CEI Celebrates Retiring Director Claudia Luke; Welcomes New Director Kerry Wininger

July 8, 2025

ROHNERT PARK, CA – A new chapter is beginning at Sonoma State’s Center for Environmental Inquiry as outgoing director Claudia Luke announces her retirement and welcomes Kerry Wininger as the incoming director.

Under Luke’s 16-years of leadership, the Center has emerged as a catalyst for academic-community partnerships that address today’s most pressing environmental challenges.

“My career at SSU has been focused on helping students understand themselves as partners with the living world – partners who find solutions when that relationship goes awry,” Luke said. “Working with some incredible people, we have transformed SSU’s natural preserves into interdisciplinary living labs and created programs that get students and faculty working with community to address significant issues.”

During her time at CEI, Luke helped earn more than $5 million in grants and donations, and developed a strategic vision aligned with SSU’s identity as a liberal arts and sciences institution, engaging students and faculty from all disciplines in addressing environmental challenges. Today, these programs reach more than 6,500 university students each year and include opportunities for student engagement throughout their academic careers:

• CEI Small Grants Program – distributes $15,000 in grants each year to help faculty integrate environmental challenges into their teaching and student research
• Dig into Nature series – enriches academic learning by providing hands-on, place-based events that deepen student and community understanding of the interdisciplinarity of environmental challenges
• Education into Action program – recognized by the state for its innovation and effectiveness – empowers students and faculty to work with community members on real-world environmental challenges, fostering critical thinking, civic engagement, and academic growth
• The Virtual Field – an international collaboration led by CEI – supports the development of foundational skills in observation, communication and inquiry, while reducing barriers to high-impact field outdoor experiences
• CEI Training programs – enhance academic learning by offering skills-based instruction and hands-on experience in environmental education and land management projects
• SSU Preserve lands – now total 4,500 acres (an additional 81 acres), including the addition of the new FIGR Learning Center at the Osborn Preserve and the Bob & Sue Campground at the Galbreath Preserve Today SSU graduates benefiting from these programs are shaping businesses, classrooms, health systems, governments, farms, nonprofits, and the arts – across every sector of society.

Luke’s vision and efforts led to her recently being named SSU Educator of the Year by the Rohnert Park Rotary Club. Over Luke’s tenure, CEI has become more central to SSU’s identity.

Luke says she is excited to now welcome Kerry Wininger, who has been serving as CEI’s Outreach & Program Development Lead, to the director role. Wininger plans to carry forward the momentum and vision started under Luke’s tenure.

“We have a strong transition plan in place to ensure that the mission not only continues but grows,” Wininger said. “The foundation we’ve built under Claudia’s leadership is opening the door to a new chapter of impact and innovation, and I can’t wait to get started.”

Wininger gravitated to the Center as a graduate student in the SSU Biology Department, first joining the team in 2013 as CEI’s Naturalist Training Program Instructor at Fairfield Osborn Preserve. Since then, she has been dedicated to the mission of CEI, serving in roles involving ecological research, communications, outreach, academic integration, regional partnership building, and strategic vision.

“A diverse, engaged community is crucial to addressing environmental challenges, and graduating students into green jobs – or ‘greening’ whichever career they choose – is a critical component of that,” Wininger said. “Every area of study is relevant and needed.”

With undergraduate degrees from UC Berkeley in both Integrative Biology and Theater & Performance Studies, Wininger is also a passionate communicator. She serves as an advisor to the North Bay Science Discovery Day, member of the Development Committee for The Organization for Biological Field Stations, secretary for California Native Plant Society’s Milo Baker Chapter, and coordinator for the Sudden Oak Death Program through University of California Cooperative Extension Sonoma County. At the time of Wininger’s appointment to director, she has been heading up CEI’s Dig into Nature events and Education into Action programs, most recently co-creating the flagship initiative Creeks in Common.

“Creeks in Common is something everyone at SSU can be proud of – a powerful new way for students, faculty, and community partners to team up and tackle real-world environmental challenges, starting right here on campus at Copeland Creek,” said Wininger. “I feel incredibly honored to lead this work establishing a model for restoring urban watersheds, and am so energized to convene people from diverse disciplines and backgrounds to work on building regional resilience together.”

CEI will host a transition party on Thursday, September 4 to celebrate Luke and welcome Wininger into her new role. Join us at 4pm on the patio at the SSU Wine Spectator Center.