Schmid College did not have to wait long for its young Environmental Science and Policy program to sprout an impressive alumna.  Madison Hoffacker ’13, a recent graduate with a grass-roots foundation in the program, co-authored and published a paper in Nature Climate Change.

Hoffacker was one of the first four students to officially declare a major in Environmental Science and Policy and was among those to receive the program’s inaugural bachelor’s degrees.

“I was attracted to the major for its interdisciplinary structure,” Hoffacker said. “It exposed me to a wide scope of courses, encouraged me to broaden my perspective and most importantly challenged me to make connections across fields.”

Those who knew Hoffacker as a student were not surprised by her lofty achievement.

Dr. Jennifer Funk, whom Hoffacker worked with as an undergraduate researcher at Chapman University, said that Hoffacker is intelligent, motivated and passionate about environmental science.

As for the future, Hoffacker’s publication in Nature Climate Change was just a warm-up. She plans to work as a researcher at UC Berkeley until finding a fitting graduate school program.

“I want to continue exploring and understanding the interaction between the environment and energy systems,” Hoffacker said. “I am eager to keep learning and developing.”

Update: In November 2015, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published another paper Hoffacker co-authored, “Solar energy development impacts on land cover change and protected areas”. You can read it here.

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We love hearing from our alumni. If you have some great news to share, let us know! And if you would like to write a guest blog post for the Schmid College blog- we welcome your submissions! Just go to https://blogs.chapman.edu. click on “Write your story” and make sure to submit it to Schmid College of Science and Technology.