Planting Seeds for the Future

By Christine Byrd

In her classes, Jessica Pratt, Ph.D. ’13, professor of teaching in ecology and evolutionary biology, introduces students to the Japanese philosophy of ikigai. The concept helps people identify their life’s purpose by looking at the intersection of skills, passions, job opportunities and what the world needs. Pratt’s life purpose has driven her to spend two decades at UC Irvine as a first-generation student, researcher, teacher and scholarship supporter.

“For me, it’s motivating the next generation of Earth stewards,” she says. “The greater the number of people on the planet who connect to nature, care about the Earth and are paying attention to our impacts, the better our chances of adapting to and mitigating the results of climate change.”

Growing up, Pratt spent ample time outdoors in rural Michigan fishing, camping and hiking. Her home was nestled between a cornfield and a forest that served as an idyllic playground – until developers cut down her woodland paradise to build a huge housing tract. Not only did the trees disappear, but so did the animals that lived there. The experience – when Pratt was just 8 or 9 – changed her life.

“It was very personal,” she remembers. “That was the moment when I became aware of how humans can change nature so quickly, and my values around caring for nature and preservation started.”

Pratt was the first in her family to go to college, and although she gravitated toward science, she had no idea what kinds of careers a science degree could lead to besides healthcare. In her junior year, Pratt landed in ecology and conservation courses and enjoyed them enough to start asking her professors about opportunities in the field. They guided her to a master’s in zoology at North Carolina State University. Her first encounter with UC Irvine came, unexpectedly, nearly 3,000 miles away from the campus. On an eight-week tropical biology program in Costa Rica that draws researchers from around the world, Pratt met a UC Irvine doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology. Their romance bloomed and, after finishing her master’s in 2005, Pratt moved to Irvine, where she worked as a lecturer for several years before embarking on a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Irvine. In 2007, she married fellow Anteater Riley Pratt ’09.

Her early research explored how Artemisia californica, or California sagebrush, was responding to climate change. A staple of the state’s coastal ecosystems, the aromatic bush supports countless insects, birds and other wildlife and often plays a central role in habitat restoration projects. Pratt wanted her research to help guide those efforts. Her work found that Southern California’s coastal sage scrub may be more resilient than similar vegetation farther north and that the plants’ adaptations had led to unexpected impacts on insects and other wildlife up the food chain.

“One of the things we’re trying to do as conservationists is future-proof our projects instead of solely restoring to some historical baseline,” Pratt explains.

“When we began that research, we wanted to know if we could restore California sagebrush that’s resilient for the future – the future that we’re now living through.”

From the get-go, she was an exceptional graduate student, receiving a Newkirk Center for Science & Society Graduate Fellowship, a Public Impact Fellowship and a prestigious U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science to Achieve Results Graduate Fellowship. In the final year of her doctoral program, Pratt earned a Chancellor’s Club Fellowship.

Reserved for first-generation college students, Chancellor’s Club Fellowships provide stipends for “academically superior doctoral and M.F.A. students – those who exhibit outstanding promise as scholars, researchers and public leaders.”

For Pratt, the funding came at a crucial moment: She had just welcomed a baby and needed childcare so that she could focus on finishing her dissertation and applying for academic positions.

As luck would have it, a teaching professorship opened up at UC Irvine, and Pratt was the perfect fit. She’s been here ever since, anchored by the students she trusts will be good stewards of the environment, as well as the lush beauty of the campus itself.

“I feel like UCI is not just my place of employment or my alma mater; it’s literally where I’m raising my family. And that makes you think about it differently,” she says. “Having the natural open space around us and Aldrich Park, with all the green trees, makes it a pleasant place to be, especially since I’m such a nature-connected person.”

As a Chancellor’s Club Fellow, Pratt attended the organization’s events featuring speakers from corners of the campus she might otherwise never have discovered. She and her husband, Riley, now an environmental scientist for California State Parks, joined the Chancellor’s Club as young alumni. A decade later, they are still members. While they relish the events and speakers, it’s the fellowship recipients who remain closest to their hearts.

“Because of my own connection to the fellowship, and having now heard other Chancellor’s Club Fellows share their work and their stories of how meaningful the support was for them, I decided I wanted to give back to UCI and support first-gen students,” Pratt says. “And since we’re invited to meet and listen to the students present their work and hear about the impact of their fellowships – that really keeps me motivated.”

Since it was established in 1972 by founding Chancellor Daniel G. Aldrich Jr., the Chancellor’s Club has raised over $11 million to support more than 400 students. Just as Pratt once presented her own research to the group, she now gets to hear a new generation of students present their work. “Even if you think what you do is important, you realize it’s just one of dozens and dozens of equally important things that funders and policymakers are being asked to think about every day,” she says.

Today’s students grew up watching the consequences of climate change unfold all around them. Pratt finds that their awareness makes it possible to spend more class time discussing how to mitigate the effects of climate change and adapt to life on a warming planet, rather than simply explaining what the future impacts will be. This focus on solutions gives her hope.

But Pratt is sensitive to the despair that some experience when studying the devastating effects of climate change. Her newest work, in collaboration with UC Irvine psychologists and education researchers, aims to help students cope with eco-grief and climate anxiety in the classroom – especially since emotions influence learning outcomes. She recently received funding for this work from the Newkirk Center for Science & Society, which first funded her graduate research 15 years ago.

Pratt understands that the “why” behind any work is just as important as the “how.”

At the beginning of each quarter, she asks her students to think about a place in nature that they love: a beach, a lake or a forest like the one she once played in. From that personal connection to the environment, her students’ commitment to the coursework grows, whether it’s a class for the general education requirement, the minor in global sustainability, or the master’s in conservation and restoration science, which Pratt helped create. From there it sometimes blossoms into a lifelong commitment to protecting the environment.

“For my students, it’s not enough to give presentations about their projects to each other in the classroom,” Pratt says. “They want to go out in public; they want to talk to kids; they want to know that what they’re doing is going to matter in the world.”

Like her, they want to live their purpose.

Join the Chancellor’s Club, UC Irvine’s longest-standing philanthropic community, and be a catalyst for change. Your support empowers first-generation students through scholarships and fellowships, directly shaping their futures and the university’s legacy. Learn more at https://ucifund.uci.edu/chancellors-club.