U.S. Diplomat Shares Firsthand Tales of International Conflict Resolution
Diplomat, lecturer and author Rick Barton discussed his experience serving as an American ambassador and his recently published book, “Peace Works: America’s Unifying Role in a Turbulent World,” at a Global Public Affairs gathering on Nov. 1, 2018. The ambassador immersed his audience in vivid recollections of his time abroad by weaving in stories of the people he met. Barton spoke of a young woman who became his translator and guide in Sarajevo. Her literal interpretations of Barton’s requests gave him access to vastly diverse spaces in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This allowed him to listen to local voices and better understand the conflict in the region, he said. Local involvement is a guiding principle Barton follows in post-conflict resolution, which “is hard work and it’s modest work,” he said. Building trust with the community through sincere actions is key. “One way you test your sincerity … is how you spend their money and where you put their people,” he said. Barton’s parting advice: Your actions prove your commitment to building lasting peace. Barton spent more than 30 years tackling global conflict, including in 40-plus crisis zones ranging from Haiti to Turkey. He is now a lecturer of public and international affairs at Princeton University. — Myrka Vega
View more photos from the event on Flickr.
Urban Planning Students Take Home Scholarship Awards
Four UCLA Luskin Urban Planning students were winners at the 2018 Women’s Transportation Seminar, Los Angeles Area Chapter, annual scholarship awards dinner held Nov. 8 in downtown Los Angeles. Two doctoral students, Hannah Rae King and Miriam Pinksi, each won Myra L. Frank Memorial Graduate Scholarships of $10,000 and $7,500, respectively. Urban planning master’s student Cassie Halls is the inaugural winner of the $5,000 Stantec scholarship. Halls was also among award winners – with urban planning master’s student Kidada Malloy – at the American Public Transportation Foundation’s annual conference in Nashville this past October. Joceline Suhaimi, a student in UCLA Luskin’s Urban and Regional Studies undergraduate minor, also received a WTS award. Suhaimi, who is majoring in civil engineering, won the Ava Doner Undergraduate Scholarship. “Transportation is a basic human need, and I want to make it accessible to all people, regardless of age, ability, income and car ownership,” said Suhaimi, who will receive $10,000. “This scholarship will allow me to continue education and pursue my career goals.” Allison Yoh, MA UP ’02 Ph.D. ’08, served as co-emcee for the awards. Yoh is now director of transportation planning for the Port of Long Beach. WTS-LA is a chapter of WTS International founded in 1977. The organization has more than 6,500 members (men and women) with 79 chapters in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. — Stan Paul
Preventing Suicide Among Veterans and Other Vulnerable Groups
Experts on suicide, particularly among veterans, led a wide-ranging conversation about risk factors and effective interventions at an event hosted by UCLA Luskin Social Welfare. Professor Mark S. Kaplan shared insights from his extensive research of at-risk populations with the gathering of students and social workers. “What many vulnerable young veterans returning from places like Afghanistan and Iraq needed more than anything else was not a psychiatrist but a social worker, somebody who could help them with that transition into civilian life, somebody who could help them with their family and their community,” he said. “It was really a challenge of reintegration that mattered most; it wasn’t a psychiatric problem.” The Nov. 6, 2018, panel included Susan Pindack, a social worker with the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System; Sam Coleman, a lecturer at Cal State Long Beach and coordinator of the Veterans for Peace PTSD Working Group; and Carolyn Levitan, director of the crisis line at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services’ Suicide Prevention Center. The panel’s broad experience led to an expansive discussion that touched on Civil War fighters who took their own lives, firearm use among female soldiers, the role of pain management in preventing suicide and the impact of the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why.” Students from the Mental Health Caucus at UCLA, one of several event co-sponsors, led a question-and-answer session after the panel presentations. — Mary Braswell
View a Flickr album from the event here.
International Recognition for L.A.’s Food Chain Innovations
Los Angeles’ innovative food purchasing system, spearheaded by UCLA Luskin Urban Planning lecturer Paula Daniels, has been recognized by the United Nations for its impact in promoting sustainable agriculture. The city’s Good Food Purchasing Program creates a food supply chain guided by nutrition, environmental sustainability, animal welfare and impact on local economies. The program was honored for harnessing the buying power of all city departments and the Los Angeles Unified School District to benefit students, growers, distributors and entrepreneurs. Since its launch in 2012, the program has expanded across the United States with support from the Center for Good Food Purchasing. The non-governmental organization is a spin-off of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council founded by Daniels in 2011. The L.A. program was one of eight from around the world to be recognized by the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, the World Future Council and IFOAM Organics International. Daniels accepted the honor on behalf of the city at a ceremony in Rome in October 2018. On the same day, Daniels learned she had received an Ashoka Fellowship, awarded to innovators and entrepreneurs seeking creative solutions to the world’s biggest social challenges. “There’s so much interest, desire, will to make the food system more equitable and environmentally sound,” Daniels said in a Forbes article. “The fact that people are responding to our idea as a way forward for them is incredibly gratifying.”
