Mariah Lima-Kuderer

Mariah Lima is an MPA candidate at SPIA where she focuses on climate justice and sustainable development. She was raised in Los Angeles, California and graduated with honors from UCLA, where she majored in political and environmental science. Growing up in California, Mariah experienced firsthand the impacts of worsening wildfires, air pollution, and drought, and witnessed how her community faced disproportionate exposure to environmental risks, sparking her interest in understanding the structural drivers of environmental inequality.

Prior to Princeton, Mariah served as a Sustainable Connected Communities fellow with Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing nonprofit, where she advanced decarbonization and climate resilience initiatives across California’s affordable housing sector. In this role, she supported policy advocacy, built partnerships with local governments and community-based organizations, and helped expand access to Inflation Reduction Act funding for underserved communities.

Mariah has also worked with several international and research organizations, including the climate resilience team at ICF International and the humanitarian affairs office at the U.S. Mission to the UN in Geneva, Switzerland. She is currently a graduate student researcher for the Geneva Centre drafting a report on the nexus of climate change and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa.