Candidate Profiles
MAGIS Candidates, 2008 - 2010

Nicole Cerra

Nicole graduated from Pitzer College (Claremont, CA) with a B.A. in Anthropology and Religious Studies.  She studied abroad in Israel and Nepal.  In the latter experience, she studied Nepali intensively for four months, and conducted a one-month research project of Tibetan doctors.  She wrote her senior thesis on alternative medicine.

After graduating from college, Nicole attempted to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.  She worked in special education for two years, and in a humanitarian aid organization in the Republic of Georgia.  For the past three years, she has been working at Coal Oil Point Reserve in Santa Barbara, doing species conservation with Snowy Plovers, and environmental education in the form of tours, children’s programs, and interpretive panels.  She is on the board of a Goleta environmental nonprofit, Shorelines & Watersheds.  She found about the MAGIS program through helpful UCSB sociology professors.

Nicole is interested in environmental policy and community-based conservation, particularly in Central America and the Caribbean.  This summer, she will intern with the Guardians of the Jewel in La Democracia, Belize (www.gojbelize.org), a small community-based organization.   In the fall, she will work with the National Audubon Society’s Public Policy office in Washington D.C.