Training the Next Generation of Leaders

By DSE January 6, 2026

At UC Berkeley, we are privileged every year to work with dozens of undergraduate and graduate students. Training the next generation of leaders in environmental and data science is core to our mission.

In 2025 we hosted 21 students for internships, fellowships, and research positions! Students represented a variety of departments including environmental science, computer science, applied math, mechanical engineering, biology, environmental economics, environmental design, and more. Their contributions to our projects ranged from developing a biodiversity monitoring app for Tribal partners, writing code for GeoJupyter, and designing multimedia communications materials. 


Spotlight: Fall 2025 Interns & Fellows

Six undergraduate students (two returning!) and one graduate student joined our team during the fall semester. Below are highlights from their time at DSE.
 

image of six undergraduate students standing and smiling in DSE's office
Fall Undergraduate Interns (left to right): Evan Lingo, Carolyn Zhuang, Andrew Schoenen, Volodymyr Borysenko, Jessenia Chan, and Annie Gao. 

 

Carolyn & Evan: LLM Classification of Landback Research

Carolyn Zhuang and Evan Lingo, both returning interns to DSE, contributed to Graduate Student Researcher, McKalee Steen's Landback research. McKalee's research analyzes where and how US Indigenous communities are reclaiming territory and the social and ecological impacts of those land acquisitions. 

 

Carolyn and Evan compiled instances of Landback cases across the U.S. online and in academic articles. They used web scraping and web crawling techniques, and LLM classification to build a database with example cases.

 

Results from Carolyn and Evan's web scraping and web crawling project, depicting frequency of key search terms identified across the internet and in academic articles.
Results from Carolyn and Evan's web scraping and web crawling project, depicting frequency of key search terms identified across the internet and in academic articles.


 

Andrew & Volodymyr: Visualizing Climate Data in Joshua Tree National Park

Andrew Schoenen and Volodymyr Borysenko created a data pipeline workflow to analyze and visualize large climate projection datasets in Joshua Tree National Park. Their project contributed to our ongoing collaboration on wildfire recovery with the National Park Service. 

 

Forecasting average annual temperatures in Joshua Tree National Park over the next 65+ years. The scenarios plotted refer to three different climate change scenarios, as defined by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Forecasting average annual temperatures in Joshua Tree National Park over the next 65+ years. The scenarios plotted refer to three different climate change scenarios, as defined by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

 


Ava: Video Promotion of United Nations Data Tool


Ava Hu, fellow from the Graduate School of Journalism, shot and edited a short video about Kigali Sim that debuted to the United Nations in December. The goal of the video is to introduce the tool to new and potential users and provide a short tutorial on how users can access the optional AI features. Excitingly, Ava's video was featured on NBC Bay Area!

 

We've reported on this project in other posts, Schmidt DSE co-designed this new data tool with the United Nations to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Using conservative estimates, Kigali Sim could help a hypothetical, middle-income nation formulate policies that could reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by about 5% by 2040. 
 


 

Program