EVELYN VALDEZ-WARD

Picture: Evelyn posing in a floral dress in front of a plant background

ABOUT ME:

¡Hola!

I'm Evelyn, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Rhode Island. As a PhD candidate at UC-Irvine, Ford Foundation Predoctoral and Switzer Foundation Fellow I studied the effects of drought on plants and soil microbes. My final dissertation chapters studied marginalized scientists and their use of science communication and policy for advocacy and social justice. I was named one of 2020's Grist 50 Fixers, a list of emerging leaders across the U.S. who are working on solutions to our world’s biggest challenges.

I have published articles in Science, Scientific American, and PNAS, was an invited speaker at the 2018 March for Science rally, named a 2018 UCS Science Defender, voted best of Story Collider 2018 in LA, awarded UCI's Dynamic Womxn's Award for Outstanding Social Justice Activist and the Svetlana Bershadsky Graduate Community Award for my advocacy for undocumented scientists. I was recently a 2020 AAAS Mass Media Fellow at the San Luis Obispo Tribune, where I was sponsored by AGU and the National Association for Science Writers as a Diversity Fellow, and was awarded the Ecological Society of America Science Communication in Practice Award.

Additionally, I co-founded and am the executive director for ReclaimingSTEM Institute. Through this, ReclaimingSTEM workshops are the first to address the need for science communication and policy training spaces for marginalized groups: BIPOC, first-generation, disabled, LGBTQIA+, undocumented, etc. ReclaimingSTEM has been hosted five times since 2018, both virtually and in person, and has reached over 700 attendees internationally.

Twitter: @wardofplants
Email: evelynvaldezward(@)gmail(.)com