Current Assistant Professor Alejandra Echeverri Ochoa came to IRES to study environmental policies and the social issues around protecting biodiversity. After completing her MSc at IRES, she found that our unit was an ideal place to continue on for her PhD.
Check out the graphic above! It shows that IRES allowed Echeverri Ochoa to draw upon her past experiences and deep interests in ornithology, conservation and policy-making.
Echeverri Ochoa graduated from the RES program with a PhD in 2019 under the co-supervision of Drs. Kai Chan and Jiaying Zhao. While at IRES, she developed a framework for assessing the different non-material benefits of wildlife (“cultural ecosystem services”), as accruing to different groups of people. She is now Assistant Professor of Conservation Science at UC Berkeley. Her research sits at the intersection of Neotropical ornithology, conservation psychology, environmental policy, and community ecology, with a lab group that integrates biological field work (such as bird surveys) with quantitative social surveys and qualitative content analysis to understand human relationships with nature.
“Looking back on my experience at IRES, I’m struck by its remarkable diversity and inclusivity. It was a regular occurrence to encounter colleagues from various racial, ethnic, socio-economic, and gender backgrounds,” said Echeverri Ochoa. “We collectively spoke multiple languages and came from diverse places on the planet. The institution’s international character, coupled with its commitment to inclusivity, is truly unique and not easily found elsewhere.”
She wants future RES alumni and recent graduates to know that the academic job market is quite challenging, but that UBC is a good place to build up a network. In fact, connections from her time at IRES helped Echeverri Ochoa find her current position.
“Interestingly, my current academic position was recommended to me by four individuals, two of whom are UBC alumni, alongside other colleagues I’d connected with during graduate school and postdoctoral conferences,” she said. “I submitted applications to 17 job ads, encompassing 3 academic roles and 14 in science-policy fields. The majority of these opportunities were discovered via LinkedIn or through recruiters reaching out to me via Handshake. Truly, the job application process demands a full-time commitment; patience and openness to unexpected opportunities are key!”
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