Urban Planning Alumni Take Awards at ACSP Conference
Two UCLA Luskin Urban Planning alumni received prestigious awards for their work as doctoral students from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning at its annual conference held this year in Buffalo, New York. Sean Kennedy UP Ph.D. ’18 is the winner of the Gill-Chin Lim Award for the best dissertation on international planning. Anne Brown, who also completed her Ph.D. in spring 2018, won the Barclay Gibbs Jones Award for the best dissertation in planning. Brown is the third Luskin alum to do so in the last four years, said Brian Taylor, professor of urban planning and director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the Luskin School. In addition to receiving a cash prize of $1,000, Kennedy was invited to present his paper, “Global Energy Transition and their Contradictions: Emerging Geographies in Energy and Finance in Indonesia and California,” at the ACSP conference. Kennedy is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA. Brown is now an assistant professor in planning, public policy and management at the University of Oregon. Since its publication, Brown’s award-winning work has been noted in the media and was the subject of a Los Angeles Times op-ed she authored on racial discrimination in the taxi industry. Brown received $500 and also was invited to present her dissertation, “Ridehail Revolution: Ridehail Travel and Equity in Los Angeles,” at the conference.
Sean Kennedy, right, with Ashok Das UP Ph.D. ’08
Anne Brown
Fostering Leadership: 2018-2019 Senior Fellows Breakfast
UCLA Luskin hosted an opening breakfast to kick off the 22nd year of the Senior Fellows Leadership Program, a mentoring program that matches UCLA Luskin graduate students with distinguished leaders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors. This program gives students an opportunity to enhance their academic experience by connecting and establishing networks with leaders in their areas of interest. This year, Dean Gary Segura welcomed 12 new Senior Fellows, including several UCLA alumni, in addition to the 36 returning Senior Fellows, making up the largest group of Senior Fellow mentors in the program’s history. Edmund Cain, vice president of grant programming at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and returning Senior Fellow, was the keynote speaker for the Oct. 25, 2018, breakfast, which was organized by UCLA Luskin External Programs and Career Services. The event served as an icebreaker for students and their new Senior Fellow mentors, who will serve as role models for the next generation of leaders in public policy, social welfare and urban planning.
This year’s new Senior Fellow mentors are:
- Bob Alvarez, BA ’88, chief of staff, California State Sen. Cathleen Galgiani
- Michael Alvidrez, MA UP ’83, external ambassador, CEO emeritus, Skid Row Housing Trust
- Cecilia Choi, foreign service officer, U.S. Dept. of State; UCLA Diplomat in Residence
- Honorable Mike Gatto, former California Assembly member, D-43rd District
- Seth Jacobson, MPP ’03, senior director, energy and water programs, Climate Resolve
- Cheryl Mathieu, PhD ’05 (Social Welfare), founder and CEO, AgingPro
- Honorable Brian Nestande, former California Assembly member, R-42nd District
- Berk Özler, lead economist, Development Research Group, The World Bank
- Paco Retana, MSW ’90, vice president of programs, Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic
- Joel Reynolds, western director, senior attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council
- Faye Washington, president & CEO, YWCA Greater Los Angeles
- Emily Williams, MPP ’98, senior deputy for human services and child welfare, Office of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas
For more information about the Senior Fellows Leadership Program or to access a list of all past and returning Senior Fellows, click here.
View more images from the 2018-2019 Senior Fellows Breakfast.
NSF Grant Funds New Approach to Analyzing News Data
The National Science Foundation has awarded a UCLA research team more than $944,000 to develop a framework for integrating massive amounts of data from several types of news sources. The cross-campus collaboration between the Department of Communication and the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs will produce a database that analyzes text, images, video and audio from print, television and online media. “No one has attempted to merge different sources of social and mass media data into one database,” said Assistant Professor of Communication Jungseock Joo, the principal investigator. Using cutting-edge computational methods, the team will build a system to automatically evaluate the data to identify topics, actors, events, sentiments and other large-scale patterns. The team includes UCLA Luskin’s Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld, an assistant professor of public policy who has studied vast troves of social media data in his research into subnational conflict. Steinert-Threlkeld said the new tool will enable researchers, students, policymakers, politicians and ordinary citizens to learn more about how information is disseminated. The team, which includes UCLA Communication faculty members Francis Steen and Tim Groeling, will collaborate with Stanford University’s Jennifer Pan, a specialist on social media data from China. — Mary Braswell
Jungseock Joo
Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld
