Isabela Overturf is a Research Assistant focusing on sustainable and equitable communities. Her research interests include ecology, earth science, clean energy, and conservation. She also works with the US Department of Energy’s (DOE)’s Southcentral Onsite Energy Generation Technical Assistance Partnership (TAP) where she assists with community outreach and coordination efforts. She is also a key member of the teams working to create a Climate Action Plan (CAP) for the City of Houston, as well as the CAP that was approved for Harris County.
Prior to joining HARC, Ms. Overturf worked with a senior scientist from The Nature Conservancy to co-author a chapter of Advances in Soil Science, identifying links between soil health and human nutrition around the world.
Ms. Overturf earned a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Science and Psychology from Claremont McKenna College, where she led the Policy and Outreach team at the Roberts Environmental Center and worked in the campus DEI space. She also conducted a senior thesis project that focused on the chemical effects of human decomposition on soil and its applications in land use.
Authored Publications and Related Projects
Wood, S., Overturf, I. (2021). Soil Management, Organic Matter, and Human Nutrition. In Lal, R. (Ed.), Soil Organic Carbon and Feeding the Future: Basic Soil Processes (1st ed., Chapter 3). Boca Raton, LA: CRC Press.
Overturf, I. (2022). Spatial Geochemical Changes in Central and East Texas Soils over Time Resulting from Human Decomposition. (Bachelor’s thesis, Claremont McKenna College.) Scholarship at Claremont.
