Marilyn Raphael, professor of geography within UCLA’s Division of Social Science, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences for her achievements in original research. Raphael joins three other UCLA professors who form part of a new class of 120 members and 30 international members, the academy announced on April 29.
Membership in the academy is among the most prestigious honors in the United States scientific community, requiring election by a scholar’s peers. The nongovernmental organization now has 2,662 active members, who can be called on by the federal government to provide their expertise on issues regarding science and technology.
Raphael is a climate scientist who studies global climate change, atmospheric circulation, and the complex dynamics behind how and why Antarctica’s sea ice levels vary from season to season. Her recent research indicates that melting Antarctic Sea ice is becoming far less likely to recover, suggesting the continent’s ice system is undergoing a major transformation.
“It is a tremendous honor to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences,” she said. “I feel grateful to have my research and service be valued so highly by the community. I look forward to working with the academy to advance its mission of ‘fostering a broad understanding of science,’ especially in the Antarctic.”
Raphael is the author of more than 60 academic papers, many of them highly cited, and is the co-author of “The Encyclopedia of Weather and Climate Change: A Complete Visual Guide,” which received the Most Popular Book award from Atmospheric Science Librarians International. Her work and writing continues to shape both academic inquiry and public understanding of polar climate dynamics.
A UCLA faculty member since 1998, Raphael is the former director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the former chair of UCLA’s geography department. A past president of the American Association of Geographers and former co-chair of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research’s expert group on sea ice processes, Raphael serves on the National Academies Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and is co-lead of the World Climate Research Programme’s Polar Climate Predictability Initiative.
In addition to her research, she has been active in mentoring students and advocating for the inclusion of traditionally underrepresented groups in climate science.
This story was adapted from an article originally published via UCLA’s Newsroom.
Photo Credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Park Williams, professor of geography within UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences, was named a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow on April 15.
Williams, who holds a joint appointment in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, is a hydroclimatologist who uses statistical analyses of climate data, reconstructions of past ecosystem behavior and a detailed understanding of plant ecology to study the impacts of climate on Earth’s water and land systems.
His research aims to improve our understanding of how climate change influences the hydrological cycle and ecological dynamics and how extremes like drought, floods, heat waves and wildfires affect life on the planet. Williams, who runs the HyFives research lab at UCLA, was awarded a MacArthur ‘genius’ grant in 2023.
Williams joins four other UCLA faculty members among a distinguished group of 198 scholars, scientists and creative professionals from the U.S. and Canada selected to receive 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships announced by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The new fellows were chosen from a pool of more than 3,500 applicants.
The prestigious awards, now in their 100th year, recognize scholars in 53 disciplines across the creative arts, social sciences, natural sciences and humanities who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in their fields and show great promise for future endeavors.
Learn more about this year’s UCLA Guggenheim Fellows via UCLA Newsroom’s coverage here.
Watch— Tariffs and Trade Wars: Impacts of the Changing Economic-Political Relationship Between Canada and the U.S.
American and Canadian economic and policy experts discussed the impacts of the current trade tension
UCLA’s Department of Geography and UCLA’s Canadian Studies hosted an Ursus Symposium titled, Tariffs and Trade Wars: Impacts of the Changing Economic-Political Relationship Between Canada and the U.S., on Wednesday, March 26.
During the panel discussion, American and Canadian economic and policy experts shared their perspective on how current trade tensions between these nations could affect the economies, the public and environments of both nations.
Since implementation of the NAFTA and USMCA trade agreements, the United States and Canada had experienced three decades of closer economic integration, relatively harmonious trade and mutual economic benefits. Yet, under the second Trump administration, the U.S. has announced punishing tariffs on Canadian goods — including on resources such as energy. President Trump has also threatened to annex Canada to make it the “51st state.” In turn, Canada has announced reciprocal tariffs on U.S. goods, and attitudes toward the United States as a reliable trading partner and ally have turned sharply negative.
The panel discussion featured:
Kristen Hopewell,Canada Research Chair in Global Policy, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs Director, Liu Institute for Global Issues University of British Columbia.
Brett House,Professor of Professional Practice in Economics, Columbia Business School Senior Fellow, Canada’s Public Policy Forum Senior Fellow, University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy Senior Fellow, Massey College.
Jerry Nickelsburg, Faculty Director, UCLA Anderson Economic Forecast.
Glen MacDonald FRSC, UCLA Endowed Chair in Geography of California and the American West Chair, UCLA Canadian Studies Program (Discussion Moderator)
Co-sponsored by UCLA’s Division of Social Sciences and UCLA’s International Institute, the event was streamed live via Zoom.
The Ursus Symposium at UCLA is a series of events, often environmental in nature, featuring UCLA scientists and experts discussing pressing issues, like climate change and coastal conservation, with a focus on Southern California.
Gregory Okin named fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
UCLA Institute of the Environment & Sustainability
Professor Gregory Okin, chair of UCLA’s Department of Geography, is among a group of ten UCLA researchers recently named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society, the association announced on March 27.
Okin joins 471 newly elected AAAS fellows recognized for their significant contributions to the advancement of science and its applications in service to society. They will be celebrated at a forum in Washington, D.C., June 7.
This year’s class of fellows are the embodiment of scientific excellence and service to our communities,” said Sudip S. Parikh, CEO of AAAS.“At a time when the future of the scientific enterprise in the U.S. and around the world is uncertain, their work demonstrates the value of sustained investment in science and engineering.”
Okin, a member of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, studies how physical, chemical and biological processes act across landscapes to produce observed environmental patterns and how these patterns modulate large-scale interactions within the Earth system. Much of his research, which makes heavy use of remote sensing and spatial modeling, focuses on plant-soil-atmosphere interactions in the world’s drylands, which cover 40% of the Earth’s land surface.
