While she was a student at the University, Juliana Tran planted, cultivated and harvested crops on a Lawrence area farm and interned at JW Prairie Wind Power, a local wind farm developer. For a month, she helped raise money for an eco-friendly classroom in Brazil, where children of an impoverished, violence-ridden community could learn English.

Tran, now living in Austin, Texas, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies last May. With her degree and a plush resumé in hand, Tran set out to find the job of her dreams.

Nearly five months later, she has yet to find a job.

“I thought I had a lot of experience that would really separate me from some other people, but there’s just not a lot of entry level positions out there right now,” she said.

But it was on this job hunt, combing through job postings and sniffing around environmental Web sites, that Tran discovered Project Green Search, a nationwide campaign to find a woman who has the ethics, drive and looks to be America’s first green “it girl.”

“It sounded like something I could do,” she said. “I thought, ‘Why not? I’ve got nothing to lose.’”

Tran submitted an essay, photos and a video with no idea or expectation that a short time later she’d find herself roaming Hollywood Boulevard with the nine other women whom the public and judges voted last month as the best candidates for the title.

She will find out tonight at a “green carpet” party in Los Angeles whether she’s won. The winner receives, among other things, representation from a modeling agency, exposure to brand representative work and features in print and online magazines.

Competing against models and environmental professionals, Tran said she felt somewhat out of her element.

“I have experience, but I’m not a professional,” she said. “I’m hoping that it’s more about the smarts that you have than how well you can walk or look on camera.”

But her father and friends say Tran has the commitment and credibility to be the green “it girl.”

Her father, Giac, said he still remembered when he knew his daughter was going to be an environmentalist.

While Juliana was a teenager attending Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas, Giac saw her digging through their trash at home, searching for plastic bottles. She wanted her family to start recycling, and this was her way to send the message.

“If she have a plan on something and she want to make it, she make it,” Giac said in his thick Vietnamese accent.

The Trans came to America as refugees from Vietnam in 1975.

“We become a very green family,” he said. “We recycle everything.”

Today, Tran does much more than recycle plastic bottles. In her new home, she composts kitchen waste, grows some of her own food and hangs her clothes out to dry in the warm, Austin air. She even purchased carbon credits to offset her flight to L.A.

It’s that commitment to practicing what she preaches that makes Tran the most qualified for the title, said Lauren Ashman, St. Louis junior.

Ashman said she met Tran last spring through KU Environs, of which Tran was president at the time.

“She taught me that you don’t always have to make these grand gestures to make people understand why the environment is important,” she said. “She showed me you can make small changes in your life and end up changing other people, too.”

Aysia Wright, one of the two Project Green Search organizers, said she was looking for two main qualifications in the first green “it girl”: she has to be authentic, and she has to be relatable to the general public.

“I hope to find a hybrid between a model and spokesperson and an everyday, average person trying it make everyday decisions to live a more sustainable lifestyle,” Wright said.

Tran said more than winning the title, she wanted to use the opportunity to network with people in the industry and find a job.

If she wins, Tran said she’d like to use the title to bolster the environmental movement for generations to come.

“I don’t want to see environmentalism become just a trend or a fad,” she said. “I want it to be something that everyone incorporates into their lifestyle. It’s not just about me, myself and I. It’s about everyone else and their futures.”

— Edited by Lauren Cunningham