Zavaleta receives inaugural ESA award recognizing mentorship towards diversity, inclusion, and belonging
The Ecological Society of America’s newly established Bazzaz-Pickett Award for Excellence in Mentoring the Next Generation of Ecologists honors ecologists whose mentoring has fostered diversity, inclusion and belonging while inspiring new generations of scientists. Erika Zavaleta is the inaugural recipient of the award.
Zavaleta is a terrestrial ecologist who is deeply committed to mentoring and supporting the development of emerging scientists and conservation leaders. Since joining the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2003, she has mentored more than 150 undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, emphasizing individualized support and long-term professional development. Her trainees have gone on to careers across academia, government, museums and non-governmental organizations.
A major component of Zavaleta’s work is building transformative programs that expand access to ecological training. She founded the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars and Center to Advance Mentored, Inquiry-based Opportunities (CAMINO) programs at UC Santa Cruz, which together have provided hundreds of students from diverse backgrounds with research and leadership opportunities. In response to recognized safety challenges in field-based research for scientists from historically excluded and marginalized communities, she founded FieldFutures, which provides training in best practices for inclusive and safe fieldwork. She also co-leads CLIME, a national conservation science leadership initiative.
Her mentoring approach integrates intellectual development with personal and professional support, and her programs are widely recognized for advancing equity and inclusion in ecology. Collectively, Zavaleta’s individual mentoring and programmatic leadership have had a lasting impact on the training of future ecologists and the culture of the field.
