Annie Thomas Drevno '08 - Now a Post-Doc!
Directly after graduating from SCU in 2008, Annie Drevno (former surname: “Thomas”) spent the summer interning on a one-acre coastal Santa Cruz farm, which ignited her desire to study agriculture and where she met her husband, Peter Drevno, also a SCU employee. The next six months Annie spent in Chiapas, Mexico as a research consultant for The Nature Conservancy under the guidance of the former ESS Capstone Professor, Peter Kareiva. When she returned, Annie further pursued studying agriculture at UCSC’s Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, where she received her certificate in Ecological Horticulture in 2009. Annie was recruited to come back to SCU to put her agroecological skills to work in helping launch the Bronco Urban Gardens program and the Forge Organic Garden. During that time, Annie also worked for Professor Leslie Gray to conduct research involved in a San Jose Food Security Project. Last year, Annie received her Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. A few months later, she returned once again to SCU as a lecturer for ESS’s Environmental & Food Justice course. Just as her lectureship was wrapping up, Annie received funding for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation’s Science, Technology & Society program. Under the guidance and mentorship from Leslie Gray, Annie’s postdoc research examines the linkages between water pollution, policy implementation, societal conditions and technological developments in California’s urban-agricultural interface with the goal of informing the development of future water quality policy and forging new stakeholder collaborations. Annie balances her academic and career work with her responsibilities as a mother. Peter and Annie live in Santa Cruz with their two children, Ella, who is three years old, and Thomas (“Tommy”), who is one, and their dog Scout.