Udara Abeysekera

Udara serves as Program Coordinator for the UC Irvine Sustainability Resource Center (SRC), planning and delivering programs and resources that unleash youth leadership for community resilience to a changing climate and cultivate a campus culture of sustainability. 

Udara joins the SRC with a strong background in climate science communication and outreach, working with diverse groups of non-profit organizations, government agencies, businesses, youth, and educators.

Before joining the SRC, Udara served as Science Program Manager at the Climate Science Alliance (CSA). In this role, she supported the integration of regionally specific climate science and scientists into land management and community outreach activities. Udara supported the growth of the CSA from 100 to over 300 partners and coordinated several inaugural gatherings, including the San Diego Climate Summit, Southwestern Tribal Climate Change Summit, and the CSA Tribal Working Group. Her professional and personal dedication to sustainability and climate resilience was inspired by her time close to nature and reaffirmed by her work with the Federal and CA Fish and Wildlife agencies, where she saw first-hand impacts to wildlife and wildlands.

Udara received her Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Systems with a focus in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution from UC San Diego. During her time at UC San Diego, she began working with Trunks & Leaves, an organization fostering evidence-based conservation of wild Asian elephants particularly in the context of human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. She continues this work today, focusing on outreach around the Coexistence Project, a community-based program helping elephants and people share a crowded landscape.