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Bren School at UCSB

@bren_life

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Solving environmental problems for a sustainable future 🌱
Master's and PhD programs
Santa Barbara, California

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Restoring California’s native oyster takes more than growing oysters. It also takes knowing what happened along the way 🦪🌊

Through the Bren Environmental Leadership (BEL) Program, undergraduate fellow Leah Jensen and graduate mentor Shey Dorji teamed up to support Olympia oyster restoration with The Nature Conservancy and restoration partners.

Their project helped track Olympia oysters from hatchery production to survival in the field, giving restoration teams better tools to follow their progress.

By making years of data easier to organize and use, Leah and Shey helped partners tell a clearer story of how restoration progress is going, and inform the work ahead.

Want to learn more? See Leah and Shey share their project at the Mantell Symposium in Environmental Justice and Conservation Innovation this Friday, November 6th. Register at the link in bio.

#brenschool #ucsb #olympiaoysters #brenenvironmentalleadership #environmentalscience by @bren_life

✅ MEDS green flags, according to the people who know it best!

Our Master of Environmental Data Science (MEDS) students are sharing what they love about the program.

Come for the green flags, stay for the environmental data science. Learn more about the program at the link in bio. by @bren_life

What does life look like after Bren? Our alumni have stories to share. 🎓🎉🌎🌱

Welcome to Beyond Bren, a new podcast series highlighting our alumni. Created and hosted by Elise Dauterive (MESM ‘26) as part of Bren’s Communications Capstone course, this series explores career decisions, lessons from graduate school, and what environmental work looks like in practice.

Our first episode features Karina Abou-Chakra (MESM ‘24) who shares her journey from supply chain projects at Bren to an EDF Climate Corps fellowship and her current role in sustainable procurement.

Tune in to the first episode through the link in our bio, and to get to know one of the many alumni putting their Bren education into practice.

#BeyondBren #BrenSchool #EnvironmentalCareers #AlumniStories #UCSB by @bren_life

Curious about life at Bren? Come see it for yourself! 🌎🌱👏

Meet faculty, Career and Admissions staff, and current students while exploring academics, admissions, student life, housing, and more. Hear directly from the people who make up our community and learn what pursuing a graduate degree at Bren could look like for you.

🗓️ Visit us in person at Bren Hall on Friday, October 23 from 12:30 - 4:00pm PT.

🔗 Learn more and register at the link in bio! by @bren_life

Everyone's talking about this year’s El Niño but how does it work and what might Southern Californians expect? Climate, ocean and coastal-policy experts at UC Santa Barbara including Bren School professor Samantha Stevenson, director of UCSB’s Ocean and Coastal Policy Center Charles Lester, and more shared their perspectives.

Full story at the link in bio.

#UCSantaBarbara @bren_life #CoastalManagement #SouthernCalifornia

Image descriptions:
1. Coastal cliffs with greenery under a cloudy sky, highlighting UC Santa Barbara experts discussing the super El Niño impact.
2. Two people walk under an umbrella on a rainy day at UCSB by the bike path with a quote about NOAA's 75% chance of the biggest El Niño since 1950.
3. Surfers waiting for waves in a blue ocean.
4. Santa Barbara cityscape under a clear blue sky with advice on preparing for floods by cleaning gutters and drains and using sandbags. by @bren_life

Have an environmental challenge your organization needs help solving? Bring it to Bren. 🌎🌱

We’re now accepting proposal for 2027-28 MESM Impact Projects! Partner with a team of master’s students and a Bren faculty advisor to turn a pressing question into research, practical tools, and actionable recommendations.

From conservation and climate to water, waste, and environmental policy— we want to hear what your organization is working on.

🗓️ Proposals due January 18, 2027 at 11:59 pm PT
🔗 Learn more at the link in bio
🤝 Or start a conversation at projects@bren.ucsb.edu

#BrenSchool #UCSB #MESM #ImpactProjects #RequestForProposals by @bren_life

📍 Sacramento bound!

This past Friday, MESM '27 students Sheena Cannon, Allison Cepukenas, Hannah Waldorf, and Daofeng Zhou headed to the capital for an event on policy scenarios for California's fuel markets, connected to their Impact Project. 🚗

Their work supports the California Energy Commission's Division of Petroleum Market Oversight, looking at what happens as the state's refining capacity shrinks with potential imports on the rise. 🛢️

They're digging into:
📈 Fuel price stability
🌎 Lifecycle emissions
👷 Refinery jobs and wages
🏘️ Impacts on fenceline communities

🔗 See their full project details and browse dozens more at the link in bio by @bren_life

Out of office: Yosemite. 🌄🌲🌊🥾

Every year, Bren PhD students step away from campus for a retreat focused on building community.

This year, Yosemite set the scene for a few days of exploring, connecting across cohorts, and enjoying some much-needed time together outside of Bren Hall.

Not a bad way to start the academic year 👏🎉📚

#BrenLife #PhD #Yosemite #UCSantaBarbara #EnvironmentalLeaders by @bren_life

Three words. One MEDS 🌎🌱

We asked MEDS students to describe the MEDS experience in just three words. From building technical skills and tackling real environmental challenges to learning alongside a close-knit cohort, there’s lots packed into the Bren Master’s of Environmental Data Science program.

Explore the program and start your application today.

#BrenLife # MEDS #EnvironmentalDataScience #UCSantaBarbara by @bren_life

Bren goes behind the scenes in LA! 🎥🌇🤝

Four members of our Sport Support Impact Project team recently visited Sony Pictures Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, Dodger Stadium, and Crypto.com Arena to see sustainability in action.

From reusable cups and waste diversion to battery-powered productions, students saw firsthand how sustainability takes shape across sports entertainment and met the professionals making it happen.

As team member Shannon Maher reflected, “Learning opportunities from these site-visits echoed messages from the MESM curriculum such as the importance of finding added business value, the need for communicating across different audiences, and the power of data visualization.”

Experiences like these are at the heart of Bren’s Impact Projects, giving students the opportunity to apply their training to real sustainability challenges while learning directly from people working to solve them.

More to come as their Impact Projects continued this fall! 🌎🍃🎉

#BrenLife #BrenSchool #MESM #ImpactProject #Sustainability

@sony @warnerbrosentertainment @cryptocomarena by @bren_life

One of the defining experiences of the Bren School is getting a new name! 🌱🎉

Group Projects are now MESM Impact Projects 🌎

For roughly 25 years, teams of MESM students have worked with businesses, government agencies, nonprofits, and other organizations to solve real environmental problems.

Why Impact Projects? Because the work can keep making a difference long after the project ends. Student teams have informed policy and management decisions, advanced research, and built tools organizations continue to use.

The name is new. The experience isn’t; a real client, four to six students, faculty guidance, a full year of work, and professional deliverables.

🔗 Explore MESM Impact Projects at the link in bio — and see the rest of our students’ work in the new Bren in Action hub.

#BrenLife #UCSB #MESM #EnvironmentalLeaders #ImpactProjects by @bren_life

A new chapter begins at Bren!

Today, we’re welcoming Elena Irwin as dean of the Bren School. An environmental economist and sustainability leader, Elena brings deep experience building interdisciplinary programs, advancing environmental research, and connecting scholarship with real-world action.

We’re excited to have her here and to see where she leads Bren next. If you would like to learn more about her professional history and vision for the Bren School, we invite you to check the link in our bio.

Welcome to Bren, Elena! 🌊🌿

#UCSB #BrenSchool #EnvironmentalScience #Sustainability #EnvironmentalLeadership by @bren_life