Graduate Studies Division
Ph.D Student
Graduate
CSC Coastal Biology Building
160/161
CBB/EE Biology
Nautica Jones Harriott (She/her) is a graduate student collaborator on the Ecological Scars of Plantation Slavery project and is pursuing a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California Santa Cruz. As a woman of color with a disability, Nautica uses her personal experiences to inform her work and promote accessibility for researchers of diverse backgrounds. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology with a concentration in ecology and evolution from the University of Louisiana Monroe, where she studied forest change in response to hurricane damage and land use. Presently, Nautica endeavors to challenge narratives that overlook the impacts of black land stewardship and oppressive social systems on climate change by researching the ecological and climate resilience legacies of slavery and maroonage on postbellum forests and soil carbon storage. Her work involves studying the land uses of historic maroons and enslaved peoples, as well as contemporary land stewardship efforts by their descendants. In this aspect of her research, she examines the different outcomes, goals, and strategies of maroon descendant land stewards compared to non-cultural land managers.
