Principal Investigator
XingonaDirtScience Lab @ University of San Diego
Claudia Christine E. Avila, Ph.D.
I’m am an Assistant Professor of Environmental and Ocean Sciences at the University of San Diego. I received my PhD in Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Riverside and did a postdoc at the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford. I am originally from Fontana, CA (FoHi alum) and a proud chicana. As a daughter of an avid gardener and granddaughter to farmers, my love for soils comes from my family but my love for science came much later in life. I went to Riverside Community College primarily because they were the only CC with a marching band. At RCC, however, is where I discovered my love of science and bridged the connection between science and the environment. At RCC, I was an active member and president of the Student Sustainability Collective which is the student group that founded the RCC Urban Farm (*where I later got married!). I transferred to UC Riverside and worked as an undergraduate research assistant in Botany and later received my bachelors in Environmental Sciences. Continuing at UCR for my Ph.D, I investigated the mechanisms responsible for sequestering carbon in agricultural soils as management decisions shift due to climate change. I partnered with community farmers in the Riverside area that are particularly concerned with intense drought conditions, many of which were community partnerships I developed as a community college student. During the latter part of graduate school, I became a mom and an adjunct instructor at my alma mater, RCC, and at Cal State San Marcos teaching Environmental Sciences & Studies. As a fellow of the inaugural cohort of the Stanford Earth Postdoctoral Fellowship, I joined the Fendorf group to investigate wildfire-driven transformations of inorganic contaminants in soils. I am now a new professor at the University of San Diego. Outside of academia, I am a proud mama to my son Adolfo Valentín and pet parent to Leia (dog) and Padme (cat). I love reading about true crime and my favorite place to be is the skate park or the roller rink (my roller derby name is Toxic Shock).
Soy profesor de Ciencias Ambientales y Oceánicas en la Universidad de San Diego. Recibí mi doctorado en Ciencias Ambientales en la Universidad de California, Riverside y hice un postdoctorado en la Escuela Doerr de Sostenibilidad en Stanford. Soy de Fontana, California y una chicana orgullosa. Mi madre siempre le he gustado estar en su jardín (o en el rancho en Zacatecas] y con ella empezó mi amor por suelo. Fui al colegio de Riverside Community College, donde estreché mi interés por el medio ambiente y ayudé a crear el Jardín Comunitario de RCC como presidenta del Colectivo de Sostenibilidad de Estudiantes.. Luego fui a la Universidad de California en Riverside donde trabaje en ciencias botanicas y recibí mi licenciatura en Ciencias Ambientales. Durante los seis años de mi doctorado trabaje con colegas increíbles (estudiantes universitarios, graduados, agricultores y profesorxs) y me diverti mucho aprendiendo nuevos técnicas y puntos de vista para encontrar soluciones de las problemas ambientales y aprender de el carbono de suelo y como avisar sociedad en el manejo de este recurso natural. Afuera de ser estudiante, fui profesora de Ciencias Ambientales y Biologia en el colegio de RCC y tambien es Estudios Ambientales en Cal State San Marcos. Y ahora soy nueva profesora en la Universidad de San Diego. Fuera de la academia, soy un orgulloso madre de mi hijo Adolfo Valentín y de mis mascotas Leia (perra) y Padme (gata). Me encanta leer sobre el crimen verdadero, soy super fan de Star Wars (ve los nombres de mis mascotas), y casi siempre puedes encontrarme adolorida por mi obsesión con patinar. Invitame a patinar y pistear!
