Marisol Cira

Marisol Cira (she/ella) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at UCLA. Her graduate research investigates the sources, fate, and transport of microbial contaminants in coastal watersheds in the United States and abroad. Her research also develops and cross-validates accessible culture- and satellite-based techniques with molecular-based techniques to provide more equitable methodologies for the monitoring of coastal waters. She recently collaborated with researchers from UCLA, NASA JPL, and Heal the Bay to assess the impacts of the 2018 Woolsey Fire on the coastal water quality in the Santa Monica Bay and with researchers from UCLA and the Autonomous University of Baja California to evaluate the effects of reclaimed water irrigation on antibiotic resistance levels in a coastal agricultural region in Mexico.

Marisol is also dedicated to providing equitable access to STEM. She has served as a teacher, mentor, and leader at the Math Engineering Science Achievement (MESA), Level Playing Field Institute (LPFI), Center for Excellence in Engineering and Diversity (CEED), and others in an effort to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is also working on incorporating her research methods into the classroom to offer students course-based undergraduate research experiences. Marisol received a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from UCLA and is also a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellow, Center for Diverse Leadership in Science Early-Career Fellow, and Graduate Opportunity Fellow.