Sergio Redondo

Sergio Redondo is an ecology and evolution PhD candidate in the biology department. He is passionate about wildlife conservation, environmental health, as well as developing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that promote URM access to higher education. He has received several academic awards and fellowships, including from the Ford Foundation, Stanford DARE Program and the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.

Sergio completed a bachelor's degree in biology at the University of Arizona. His passion for wildlife and conservation grew during this time while conducting research in a conservation genetics lab. As he delved into the evolutionary history of red howler monkeys across the Peruvian landscape during his master's degree at the University of Michigan, he realized one of the field sites in the Peruvian Amazon was heavily impacted by small scale mining, deforestation, and mercury pollution. This propelled him into his current research, which aims to understand the uptake, transfer and toxicity of mercury within soil food webs and assess the downstream health impacts on above-ground species (e.g. bats, birds).

Sergio was born in México and emigrated to the US with his family at a young age. Growing up on the México-US border, he had to balance these two distinct worlds which made him realize the complexity of interactions that are at play across nations as well as the major inequities that drive our societies. Through his continued work in the environmental health sector, he aims to inspire members of Latinx and other underrepresented communities to explore nature and to learn about the complexity and beauty that exists in the world. He believes that the leading global issues will be best addressed with a diversity of views, thoughts, and experiences, and this will only be possible if everyone is afforded equitable opportunities.