Katia Carranza Interview

The Environmental Justice Leaders program brings leaders working in environmental justice into collaboration with the UC Davis research community. The program is a collaboration between UC Davis Feminist Research Institute, the Institute for Transportation Studies, and the Energy Efficiency Institute.
Katia Pilar Carranza is a sustainability organizer and researcher focused on improving the reciprocal interconnections between people and nature while increasing equity for underserved and Indigenous people. Sustainability became her passion fifteen years ago when she learned that climate change is threatening the health of our people and environment. Since then, Katia became impassioned to take action, and she has directed transdisciplinary initiatives focused on advancing the environmental and social vision of her communities. As she worked to obtain her Bachelor of Science in Ecology, she organized campus diversity trainings, created a community-driven sustainability club, and established a reusable container program at her college. After graduating, Katia has advanced equity and sustainability through her career and community organizing. She created an equitable engagement plan for the climate department in San Diego, and she developed recommendations for NRDC focused on advancing equitable sustainability in federal environmental programs. She also mobilized her underserved communities to transition a coal plant polluting her hometown, and she organized immigrant people to advocate for their rights. Last year, she founded the Together for Nature nonprofit in her hometown that is working on connecting underserved people and youth to nature and sustainability leadership. Katia is now pursuing a Master of Science in Natural Resource Sciences because she wants to better prepare for advancing the vision of her communities in sustainability planning. She is currently collaborating with Buffalo Nations Grasslands Alliance in conducting research that supports the socioecological resilience of Indigenous people, and she is serving a grasslands Indigenous Working Group in compiling their priorities into strategy and implementing equitable engagement across North America. Katia is committed to continue collaborating with her underserved, migrant, and Indigenous communities to advance their vision for equitable sustainability that heals our social and environmental relationships.