—by Jerome Okojokwu-Idu, graduate student in Natural Resource Sciences.
Caily Schwartz is determined to bring about a positive change in the world and increase awareness of water conservation and proper management of water resources based on scientific findings. She grew up in Elmhurst, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Caily had a beautiful childhood, spending most of her time outdoors with friends in the neighborhood. This might explain her desire to create communities wherever she goes. Currently, Caily is the co-chair of the SNR Graduate Student Association (GSA), which allows her to build a community of fellow graduate students.
As her interest in the importance of water grows, Caily is passionate about continuing to study and understand the many components of the global system. The social-environmental system is important to consider when looking at drought impacts. Humans have the capacity to change the landscape and make decisions that will impact future generations regarding water resources. Accounting for behavior is difficult but can help shape future research studies or educational workshops.
With a background in physical science and remote sensing, Caily adds social science data and methods to collect a rich understanding of drought and the challenges people face. She finds this work especially rewarding and can be used to inform producers or water managers of their drought risk. From this interest in combining multiple streams of data, Caily has found another passion in connecting science to policy. By working together, hopefully, there will be less detrimental impacts on communities.
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More details at: https://snr.unl.edu/aboutus/what/newstory.aspx?fid=1062