VALERIA CUEVAS

Enthusiastic worker with a recently obtained degree bringing a strong work ethic and excellent skills in working in both team-based and independent capacities. Excited and poised to build valuable experiences, contribute to creating a welcoming environment, and ready to contribute to team success.

• Coastal Connections Research, Raimondi-Carr Lab, Santa Cruz, CA, 10/01/24 - 03/31/25, Installed/maintained camera traps in a beach habitat observing scavenging of California Sea Lion carcasses, scored camera trap photos, entered data, and tagged photos that will help answer questions related to marine resource use by coyotes along the California coast
• Santa Cruz Puma Project, Wilmers Lab, Santa Cruz, CA, 01/01/25 - 03/31/25, Accompanied the project wildlife biologist to investigate GPS cluster locations pumas might have made kills or be denning, set camera traps across the Santa Cruz Mountains and San Jose Midpeninsula Open Space properties, and used radio telemetry to track pumas
• Camera Trap Scoring Intern/Volunteer, Wilmers Lab, Santa Cruz, CA, 04/01/24 - Present, Photo-tagged images captured by the Puma Project camera grid in the Santa Cruz Mountains and identified species to help answer questions related to species interactions, occupancy, and relative abundance metrics; learned fundamental use of QGIS to map locations of individual pumas, Photo-tagged images from an experiment in Murchison Falls, Uganda and identified species and species abundance to help answer research questions based on the impacts of human presence on wildlife behavior
• Botswana Carnivore Latrine Project, Wilmers Lab, Santa Cruz, CA, 09/01/24 - 12/31/24, Tagged videos of carnivores from Botswana, Africa with associated behavioral and species-specific information to help investigate the importance of latrines for facilitating communication between predators
• Nocturnal Owl Surveys, CA State Parks, Santa Cruz, CA, 02/01/24 - 08/31/24, Assisted in data collection of nocturnal owl populations in remote field conditions, Hiked in adverse conditions to sample sites using GPS navigation, Practice with call identification for Great Horned, Western Screech, Barn, and Saw-Whet owl species, Sampled using owl vocalization recordings eliciting territorial call-responses from present individuals, collected site conditions using KESTREL weather meters, Assisted in small mammal trapping using Sherman traps to investigate existing food sources post-wildfire
• Volunteer Interpretive Guide, Elkhorn Slough Reserve, Moss Landing, CA, 03/01/24 - 03/31/24, Trained to lead hikes in the Slough, this included learning about the natural history of the Reserve, the research conducted on the property, reserve restoration projects, and learning to communicate this knowledge to visitors to encourage citizen science/involvement in conservation and preservation
• Volunteer, Cosumnes River Preserve, Galt, CA, 07/01/24 - 07/31/24, Assisted Swallow Box Monitoring Team to collect data on the use of bird boxes designed to survey resident tree swallow reproductive activity, Used telescopic inspection mirrors to see inside bird boxes; noted whether the nests were active, identified number and species of eggs/hatchlings, and recorded life stages

Co-Authored Papers:

Cuevas, V., Nicholson, S., Jinnah, S. (2025) The Evolution of Climate Response Norms
in the IPCC. Justin Alger and Peter Dauvergne (Ed.) Understanding Environmental Norms.

(Accepted for Publication; Book Soon to be Released)

Student Award Grants:

UCSC Building Belonging Fellowship (Winter & Spring of 2023-24, 2024-25)

Cultivamos Excelencia Research Scholar (2024)

Earth Futures Institute Frontier Fellow (2024-25)

• Gage Dayton, Director of the UCSC Natural Reserves, ghdayton@ucsc.edu
• Chad Moura, Director of the UCSC Santa Cruz Mountains Reserve, cwmoura@ucsc.edu
• Sikina Jinnah, UCSC Professor of Environmental Studies, sjinnah@ucsc.edu