Meet our 2025-2027 Fellows
Dean’s Sustainability Leaders Postdoc Fellowship Program
Elsie Carrillo
Elsie Carrillo is a Dean’s Sustainability Leaders Postdoctoral Fellow in the Goldbogen Lab at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station. Her research focuses on the physiological and behavioral adaptations that facilitate semi-aquatic lifestyles, using garter snakes and agricultural systems as model organisms. For her postdoctoral work, she investigates the diving physiology, foraging ecology, and conservation of garter snakes in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. As part of this work, she employs biologging technology to better understand the dive response of these cryptic predators, generating insights with implications for freshwater ecosystem management and conservation.
Prior to completing her Ph.D., Dr. Carrillo served as a middle school science teacher and was a Stanford IgnitEd Fellow in the Payne Lab, where she translated her independent research into science curriculum at Morrill Middle School in East San José. She remains deeply committed to mentorship and broadening participation in science, providing research opportunities for students through programs such as SESUR, SURGE, and SHMP to support the development of scientific identity and career pathways.
Through both her scientific work and her art business, Elsie’s Natural Selections, Dr. Carrillo seeks to challenge ophidiophobia—the fear of snakes—by elevating awareness and appreciation of a frequently overlooked vertebrate group, fostering public engagement and long-term conservation.
Ekaterina (Kath) Landgren
Ekaterina (Kath) Landgren is a Dean’s Sustainability Leaders Postdoctoral Fellow working with Professors Sara Constantino and Madalina Vlasceanu. Her research examines the cognitive mechanisms that shape how beliefs about climate change and related behaviors are formed and updated, as well as how social dynamics between citizens, political institutions, and the media influence both the real and perceived popularity of climate policies.
Her work integrates mathematical modeling with empirical data to better understand public perceptions of climate risk. At Stanford, Dr. Landgren combines large-scale survey data, computational analysis of media coverage, and computational modeling to study how individuals interpret and respond to climate information. She previously served as a Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder and earned her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University.
In addition to her research, she is a dedicated advocate for international and immigrant students. As a SIAM Science Policy Fellow, Kath currently leads a national survey examining how uncertainty in the U.S. research funding landscape influences career planning among graduate students in mathematics.
Jessica Orozco
Jessica Orozco is a plant physiologist whose research explores how plants cope with environmental challenges, from drought to wildfire smoke, through the lens of their energy reserves. Her work spans agricultural landscapes and forest ecosystems, linking plant physiology with broader ecological patterns. She earned her Ph.D. in Horticulture and Agronomy from the University of California, Davis, where she examined how non-structural carbohydrate dynamics influence plant performance from individual trees to entire ecosystems.
As a Dean’s Sustainability Leaders Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford, Jessica integrates plant physiology, ecology, and paleobotany to investigate how energy storage traits influenced plant survival through past environmental upheavals, offering insight into the origins and persistence of modern forest ecosystems. As a first-generation scholar, her path has been guided by curiosity, mentorship, and most importantly community. She strives to provide the same kinds of guidance and opportunities that enabled her own journey, ensuring others can see a place for themselves within the scientific community.