Kye's Climate Action Fund believes that the success of the climate movement depends on collaboration and inclusivity: across sectors, disciplines, geographies, life experiences, and identities of every kind. We are proud and excited to introduce you to our grant recipients, whose work spans climate science, justice, and education!
Alyssa Valdez is a current PhD student at UC Riverside who is studying manure management and methane mitigation in California's commercial dairy farms. Alyssa will use KCAF funds to support living costs and to build and test a cheap, user-friendly handheld spectrometer to enable local farmers and community scientists to detect methane leaks from anaerobic digesters.
Mariana Reyes is a current PhD student at UC Riverside who is studying emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O, and NH3 from soils amended with frass, a potentially environmentally-friendly organic fertilizer, and emissions from dairy farms in California's San Joaquin Valley. Mariana will use KCAF funds to help cover living expenses and to free up her time to focus on advancing her PhD candidacy.
Sabrina Chapa is the Founder and Executive Director at Ties to La Tierra (TIES), an ecological justice organization of intertribal indigenous women and youth that works on climate resilience projects and green workforce development in the fossil-fuel dominated Texas Gulf Coast region. Sabrina will use KCAF funds to help pay student loans and living expenses while she focuses her energy on fighting petrochemical interests and expanding her organization's reach.
Sage Lenier is the Founder and Executive Director of Sustainable and Just Future (SJF), an emerging Gen Z nonprofit that addresses the environmental education gap by equipping the next generation with the knowledge and skills they need to become climate solutionists. Sage will use KCAF funds to sustain her team's work developing an innovative docuseries and securing large, recurring grants to ensure the sustainability of her organization.
Hannah Kreutzer is a Fulbright Grantee in Nuclear Chemistry at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research recovers unused uranium from spent nuclear fuel to create safer uranium nitride fuel, reducing mining impacts and enhancing nuclear sustainability. Her KCAF grant covers living expenses, international lab travel, and extended research beyond her Fulbright term.
Elisabeth Sellinger is a Ph.D. candidate in Earth and Planetary Sciences at UC Davis, studying seagrass meadows' role in climate resilience via carbon storage and sediment stabilization. Her work combines field ecology, biogeochemistry, and community partnerships to assess coastal solutions. Her KCAF grant funds fieldwork, sediment analyses, and collaboration to quantify carbon sequestration in San Francisco Bay seagrass.
Pooja Tilvawala is Founder and Executive Director of Youth Climate Collaborative, a global nonprofit aiding 6,000+ young leaders yearly through mental health, media, AI literacy, and philanthropy programs in the US, Kenya, India, and UK. She also founded AI platform Jaali and co-founded the Entertainment and Culture Pavilion. Her $10,000 KCAF grant provides US Hub Lead stipends and a new 2026 communications officer.
Dillon Osleger is an author, public lands activist, and policy advisor for conservation NGOs. A Trails Award winner and Protect Our Winters ambassador, his book Trail Work explores trails' cultural, ecological, and historical roles, endorsed by environmental and literary leaders. His KCAF grant funds a national book tour sparking discourse on public lands, recreation, and climate, plus trail stewardship and snow science in Truckee-Tahoe.
Matteo Moretti is a Greek-Italian-American filmmaker specializing in documentaries at the nexus of culture, environment, and people. He crafts place-based stories preserving traditions and capturing global beauty and complexity. His KCAF grant supports developing short climate documentaries to foster empathy, dialogue, and community engagement on the crisis.
Cameron Oglesby is an award-winning environmental justice organizer, oral historian, and journalist advancing climate education and frontline resource redistribution nationwide. Founder of the Environmental Justice Oral History Project, she documents stories with movement originators and has earned honors like National Geographic Young Explorer and NAAEE 30 Under 30. Her KCAF grant backs the Mothers of the Movement series, profiling 27 women leaders in climate justice via oral histories and multimedia.
Donna Amaya is a fifth-year transfer student pursuing a B.S. in Biochemistry (Chemistry concentration) and Global/Community Healthcare minor at UC Riverside. A first-gen Guatemalan, her work examines climate impacts like heat, dust, and chemicals on farmworkers' health in Inland Southern California. Her KCAF grant funds field transport, data analysis, and stipends for promotoras in Eastern Coachella Valley research.