About Abby Reyes

Abby Reyes is director of the Sustainability Initiative at the University of California, Irvine, leading community-engaged sustainability scholarship. She is also co-chair of the board of directors of EarthRights International. At UC Irvine, Reyes is co-principal investigator of the FloodRISE project, principal investigator of the Regional Climate Resilience project, and co-chair of the Faculty Engagement and Education Working Group of the UC Global Climate Leadership Council. She has provided facilitation and design for the Salton Sea Initiative, UCI OCEANS, Research Justice Learning Community, Nexus 2014 Environmental Health and Justice Convening, and Borrego Stewardship Council. She has also facilitated research collaboration for indigenous communities in California, Colombia, and the Philippines, and contributed to landmark international human rights and environmental cases in domestic federal courts. Reyes completed her undergraduate degree at Stanford and JD at UC Berkeley Law. She clerked for the Honorable Richard A. Paez on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Reyes received UC Irvine’s 2015 Excellence in Leadership Award and a 2016 California Higher Education Sustainability Best Practices Award. She has a TEDx talk on How to Come Home.