LAUREN FRITZ
University of California Santa Cruz, Ph.D., Marine Mammal Ecology (in progress)
University of Notre Dame, B.S., Chemical Engineering

While at Notre Dame, Lauren focused on building her skillset in the sciences and explored creative outlets through photography and writing. She developed passions for marine life, ocean conservation, and travel while studying abroad in Perth, Australia. This motivated her to participate in a shark conservation internship in South Africa after her junior year. She loved the country and experience so much that she returned to South Africa for nine months of travel and service work after graduation before moving to Maui, Hawaii, to work as a marine naturalist. This is where her work in marine biology and environmental conservation really gained momentum—since her first year on Maui, she has worked seasonally as a whale watch and dolphin guide, research assistant, and boat crew member in the San Juan Islands, Washington; Kaikoura, New Zealand; Hervey Bay, Australia; and Ha’apai, Tonga. She has also led a student travel program in Hawaii. She started her own marine conservation blog called The Greenest Blue a few years ago to document her experiences and raise awareness about the plight of the ocean’s inhabitants. Lauren is now in the second year of her Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz. She just completed her first field season studying whale behavior and physiology along the Western Antarctic Peninsula, which involved obtaining body measurements and behavioral observations with drones as well as taking tissue samples with remote biopsy. Her biggest dreams are to make the world a more inclusive, safe space for all species and to travel the world on a sailboat while working as a freelance science communicator.

TRIVIK VERMA
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), Ph.D., Human Mobility
Technical University of Delft, M.S., Complex Systems
Manipal University, B.E., Computer Science

After finishing his dissertation at ETH Zurich on understanding global human mobility patterns, Trivik went on a self-supported filmmaking expedition to Ladakh, India, with National Geographic Young Explorer Tyler Wilkinson Ray. Together, they reported on a tribe of ultrarunners who deliver mail to the remotest parts of the Himalayan desert on foot. In addition to researching in India and Europe, Trivik spent many years pursuing expedition climbing and photographing. He returned home to India to direct his passion for adventure photography, anthropology, and science into a technology-driven startup dedicated to sustainable travel and authentic journalism. He is now an Urban Planning & Policy Professor at the Policy Analysis Institute of Delft University, The Netherlands, where he teaches urban inequalities, climate change, and social justice. Some of his work has been published in Nature and featured in MIT Technology Review and The Telegraph. He has led multiple student travel programs to the Canadian Arctic, Namibia, and India, and has traveled to many countries in Africa, Europe, Asia, and America for climbing, snowboarding, skydiving, and freediving.