Martinez and Hampshire receive UC Outstanding Student Leadership Award

Editor's note: This content is adapted from an original story published by the UC Newsroom. 

Deniss Martinez and Karly Hampshire were honored as recipients of the 13th annual University of California President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership. The two students were chosen from a field of 11 nominees from five campuses. A selection committee comprised of University of California staff reviewed, scored and ranked the nominations.

Martinez conducts research into forest management policies and restoring cultural fire practices for Indigenous communities across California and teaches cultural Indigenous practices, environmental justice and policymaking to undergraduates. Her work has furthered University of California climate action goals by helping to create sustainable solutions through local community partnerships with impacted Tribes and collaborating with state agencies to mitigate and respond to climate disruptions. She is also a board member for the California Public Domain Allottee Association, a nonprofit that works to help Native American allotment holders understand their options for stewarding land allotments granted to their families.

After receiving the award, Martinez was interviewed by Chancellor May in the UC Face to Face YouTube series about her leadership around Indigenous environmental justice and policy. In the episode, she also highlights the Keepers of the Flame class at UC Davis and gives Chancellor May a tip for his next guest on the show.

Hampshire is the founder and co-director of the Planetary Health Report Card (PHRC), a metric-based tool that aims to evaluate health professional schools in five main areas: curriculum, interdisciplinary research in health and environment, community outreach and advocacy, support for student-led initiatives and campus sustainability. At each participating institution, student-led, faculty mentored teams fill out the report card, identify opportunities for improvement, and reach out to relevant staff and faculty along the way, with results reported annually. Through Hampshire’s directorship, alongside a hardworking international team of students and faculty, the PHRC is now actively applied in seven countries at 80 medical schools.

Each recipient of the President’s Award for Outstanding Student Leadership is honored with $1,500 and a framed and signed certificate with the University’s official seal affixed to it.

Learn more about the awards in the original UC Newsroom story here.