CCS Fellowship

Community and Citizen Science in Conservation Fellowship

Training, mentorship, and funding for graduate students in conservation

Overview

The Center for Community and Citizen Science offers the Community and Citizen Science in Conservation Fellowship to support graduate students across disciplines in integrating participatory methods to research.

Effective conservation brings together research, partnerships across disciplines and sectors, and a commitment to iterative learning that supports long-term stewardship. In conservation science, community and citizen science (CCS) approaches can be especially powerful and yield valuable data while also advancing other parts of a conservation program, such as education and community engagement. However, formal training in CCS is not yet widely available for graduate students pursuing degrees in conservation science. Whatever their career paths, graduate students can benefit from an awareness of, and experiences with CCS approaches, applied in a conservation context.

The Fellowship provides graduate students in conservation with the opportunity for training, funding, and guided hands-on experience with CCS. To qualify for the fellowship, graduate students must complete a 10-week seminar in the spring exploring CCS approaches and applications broadly related to conservation. Accepted fellows will be awarded a stipend for research support and given mentorship and professional development opportunities throughout the following academic year.

Community and Citizen Science in Conservation seminar

The Center for Community and Citizen Science offers a 2-unit ”Community and Citizen Science in Conservation” seminar at UC Davis. The seminar involves weekly discussion and exploration of community and citizen science (CCS) approaches and applications broadly related to conservation. With an emphasis on recent academic literature, each class focuses on a different topic such as equity and justice, project design and implementation, and participant and conservation benefits. Other topics are identified and explored based on student interest. This seminar allows students to develop ideas for CCS projects within their own research. 

Students who complete the seminar are eligible to apply for the CCS in Conservation Fellowship, offered annually by the UC Davis Center for Community and Citizen Science.

If you have any questions, please contact Ryan Meyer, rmmeyer@ucdavis.edu.

2023 Partnerships

We are excited to partner with two centers of excellence at UC Davis to expand the CCSiC Fellowship program: the Institute for the Environment, and the Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute. These partnerships allow us to increase the number of fellowships available, and expand the professional development and networking opportunities provided to graduate students during their fellowship experience.

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MEET OUR 2024 CCSIC Fellows

We would like to congratulate and welcome our 2024 Community and Citizen Science in Conservation Fellows! Our fellows are passionate and dedicated in community and citizen science, and we are excited to see how their projects develop and grow. Learn more about the CCSiC fellowship program here, and be sure to stay updated with our fellows’ progress throughout the year.

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Meet Our 2023 CCSIC Fellows

Congratulations to the 2023 Community and Citizen Science in Conservation Fellows! We are excited about the projects these early career scientists are pursuing. Each one demonstrates creativity and innovation in community and citizen science. Learn more about the CCSiC Fellowship program here, and stay tuned for more updates from our fellows over the course of the next year.

Post Jadda Miller

CCSiC Fellow Spotlight: Cultivating Youth and Community Resiliency

A Community Science Approach to Land Stewardship for Wildfire Mitigation in Maui, Hawaiʻi

Project overview

In August of last year, I submitted a proposal to the Citizen Science in Conservation Fellowship program. This collaborative project is titled “Cultivating Youth and Community Resiliency: A Community Science Approach to Land Stewardship for Wildfire Mitigation in Maui, Hawaiʻi”. Through this project, we seek to address a global environmental and social issue -wildfire- through a place-based, culturally responsive, and culturally sustaining, curriculum. 

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CCSiC Fellow Spotlight: #iluvbugs! observing backyard biodiversity after dark

Providing a framework for citizen scientists to collect their own data, on their own time, through demonstration and gradual release of responsibility

Backyard biodiversity represents an opportunity for exposure to nature

Scan your eyes through your backyard or a city garden and you’ll get a snapshot of a biological community in time. At first glance, your eyes may alight on a cluster of colorful flowers or a bumble bee busily moving from bloom to bloom. With luck, you may see a bird or two snacking on the unseen arthropods or tiny seeds ferried about by wind or animal. Much of the biodiversity in your backyard is actively hiding from you—or your vertebrate peers—through miraculous camouflage.

Blog entry

CCSiC Fellow Spotlight: Reflections on Project Phoebe

Collaborating with community scientists to understand impacts of urbanization on a songbird species

Community scientists play an essential eole in studying urban wildlife. As our world becomes increasingly urbanized—over half the world’s human population currently lives in cities, with that percentage expected to grow to 68% by 2050— cities are often home to fewer animal species than natural areas. The species that do live in cities face a variety of challenges that may limit their survival and reproduction, including

Blog entry Tali Caspi

CCSiC Fellow Spotlight: Learning about coyotes in San Francisco from their scat

In recent decades, humans and animals have increasingly co-occurred in high densities in urban areas. Although declines in biodiversity are associated with urbanization, numerous species have adjusted to and thrive in cities. The success of urban animals is largely attributed to the expansion of their diet to include human-provided food, resulting in frequent conflicts with people. These conflicts have wide-ranging financial, health, and ecosystem-level consequences, necessitating a deeper understanding of organismal adaptation to human resources.

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