faculty across various UCI departments and organizations. Our program objectives are to:

1. Empower the next generation. Train and empower postbaccalaureate and PhD students from historically marginalized communities to pursue graduate education and careers related to climate change.
2. Expand participation. Increase involvement of scientists from traditional STEM fields in environmental justice and community-engaged research.
3. Cross-disciplinary collaborations. Build strong cross-disciplinary collaborations between geoscientists and experts from various other fields.
4. Equitable partnerships. Establish equitable partnerships with community-based organizations.
5. Transformative learning ecosystem. Transform geosciences culture by building a learning ecosystem that breaks traditional institutional, disciplinary, and hierarchical boundaries.

The CLIMATE Justice Initiative is housed within the UCI Department of Earth System Science, and led in close partnership with the UCI Research Justice Shop.

We collaborate with four Southern California-based community organizations:

1. Getting Residents Engaged in Empowering Neighborhoods- Madison Park Neighborhood Association (GREEN-MPNA) in Santa Ana, CA
2. Crystal Cove Conservancy (CCC) in Newport Beach, CA
3. Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples (SPI) in Marina del Rey, CA
4. Orange County Environmental Justice (OCEJ) in Orange County, CA

And additionally with faculty, staff, and students from several UCI schools, departments, and centers, including:

1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
2. Department of Anthropology
3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
4. Department of Chemistry
5. Department of Urban Planning & Public Policy
6. Program in Public Health
7. UCI Graduate Division
8. UCI Office of Inclusive Excellence
9. UCI CLEANR
10. UCI Center for Environmental Biology
11. Environmental and Climate Change Literacy Project (ECCLPS)
12. UCI Sustainability Resource Center
13. AirUCI

We incorporate knowledge from multiple academic disciplines, practitioners, and communities struggling to adapt to climate change. Programming supports transformation among postbaccalaureate and PhD student fellows, postdoctoral scholars, UCI faculty, community-based organizations in Southern California, and geoscience researchers and educators worldwide, while also building links between them.

The CLIMATE Justice initiative, which is funded by a 5-year Implementation award from the NSF Cultural Transformation of the Geoscience Community program, involves a wide array of activities and vast network of partners. The primary activities revolve around recruitment and training and mentorship of diverse cohorts of postbaccalaureate and PhD student Fellows who co-design and conduct research projects with community partners in Southern California.

The CLIMATE Justice Initiative serves as a model for transforming geoscience departments globally, impacting communities dealing with climate and environmental change and injustice. Program activities have significant implications for education, workforce development, broadening participation, and enhancing capacity to address climate change. It transforms geoscience research culture by emphasizing community engagement to address societal issues. Through culturally-aware mentorship and authentic, community-engaged research experiences, members of underrepresented and marginalized communities will build scientific identities and a sense of belonging in the geosciences, both inside and outside academia.