Founded in 1848, the nonprofit association, which publishes Science and its family of related peer-reviewed journals, has more than 120,000 members across nearly 100 countries and includes more than 250 affiliated societies and academies of science serving 10 million members.
This story was adapted from an articleoriginally published via UCLA’s Newsroom.
‘The mystery bird of New Guinea’: A rediscovery to remember
Jared Diamond celebrates 58-year UCLA career, reflects on his landmark sighting of the long-lost golden-fronted bowerbird
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, opulent hats adorned with exotic bird feathers became a major trend in American and European fashion. But the lucrative plume trade came at an enormous ecological cost, with many fearing that overhunting would drive numerous bird species to extinction.
The golden-fronted bowerbird was one such threatened species. Previously known from only four skins found in a Paris feather shop in 1895, this New Guinea bird, which boasts a brilliant crest atop its head, was presumed for nearly a century to be a relic — and a victim — of Victorian fashion sensibilities. These specimens were proof of the birds’ existence, but other than being brought to France by Dutch Indie East plume traders by way of New Guinean hunters, little else about its origin was certain.
John Gerrard Keulemans
That is until 1981, when Jared Diamond, a UCLA professor of geography and physiology, rediscovered this elusive bird while exploring the Foja Mountains in Papua, Indonesia, approximately 179 miles south of the equator and uninhabited by humans
Diamond — who joined UCLA’s faculty in 1966, earned a MacArthur Fellowship in 1985 and the National Medal of Science in 1999 — was invited by the Indonesian New Guinea government in 1979 to survey the island and propose plans for the creation of a national parks system.
With a $1,000 grant from the government, he chartered a helicopter to explore the peaks of the Foja Mountains so he could collect general data on its wildlife and plants. But, like many bird enthusiasts, Diamond had a hunch this might be the place to find the golden-fronted bowerbird.
“Every scientist who came here had a dream in the back of his mind about finding the bird – the mystery bird of New Guinea,” Diamond said in a 1981 New York Times interview. But, alas, luck wasn’t on his side on this 1979 expedition.
Without the proper tools and equipment, there was no way to land the helicopter safely on the high-altitude marsh the pilot had identified.
“Here I am in paradise,” Diamond said, “and I can’t land there. I was crushed.”
Unfazed by the initial setback, Diamond returned to the Foja Mountains two years later, this time with a copilot who rappelled down from the hovering helicopter into a marsh and, using a chainsaw and some pieces of plywood, created a makeshift landing pad with felled trees.
And on Jan. 31, 1981 — the second day of the expedition and not far from where his New Guinean-led team set up camp — the first bird Diamond saw as he entered the forest was the golden-fronted bowerbird, marking the first-ever documented sighting of live specimens.
Fittingly, the man deemed to know too much is the inaugural guest of the UCLA College’s “Tell Us What You Know,” an original podcast highlighting and uplifting voices from across its five divisions. Hear more about the rediscovery of this bird of myth from the man and legend himself.
And what a show he saw: an azygous male performing its elaborate courting ritual, which involved displaying a bright blue fruit in its bill so it could be seen against the background of its yellow crest.
Additionally, Diamond had the opportunity to observe the intricately constructed bower — the source of the bird’s name and the signature gesture of its mating ritual. This unique structure, created solely by males to woo females, stands 3 to 4 feet tall and is made from sticks, twigs and foliage and embellished with fruits and flowers.
Diamond remembers, with a smile, one of his former UCLA student’s reactions when he shared his observation that male bowerbirds with the dullest plumage tend to have the fanciest bowers, and vice versa.
“‘Aha! That’s just like men who own sports cars,’” Diamond recalls the student saying. “I myself have no opinion on this matter.”
Diamond’s pioneering expeditions to the Foja Mountains not only led to the rediscovery of the golden-fronted bowerbird but also established a blueprint for other scientists seeking to explore and document the world’s second-largest island after Greenland.
In 2005, Bruce Beehler, an American ornithologist and research associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, led an international team of scientists and returned to the Fojas, successfully photographing the golden-fronted bowerbird for the first time. (Diamond also photographed the bird in 1981, but during a perilous boat journey between islands, the boat overturned and the film was lost.
For nearly a century, scientists knew little about this mythical bird, but as it turns out, Diamond’s inkling about this equatorial mountain range was spot on.
“The golden-fronted bowerbird and Berlepsch’s six-wired bird of paradise were the only two lost-long New Guinea birds — and they both turned up in the Foja Mountains,” Diamond said.
As Diamond looks back on his historic rediscovery, he also marks another remarkable accomplishment — he retired from UCLA in 2024 after a remarkable 58-year career here that began in 1966.
Diamond’s life and academic curiosity would be forever linked to New Guinea after his first trip to the island in 1964. / Pamela Springsteen
“There’s a chance that I’ve been the longest-serving faculty member at UCLA,” Diamond said. “I’ve had a very good time at UCLA and am grateful to our institution and the UCLA students I’ve had the pleasure of working with throughout the decades.”
As a geographer, Diamond’s insight and intellect are best reflected in his acclaimed bestsellers “Collapse,” “The World Until Yesterday” and “Guns, Germs and Steel,” the latter earning him a Pulitzer Prize for groundbreaking work exploring the environmental and geographical factors that have shaped human history.
Diamond’s robust body of research — which combines diverse and seemingly unconnected topics such as the domestication of animals, the origins of smoking and drug use, the reason for menopause, the development of the Indo-European family of languages, the displacement of Native Americans, the biology of New Guinea birds, digestive physiology and conservation biology — earned him numerous distinctions, including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Overall, Diamond’s nearly six decades at UCLA showcase a simple truth: He is that rare scientist who can speak to the public – and be understood.
This story was originally published in the UCLA Newsroom on January 31, 2025
