Rafe Sagarin (2000)




Fellowship Year: 2000
Academic Background: UC Santa Barbara - Ph.D.
Current Position: Assistant Research Scientist
Rafe Sagarin is a research scientist with the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. The institute is working to bridge environmental science and environmental policy making. Rafe conducts a range of studies from basic field ecology of coastal marine systems to studies of what we can learn from biological evolution to improve security in society. He is currently at work on a book on the return toward observational methodologies in Ecology (Island Press 2011) and a book on improving security using inspiration from nature (Basic Books 2011). He is also working to reinvigorate the public trust doctrine as a unifying theme of US conservation law. Rafe received his Ph.D. in marine ecology from the University of California Santa Barbara and is currently living and doing research in Los Angeles, California. His research is on historical changes in populations of tidepool creatures and their relation to the warming trend in ocean temperatures in Monterey. He is also doing research on the broad-scale patterns of abundance and physiological state in tidepool plants and animals ranging from Baja, Mexico to Alaska. Rafe also spent a year in Washington DC as a Congressional Science Fellow where he served as a science advisor to Congresswoman Hilda Solis (now Secretary of Labor). Prior to entering the Ph.D. program he was an environmental activist at Stanford University where he led projects on environmental education and energy efficiency, and with the Wilderness Society in Washington, D.C. where he worked on the California Desert Protection Act. Rafe is an avid barefoot runner and traveler and enjoys small art projects, graphic design and writing screenplays.
Expertise: Coastal & Marine Issues, Coastal & Marine Issues, Conservation Science & Biology