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Explore Assignment: Earth, USC’s sustainability framework for creating a healthy, just and thriving campus and world. And visit the home of Assignment: Earth, the USC Sustainability Hub.

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Making Progress

2025 Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellow Bernadeth Tolentino, a PhD student in the USC Dornsife Department of Biological Sciences, studies how well giant kelp can survive different temperatures when it’s introduced to certain helpful bacteria (Anya Jiménez/USC Wrigley Institute).

“What do you do for a living?” a woman asked, sitting across from me at a local bar.

“I’m a marine biologist,” I replied, watching her apathetic expression transform into wonder.

2025 Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellow Josh Beckelhimer, a PhD candidate in the USC Dornsife Department of English, studies the fictional works of writers who narrate possibilities of climate change futures (Nick Neumann/USC Wrigley Institute).

As a reader, a literary scholar, and a lover of history, I love following in the footsteps of my idols. Even after five years as a transplant, my eyes still twinkle when I traverse Los Angeles, home to many beloved writers and artists.

2025 Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellow Priyanka Soni holds an endangered abalone specimen collected from Southern California in the 1900s. The specimen is currently part of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s special collection for educational purposes. Abalones have persisted for over 20 million years, but some species—such as the black and white abalone—are now critically endangered, according to the IUCN Red List (Nick Neumann/USC Wrigley Institute).

Growing up near the ocean, I was fascinated by the small creatures I found in tide pools—slow-moving snails, tiny bivalves, and the colorful shells used by hermit crabs.