In Their Words: Rachel Voss

Name: Rachel Voss

Department: Environmental Studies

What Scholarship or Award did you receive? Jessica Roy Memorial Award

What year are you (1st year, 3rd year)? 4th year PhD candidate

Where do you call home? Kansas City

What is your field of focus? Agroecology and African development

With all of the choices for college, what made UC Santa Cruz stand out? The amazing location, its reputation for applied interdisciplinary research, and the dedication of students and faculty to social justice.

What do you hope to do once you graduate from UC Santa Cruz? I’d like to continue working in applied research for international agricultural development, and eventually become a leader in an international institution in that space.

What is one memorable moment that stands out for you as a student here? I’ve loved camping and hiking with other students in some of the beautiful places in and around Santa Cruz.

What does this scholarship/award mean to you? This grant means a lot – it will enable me to collect some of my remaining data in order to pull my dissertation together next year.

For research awards, please include a one paragraph description of your research written for a general audience.
For this project, I will use surveys and participatory mapping exercises to measure and compare the use of seeds and fertilizers introduced through a recent farm trial in Senegal, with attention to how farmers’ gender and farm-level soil fertility gradients affect farm