 |
Meet SEJ member Sierra Garcia! Sierra was raised amid a patchwork of farmland in north Monterey County, California, just inland of an iconic estuary. She adored the ocean, and committed herself to working for the benefit of the sea at a young age. She studied ocean and climate science through Stanford's Earth Systems program, and later returned to the program for her master's degree in environmental communication. Sierra strives to highlight systems perspectives in her writing, and enjoys leaning into her scientific background. She focuses on oceans, climate and complex narrative storylines. Sierra has bylines in Grist, JSTOR Daily, '& the West,' the Oxford Climate Review and ECO magazine, among others. She currently serves on the editorial staff for two regionally-focused publications based out of California's San Francisco Bay Area, called Estuary News Magazine and KneeDeep Times. She also consults for STEMTaught and the STEMTaught Foundation to craft educational curricula for elementary schoolers about oceans, climate dynamics, sustainable systems and related topics. As an aside: she's also a scuba divemaster! When Sierra is not taking on too many writing projects at once, she spends an inordinate amount of time thinking about how the framing of coral reef restoration messaging connects to climate action.
Sierra recommends SEJ membership, both for keeping up with colleagues' work and SEJ resources (especially the EJToday weekday digest). When asked how membership has made her job easier, she said, "Receiving a Rapid Response FEJ grant from SEJ while interning at Grist towards the end of my master's degree was instrumental in completing a long, intricate article about California's kelp forests, sea urchins and climate change that I had barely begun reporting on when COVID struck. Without the SEJ grant, I doubt the story would have ever been completed." Join Sierra in the SEJ community today!
See some of Sierra's work:
- JSTOR Daily stories
- "Bay Area Leads Nation on Floating Solar," KneeDeep Times, November 11, 2021.
- "These Urchin Slayers Are Trying To Save California's Underwater 'Rainforest'," Grist, September 9, 2021.
Find Sierra:
Twitter @SierraGInTheSea
LinkedIn /sierrarosegarcia
Members: we want to put the #SEJSpotlight on you! Sign up here to participate.
Not yet a member? Join us today!
