Current News:

*The STEPS Institute is pleased to announce it has received a gift from community leaders, Benjamin and Ruth Hammett, to fund student research on climate change. Named "The Benjamin and Ruth Hammett Award for Research on Climate Change," these funds are be available to currently enrolled UCSC graduate and undergraduate students. A Request for Proposals with description of the requirements is available now as a downloadable PDF and also on our Grants page.

The deadline for proposal submission is July 7, 2008, with a decision by August 15, 2008. For more information, please contact the STEPS office at steps@ucsc.edu, or 831.459.1310.

* The Powerpoint presentation from the annual Fred Keeley lecture by Dr. Benjamin Santer is now available online for educational use. Entitled "Human Fingerprints: How can we know human activities have influenced global climate change?" the presentation can be downloaded here [Note: large file in compressed format. If your computer does not support this format, please contact the STEPS office for email delivery.]

The STEPS Institute was established in 2002 as a campus-wide effort to facilitate interdisciplinary environmental research across the university’s Division of Physical and Biological Sciences, Division of Social Sciences, and Baskin School of Engineering. Since September 2007, marine biologist and ecologist Dr. James A. Estes has assumed responsibilities as the STEPS Interim Director.

Programs: The STEPS Institute works to increase dialogue among environmental researchers, civic groups, and policymakers through a variety of interdisciplinary lectures, seminars and workshops. These efforts are leading to broader collaborations among all these diverse groups and promoting innovations in environmental research. The Institute also provides research grants to faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Most of the funds are for research projects that either link multiple research laboratories at UCSC or link UCSC laboratories with outside agencies or policy makers.These activities have been made possible through generous contributions from donors, and through funds from UCSC. We hope in coming years to explore an even wider range of interdisciplinary collaborations within the Institute’s two major initiatives.

Mission Statement: The increased pace and magnitude of human activities over the past century have created rapid environmental changes worldwide. These changes are interconnected, and they are rapidly altering all ecosystems on earth. Our societies have produced, in effect, intertwined global experiments whose long-term effects are unknown. The STEPS Institute fosters research and policy that explore these potential effects. Our efforts have coalesced into research on three major initiatives:

• The effects of climate change
• Conservation of biodiversity
• Alterations in the earth's water systems

Through these initiatives, we are forging new collaborations among faculty researchers, policy makers, and environmental managers. STEPS is also assisting in the development of new multi-user environmental research facilities at UCSC.

Last updated:6/6/08