Lydia Lapporte is a M.A. student in the Environmental Studies program at the University of Oregon, located on Kalapuya iliʔi, the traditional Indigenous homelands of the Kalapuya people.

She is interested in waters’ connective capacity and studies water issues in California in order to better understand how ecological relations are inscripted and reinforced through infrastructure, law and policy. Currently, her research looks at the collapse of kelp communities on the North Coast of California from environmental justice and multispecies perspectives to question how frameworks of restoration, recovery and reconciliation differentially constitute goals, processes and outcomes in the response to kelp collapse.

Her previous work experience includes community-based watershed restoration with the Contra Costa Resource Conservation District; public humanities with the California Institute for Community, Art & Nature; project management with Seaweed Commons; agricultural operations; arts and environment programming; environmental education; and seaweed harvesting in Maine and California.