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Jess Phoenix has spent the past decade working as a geologist, traveling to every continent but Antarctica and climbing the slopes of erupting volcanoes. It’s a far cry from the staid halls of the United States Capitol, where she hopes to replace a Republican congressman who once said that California had “embarked on a rash mission to curtail global warming.”

Ms. Phoenix, 36, has specialized in the study of volcanoes since a stint in 2008 at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, where she found her field work on Mauna Loa and Kilauea so exhilarating that she changed her initial plans to conduct research on subduction zones and plate tectonics.

Now, she is one of several Democrats looking to challenge Representative Steve Knight in California’s 25th District in November — and one of hundreds of scientists seeking public office this year, many of them motivated by opposition to the Trump administration’s environmental policies.

She has received advice and resources from 314 Action, a nonprofit group working to elect people with expertise in science and math fields. The group, named after the first three digits of the mathematical constant pi, said it had trained 1,500 prospective candidates in the past year and a half, including around 450 who are currently running for state or federal office. Joshua Morrow, the executive director, argued that scientists would bring to the government “a common-sense approach to problem solving,” as well as an instinct for collaboration and a tendency to follow where the facts lead.