ALUMNI SUCCESS: Passion for Environmental Justice Leads to Fellowship with California Tribe

HUMBOLDT COUNTY, Calif. — In September 2023, Ysabelle Yrad left the cabin that she called home for two summers along Douglas Lake at the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) and headed west to the Pacific Ocean to launch her career.

Flourishing among the coastal redwoods, Yrad is nearing the completion of her post-graduate fellowship with the Blue Lake Rancheria, a federally recognized Tribe in northern California.

“I feel grateful,” said Yrad, who earned a master’s degree in environment and sustainability from the University of Michigan in 2023 and a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Toledo in 2020.

“I definitely have a unique opportunity post-UMBS. I absolutely love my role, and I would not have received it without my experiences at UMBS.”

Sustaining Freshwater Services

The University of Michigan Biological Station is where students and scientists from across the globe live and work as a community to learn from the place.

As a master’s student in the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), Yrad worked on a team capstone project at UMBS in 2022 focused on water quality, land conservation and access to freshwater services in anticipation of climate and development changes in the region.

She collaborated with tribal nations and land conservancies as part of coalition-building centered on freshwater resources management and long-term conservation plans in the Obtawaing Biosphere Region (OBR) of northern Michigan.

OBR, which encompasses roughly five million square miles of land and water at the convergence of three Great Lakes, is part of a network of designated regions of global cultural and ecological significance recognized by the United Nations.

“We traveled a lot for our mapping and site visits with partners in Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula and the eastern tip of the Upper Peninsula,” Yrad said. “Regional water systems are essential for united efforts in sustainable development and climate resilience. Instead of making already disadvantaged communities more vulnerable, it’s critical to help communities adapt and address underlying disparities.”

Yrad’s team received UMBS donor support through the J.B. and Marilyn McKenzie Graduate Endowment Fund for their field research.

Offshore Wind Energy Development

Now a fellow in California through the West Coast Ocean Alliance/Oregon Sea Grant, Yrad uses her skills to advance sustainable energy, community development and cultural resource preservation — largely as it pertains to proposed development in the offshore wind industry.

Contributing to policies and planning through research and engagement, Yrad represents the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe in conversations with local, state and federal agencies as well as research universities and community-based organizations about proposed port redevelopment in Humboldt Bay. The “green” port project would lay the groundwork for the future installation of wind turbines in federal waters about 20 miles off the Pacific coast.

“There are more tribes in northern California than the rest of the state,” Yrad said. “People are apprehensive of this new industry coming to town. We are studying the many potential impacts to marine and land life.”

Yrad said the gold rush of the late 1840s had harmful impacts to the Indigenous community. More recently, she said the cannabis rush fell short of providing people long-lasting jobs or healthy work environments.

“It’s one thing to say we need to do clean energy and protect the environment, but not at the detriment of the most disadvantaged group in the region,” Yrad said.

A big concern is the risk to the Native population from another development boom. Yrad and a coalition of tribes lobbied decision-makers that the new industry may worsen the ongoing crisis of sex trafficking crimes and Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP).

“We’re engaged with the port,” Yrad said. “The Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District passed a resolution this year to have comprehensive protections in place including a plan to communicate with law enforcement and place MMIP at the top-of-mind when working with developers and direct contractors that are hiring employees prior to construction.”

Yrad’s fellowship has taken her to the White House in Washington, D.C., as a delegate of the West Coast Ocean Tribal Caucus. She met with federal agencies related to offshore wind during Capitol Hill Ocean Week.

Back in California, she helped organize the inaugural 2024 Humboldt Aquaculture Symposium that facilitated discussions with key stakeholders in the area about unique marine resources that should be respected and sustained amid winds of change.

“It has been super fulfilling to represent the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe,” Yrad said. “I have learned so much. How much people actually hear tribes depends on the tribes’ rights and their ancestral territory. That has come to fruition in this project. The paradigm takes advantage of communities that have not historically been part of development success, and I’m hoping offshore wind is the opportunity to make things right in the future.”

“Ysabelle has made a resounding impact on behalf of the Blue Lake Rancheria, a small but mighty Tribe in northern California,” said Heidi Moore-Guynup, director of government and tribal affairs for Blue Lake Rancheria. “Her work to advance clean energy projects, to ensure Tribal input is at the forefront of regulatory decision-making and her ability to influence developers to adopt green strategies has been remarkable. The Tribe is grateful for her service.”

Living and Learning at UMBS

Founded in 1909, the U-M Biological Station is one of the nation’s largest and longest continuously operating field research stations. Laboratories, classrooms and cabins are nestled along Douglas Lake in Pellston in northern Michigan to support long-term science research and education.

During the summers of 2022 and 2023 at UMBS, Yrad believes she may have met every single person on campus.

That’s because the graduate student researcher also worked as one of the front desk clerks in the administrative office.

“I was there when anyone checked in and checked out,” Yrad said. “I knew about the research they were doing or the classes they were taking. You also share meals together with students, teaching faculty and researchers in the dining hall. That’s one of the big reasons I learned so much at UMBS.”

Even though she didn’t take courses, she remembers reading “Firekeeper's Daughter” by Angeline Boulley along with an English class. The award-winning novel is about a Native teen who roots out the corruption in her community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula: Sugar Island in Sault Ste. Marie. It’s a location about an hour and a half away from the field station where UMBS manages some land that many scientists and students at UMBS visit for research or classes.

Yrad also participated in the annual Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians’ Walk of Remembrance to commemorate what is known as the Burt Lake Burnout in 1900.

Balancing Act

Active in field station community social events, Yrad took the stage several times in Gates Lecture Hall with a riveting, skillful act in the UMBS Talent Show, which is held twice a year — once during the four-week spring term and once during the four-week summer term.

The native of Elyria, Ohio, who was crowned Filipino princess of the annual international festival in Lorain County as a teenager, performed a Filipino folk dance called the binasuan. Yrad balanced full glasses of blue juice (instead of wine) on her hands and head while stepping, swaying and twirling — both standing up and down on the floor.

“I love performing that dance,” Yrad said. “It gives me a lot of pride to see people clapping along to the music and waiting for me to spill, and I don’t! There’s a secret to it, which took a few months to learn.”

"Ysabelle's energy and enthusiasm for the place and the people always shone through in her work,” said Jumanah Saadeh, operations specialist at UMBS. “It's thrilling to watch her career take off as she carries that same dedication to excellence in her next stage of life."

Focus Groups

In addition to her master’s capstone project, one other experience at UMBS in Michigan helped prepare Yrad for her next steps with the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe in California: organizing and carrying out focus groups.

Once her fellowship ends at the end of January, Yrad will continue working for the Blue Lake Rancheria on grant-funded projects. She has already started tackling one. It’s a Tribal Culture Landscapes Assessment in coordination with the Tribe’s Historic Preservation Office.

“I’ll be interviewing tribal members about the history of the Tribe,” Yrad said. “I’m leading the effort to prep for the interviews.”

At UMBS in 2022, Yrad worked with Dr. Alison Bressler, a collaborative research specialist with the Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan, to conduct interviews and focus groups with students to assess the effects of the change in academic term length from six weeks to four.

“We asked undergraduate students how they felt about their courses and how that correlated with learning outcomes,” Yrad said. “That experience really helped me refine my skills in focus groups and interviews and preparing to conduct them.”

That assessment revealed that students enrolled in the shorter (4-week) courses reported higher levels of motivation to learn for the sake of understanding and a greater perception of the importance of science. These same students also reported higher levels of confidence in skills necessary to operationalize the scientific method, including hypothesis development, designing and testing experiments, and statistically analyzing data.