Josh Heupel, from Le Grand, California, is pursuing a PhD in environmental social sciences at Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He holds bachelor’s degrees in agricultural business and political science from California State University, Fresno, and a master’s in public affairs from Princeton University. His research focuses on water governance in California’s Central Valley, examining how both natural and state-induced water scarcity impacts communities. Josh hopes to pursue an academic career studying these water governance challenges with SGMA as his primary empirical case study. When he’s not reading about common-pool resource theory, Josh is usually watching the 49ers, cooking something new, or playing beach volleyball.