By Clara Hall, September 2025
This section of the site is focused on showcasing ESSA scholars (students, alumni, faculty, and community members) making a positive impact within their research community, centering on diverse ways of knowing in their research, and sharing their knowledge and expertise. If you have a research product, event, or opinion you would like to share please contact [email protected].
Background
Risa Aria Schnebly is a fifth-year PhD candidate at Arizona State University whose research sits at the intersection of ecology, psychology, and storytelling. Her journey into academia is marked by resilience and personal transformation: after dropping out of UC Davis to spend the last few months of her mother’s life in Mexico, Risa eventually returned to finish her undergraduate degree in Arizona. She continued onto her PhD at ASU, where she found her calling in science writing and research. Now, through her dissertation and creative work, she explores the emotional landscape of conservation––particularly the grief experienced by those working to save endangered species.
Research Focus: Centering Eco-Grief
Risa’s PhD research began with an interest in de-extinction––the idea of bringing back lost species––and how it might shape public attitudes about conservation and ecological loss. Early interviews with undergraduates revealed a startling gap: most hadn’t thought much about extinction at all.
“They didn’t really grasp the depth of the crisis that’s unfolding. That was depressing in its own way, and it made me rethink what I was doing.” This prompted Risa to pivot toward a question much closer to her heart: grief. Not abstract grief, but the kind felt by endangered-species conservationists who live loss every day.
She’s now interviewed around 30 conservationists working with species across the extinction spectrum, from Hawaiian birds and snails to Mexican wolves, black-footed ferrets, and vaquitas. She wanted to understand whether they experience grief in relation to the species they work with, and how that grief affects them. What she found is that the depth of grief isn’t necessarily tied to how endangered a species is. “It’s not just about the level of endangerment. It’s about people’s individual connections,” she explained.
“Or a lot of people had to witness, or even be the cause of, suffering or death. Like some people told stories about having to translocate birds in Hawaii, knowing it’s traumatic for the birds, or releasing ferrets into the wild knowing many won’t survive. One person even had to euthanize the second-to-last frog of its species. Those moments carry immense weight.”
Insights and Methods
Risa’s interviews often moved into uncharted territory. She approached conservationists with questions about their careers and philosophies before easing into harder topics, like loss and grief.
“At least ten people cried during these interviews,” she said. “I think for many of them, no one had ever asked [about grief] before. They were just glad someone did.”
Her findings highlight the hidden emotional labor of conservation work: grief that often goes unspoken in a field where objectivity and detachment are valued.
Beyond the Dissertation: Creating Space for Grief
Risa isn’t just documenting eco-grief, she is experimenting with ways to create space for it. “I want to make artistic eco-memorials, things like collaging workshops at conferences. It feels like an accessible way for non-artists to process grief together, and to honor what’s being lost.” She has also trained with the Good Grief Network and is working to connect with others in this space, though she emphasizes it’s still an emerging field.
Mentorship and Writing
Risa credits her committee and mentors for encouraging her to follow this path, including ASU professors Ben Minteer and Beckett Sterner, as well as conservation psychologist Susan Clayton and nonfiction writer Alison Hawthorne Deming. She is writing her dissertation as a nonfiction book, weaving research with personal narrative.
Writing has been a second thread in her career. Alongside her PhD, she works as a science writer for ASU News and recently completed the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship, reporting on science for a local newspaper in Washington State. She also co-hosts the podcast “SciChronicles,” helping scientists share personal stories and connect through storytelling.
Looking Forward: Disrupting Academia
For Risa, grief is both a personal reality and a political act. “Grief signals that life is valuable. Public displays of grief, like the AIDS Memorial Quilt, are political. They say: this matters. Eco-grief works the same way. It’s not about animals over people, or anything like that. It’s about expanding our ability to grieve all of it: other humans, other species, entire ecosystems, and recognizing grief as an extension of love and care.”
Through her work, she hopes to broaden conversations in conservation, challenge taboos around grief in science, and create spaces where loss is acknowledged instead of hidden. “Cultivating the capacity for grief is really about cultivating the capacity for care—for people, for other beings, for the world we live in.”
The Role of ESSA in Shaping Research
Risa’s involvement with the Earth Systems Science for the Anthropocene (ESSA) program has been transformative. ESSA’s emphasis on diversity, justice, and culturally informed research expanded her vision of what is possible in science. The network provided a supportive space where her work made sense and felt valued, and mentors like Edauri Navarro-Pérez offered examples of living and working with integrity. “If I had joined ESSA earlier in my PhD, I would have been doing very different work, because it expanded the idea of what’s possible and what’s acceptable. It showed me there’s a network of people who care about the same things I care about and a lot more.”
A Journey That’s All Her Own
Risa’s path to ASU wasn’t a typical student narrative, but it’s one she views with warmth and clarity. Many would call her journey unconventional, or even challenging, but Risa prefers to see it as deeply meaningful. She describes her academic and personal journey as a weaving of grief, conservation, and memory, a commitment to bringing emotion into science, and to creating space for healing and connection.
Want to learn more about Risa’s work or connect about eco-grief and conservation? Check out her website, her podcast “SciChronicles,” or reach out for collaboration.