UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics graduate student Natalie Popovich and her project mentor are 2017 recipients of the prestigious Schmidt MacArthur Fellowship for their commitment to investigating policy instruments that support circularity in urban and industrial systems.

This year’s Schmidt MacArthur Fellowship generated a record amount of interest and after a careful shortlisting and interviewing process, Popovich and her project mentor, Dr. Kiara Winans, creator and co-director of the UC Davis Industrial Ecology Program, are one of the 18 teams selected worldwide for the Fellowship. The 2017 cohort consists of students and their academic mentors from 13 Schmidt MacArthur Fellowship Partner Universities, three from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Pioneer University programme, and two Wild Card winners - from the University of Innsbruck and Network University - University of California Davis.

“The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, together with the Schmidt Family Foundation, have made strides towards increasing understanding of a circular economic model that is restorative and regenerative by design. I know Natalie will be a champion of this new paradigm and I am excited to see her excel in achieving her goals,” Winans said. 

Now in its fifth year, the Schmidt MacArthur Fellowship is the only circular economy fellowship programme in the world and is aimed at postgraduate (United States graduate) students studying design, engineering, and business. To be considered for the Fellowship, students were tasked with submitting a 90 second audio visual presentation which addresses two questions on the circular economy and is a critical opportunity for applicants to demonstrate their understanding.

For two years, Popovich led an economics seminar entitled Pluralism in Economics to discuss with her peers how to create an economy that works for us and not vice versa. “Now I am ready to apply my theoretical ideas to create concrete change,” Popovich said. “I want to bolster my systems-thinking perspective of production systems and supply chains to inform my own policy and economic research. I plan to be a leader in the movement toward a more circular economy by incorporating principles of circularity into the field of environmental economics. Circularity metrics should be common practice in our analysis and in the real world.”

In June, Popovich and Winans will participate in a week-long summer school in London with the multidisciplinary winning teams from around the world. All teams have the opportunity to develop their own Circular Economy Innovation Project and receive a cash bursary upon completion of the Project.

Natalie Popovich won a Wild Card place on the Fellowship, meaning that she is one of just two students to win a place outside of the Foundations Pioneer and Partner University programme. The competition to gain a Wild Card place is a lot higher and she stood out as being an exceptional student in order to win.  

UC Davis is part of the Network University Programme at the Foundation--a connection established through the UC Davis Industrial Ecology program that enables potential collaboration between the Foundation and all entities at the UC Davis.

The year-long international programme will officially begin in April 2017 with an online webinar.

For more information about the Fellowship, please contact: Emily Scadgell, Education Communications Coordinator: emily.scadgell@ellenmacarthurfoundation.org

For more information about the UC Davis Industrial Ecology program, please visit the program's website.