UC Davis Institute of the Environment Director Isabel Montañez to Step Down in 2025
Isabel Montañez, director of the Institute of the Environment has announced her decision to step down on June 30, 2025, after serving in the position for nearly four years. Montañez, a renowned field geologist and geochemist specializing in records of ancient climate change, will continue to be with the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences as a UC Davis distinguished professor and a chancellor’s leadership professor.
“I want to thank Isabel for her exemplary service as director of the Institute of the Environment. Under her leadership, the Institute of the Environment has consistently grown its impact across a variety of different measures,” said Simon Atkinson, vice chancellor for research. “While we will miss Isabel’s leadership of the Institute for the Environment, I am grateful she will continue her research with the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.”
During her tenure as the director, she led several key initiatives and engaged in collaborative environmental research and outreach efforts, including the launch of the Environmental and Climate Justice Hub with Beth Rose Middleton and the creation of the California Collaborative for Natural Climate Change Solutions — or C4NS — a multi-stakeholder consortium focused on testing carbon and crop benefits of soil amendments in California’s agricultural lands. She also led the Working Lands Innovation Center’s efforts to uplift the Project Carbon Fund to help ensure planetary resistance to climate change.
Montañez initiated the Inspiring Environmental and Climate Action Through Art program partnering with students, youth groups, educators, farmers, agricultural organizations and industries to create a series of murals throughout California showing how climate change affects agricultural communities and how these communities are combating the climate crisis.
Her commitment to the Institute’s research, teaching and outreach efforts has been evident in many ways. She established the endowment for the undergraduate student Sustainability Scholars Program that provides internships, scholarships and grants for undergraduate students to be involved in immersive, hands-on experiences addressing cutting-edge sustainability and environmental justice issues. She also helped create the new Environmental Faculty Fellows and Graduate Scholars program, and also formalized the partnership with the Environmental Policy and Management Professional master’s program.
Under her leadership, extramural funding saw a significant increase from $8 million in FY ‘21 to $24.4 million in FY ‘23. She also helped raise over $7 million in donor gifts over her tenure as the director of the Institute.
In 2021, Montañez was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences for her approach to studying different components of the Earth system and what links a range of past climates over large spectrums of time. This approach had previously been detailed in a two-year National Academies study, “Understanding Earth’s Deep Past: Lessons for our Climate Future,” where Montañez describes how rocks and sediments millions of years old can inform the Earth’s future responses to climate change.
The Office of Research will announce interim leadership for the Institute in the next few weeks.
