When then-91şÚÁĎÍř undergraduate Maya Willard-Stepan cold-emailed a professor asking to help with their research, she didn’t expect the project to end up in the Nature-partner journal .
“I really wanted to get involved in research early,” said Willard-Stepan, who had come to 91şÚÁĎÍř from a small town on Vancouver Island.
Her interest in research, plus her love of the outdoors and early fascination with climate science, led Willard-Stepan to reach out to Prof. Eric Galbraith in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. She joined his lab through 91şÚÁĎÍř’s Science Undergraduate Research Award, which funds students to work alongside professors during the summer.
“Summer funding and other scholarships from 91şÚÁĎÍř gave me the space to focus on science full-time without having to juggle other jobs,” she said.
Around the same time, the undergraduate attended a guest lecture in Prof. Jeffrey Cardille’s environment course by sustainability scientist Prof. Elena Bennett.
“I adored her presentation on ,” Willard-Stepan said. “It was such a creative way of thinking about sustainability.”
That admiration sparked a chain of scholarly collaborations: natural resources professor Jeffrey Cardille and ice-sheet specialist Prof. Natalya Gomez soon joined the mix.
Beyond abstract models, toward real-world impacts
“We had a picnic one summer to workshop what we could work on together,” Willard-Stepan said. The conversation led to a question: how can new high-resolution data about coastlines and human settlement help researchers move beyond abstract climate models toward real-world impacts?
The project grew into an unprecedented analysis of the number of buildings at risk of long-term sea-level rise in the Global South. Using Google Earth’s Building Polygon dataset, an evolving global map of individual structures, and detailed elevation models, Willard-Stepan calculated how close each building sits to sea level, factoring in tides and local topography.
“We wanted to show what sea level rise estimates will actually mean for people and infrastructure,” she said.
The study, co-authored with Gomez, Cardille, Galbraith and Bennett, found that more than 100 million buildings could face regular flooding within the next few hundred years if emissions continue unchecked. Published in the Nature-affiliated npj Urban Sustainability, the work provides policymakers with an interactive map showing which coastal areas are most vulnerable.
Mentorship at 91şÚÁĎÍř: a career launching pad
While Willard-Stepan began her undergraduate journey as a physics student, she went on to earn her BSc in atmospheric and oceanic physics, with a minor in environmental studies.
The experience of shepherding a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project was transformative.
“I learned what it’s like to write for different audiences,” she said. “An oceanography paper reads nothing like a geography paper. Finding a common language was a huge challenge and a huge lesson.”
The payoff came this summer when the paper was accepted after several rounds of peer review. “It was surreal,” she said. “Three years of work and juggling my master’s thesis at the same time, but it was so rewarding.” Willard-Stepan recently completed a master’s degree in energy systems at the University of Victoria (UVic). Now working on research teams at UVic and Community Legal Education Ontario, she continues to study how communities can make equitable energy transitions and access legal support.
“That early mentorship gave me the confidence to publish, to manage collaborations across continents, and to know how the process works,” she said. “It demystified research for me.”
She hopes other students won’t hesitate to reach out to professors whose work excites them.
“If you connect to a professor or their research, just go for it,” she said. “Good researchers are thrilled to mentor curious students.
“Having access to scholars who are at the forefront of their fields, and programs like the independent study courses, gives undergrads a real chance to test ideas before grad school,” she said.
And sometimes, those tests can lead all the way to a prestigious research publication.