Maya Almaraz, PhD

Maya Almaraz, PhD, is Program Manager for Spark’s Agricultural Nitrogen Transformation Program, which is focused on reducing nitrogen losses from food systems while maintaining agricultural productivity. 

A terrestrial biogeochemist, her expertise spans agricultural carbon and nitrogen cycling, project management, stakeholder engagement, science communication, and climate solutions development. Her work bridges cross-disciplinary science and practical approaches to addressing environmental challenges within complex human systems.

Previously, Maya worked at Yale University, where she managed a modeling project on enhanced rock weathering and taught a graduate course on natural climate solutions in agriculture. As a fellow at Princeton University’s High Meadows Environmental Institute, she conducted research and taught on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the sciences. She also served as a Carbon Scientist at The Nature Conservancy, leading natural climate solutions deployments globally, and managed the Working Lands Innovation Center at UC Davis, where she worked with scientists, growers, industry, Tribes, and government partners to test the carbon and crop benefits of climate-smart agricultural soil amendments.

Maya was a World Wildlife Fund Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Biology at UC Davis. She received her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Brown University, along with a BA in Public Health and a BS in Conservation and Resource Studies from UC Berkeley.