Area of Interest: Civic Engagement

Merhawi Tesfai

August 3, 2022/in Social Welfare Child and Family Well-Being, Civic Engagement, Education, Mental and Behavioral Health, Racial Disparity PhD PhD Students /by Ervin Huang

Merhawi Tesfa is an incoming first year doctoral student in the Department of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He received his Bachelor of arts in African American Studies as well as his Masters of Social Work and a Masters of Public Policy from UCLA. He is a former McNair Research Scholar and has engaged in a variety of research around race and inequality through the Bunche Center, the Million Dollar Hoods policy team, and the Black Policy Project.

In his doctoral studies, Merhawi is interested in working with students from underrepresented groups to understand the barriers they face outside of the classroom that hinder their educational progress. He is also interested in how these barriers factor into their ability to progress from K-12 to higher education.

Merhawi is also currently serving as student regent-designate on the UC Board of Regents to represent the needs of students across the University of California system.

David C. Turner III

July 26, 2022/in Social Welfare Civic Engagement, Criminal Justice, Social Movements All Faculty, Senate/Field/Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Oliver Ike

Dr. David C. Turner III is an Assistant Professor of Black Life and Racial Justice in the Department of Social Welfare at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA. He is also a faculty affiliate with the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, and the associate director of the Million Dollar Hoods Project on campus. As an activist scholar from Inglewood, California, his research broadly focuses on social movements, political identity, and resistance to the prison regime. More specifically, Dr. Turner examines the ways that Black boys and young men work to resist the carceral landscape alongside their peers in community-based educational spaces. He has published numerous articles and book chapters, including manuscripts in the American Educational Research Journal, Theory Into Practice, Abolition: A Journal of Insurgent Politics, The Journal of Research on Adolescence, and others. As a community organizer, Dr. Turner brings over a decade of movement-building experience to the classroom, having worked to negotiate and win demands for racial justice, secure funding, divest resources from carceral and harmful institutions, and coordinate actions across the state of California and the nation, all while teaching at both the K-12 and the postsecondary level.

Dr. Turner worked across LA County with boys and men of color as the manager of the Brothers, Sons, Selves Coalition, where he co-led campaigns to change school discipline practices, support investments in youth development, and end policies and practices that lead to criminalization in communities of color. For his commitment to both advocacy-based research and grassroots leadership, Dr. Turner was selected as an inaugural fellow in the John W. Mack Movement Building Fellows Program with the Weingart Foundation and a Data Fellow with the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color and the Tableau Foundation. Dr. Turner currently serves as the senior advisor for the Alliance for Boys and Men of Color.

Dr. Turner has participated in the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) as a political education and research specialist, helping organizations with teach-ins, designing curricula, and community-based participatory action research, most notably as a member of the research team with Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and the People’s Budget, and a co-founding member of the Police-Free LAUSD Coalition. Dr. Turner has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education, NBC BLK, the Los Angeles Times, Spectrum 1 News, and the New York Times for his activism and applied scholarship.

Education

Ph.D., Social and Cultural Studies in Education, UC Berkeley

M.S.Ed. Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania

B.A. (Cum Laude) in Africana Studies, California State University, Dominguez Hills

Email

dcturner@ucla.edu

Areas of Interests

Social movements, youth and community organizing, school discipline, juvenile and criminal justice, participatory action research, Black boys and men, Abolitionist Organizing

Office Location

5240 Public Affairs Building

In the News

The People’s Budget on “Inside the Issues” with Alex Cohen. Spectrum 1 News Aired 5/15/2023

https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/inside-the-issues/2023/05/15/california-faces–31-5-billion-budget-deficit#

LA Coalition Report Urges Alternative Solutions to School Police on LAUSD Campuses (February 1st, 2023) San Fernando Valley Sun Times https://sanfernandosun.com/2023/02/01/la-coalition-report-urges-alternative-solutions-to-school-police-on-lausd-campuses/

Stop attacking activists — political change at City Hall wouldn’t exist without them (December 16th, 2022) Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-16/la-city-hall-political-shakeup-was-spurred-by-confrontation

Wake Up, Democrats. Don’t Let Republicans Own the Issue of Violent Crime (November 7th, 2022). Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-11-07/violent-crime-issue-midterm-elections-politics-republicans

Tableau Conference 2022 Feature – Dr. David C. Turner III

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLMEEUQaJ0U

City Rising – Youth and Democracy. PBS Southern California. Aired 10/20/2020 https://www.pbssocal.org/programs/city-rising/city-rising-youth-democracy-xkjbp5/

Reflections on Race: A Closer Look at Racial and Social Equity. Aired 7/7/2020

https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/human-interest/2020/07/29/reflections-on-race–a-closer-look-at-racial-and-social-equity

Sara Wilf

October 4, 2019/in Social Welfare Adolescence, Civic Engagement, Critical Consciousness, Digital Organizing and Activism, Emerging adulthood, Social media, Sociopolitical Development PhD, PhD Jobseeker PhD Students /by Oliver Ike

Sara Wilf is a third-year doctoral student in Social Welfare. She uses quantitative and qualitative methods to explore youth civic engagement and youth-led change, with a focus on social media as a context. In her research, she seeks to amplify young people’s agency in creating sociopolitical change and imagining better futures. Her work has been supported by the Frank D. Gilliam Jr. Social Justice Award (2020, 2021), the Bedari Kindness Institute Summer Fellowship (2020), and the Graduate Research Mentorship (2021). She is an affiliate with the UCLA Race, Ethnicity, Politics & Society (REPS) Lab, and co-founding member of UC Survivors + Allies.

Previously, Sara worked in research and evaluation with youth-focused nonprofits in India, Chile, and the U.S. Sara graduated with an MPA in Social Policy from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and she also holds a BA in Comparative Literature – Spanish and English from Brown University, where she graduated magna cum laude.

You can follow Sara on Twitter at @SaraBWilf or learn more about her research at www.sarawilf.com.

Carlos Santos

August 23, 2018/in Social Welfare Activism, Adolescents, Children and Families, Civic Engagement, Educational Attainment, Ethnic-Racial Identity, Gender Identity, Heterosexism, Mental Health, Racism, Sexual Identity Carlos Santos All Faculty, Senate/Field/Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Mike Alvarez

Carlos E. Santos is Associate Professor of Social Welfare in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He holds an undergraduate and doctoral degree in developmental psychology from NYU. He completed his master’s in education at Harvard University. His research focuses on ethnic-racial, gender, and sexual minority identity in relation to various developmental outcomes using an intersectional approach. He employs developmental theories and empirical methodologies in order to study the contexts within which identities are formed, develop, and change over time among primarily Latinx youth. His research has also explored legal consciousness among Latinx youth and the development of these youth in state level contexts that are socially and politically hostile towards immigrants. His empirical contributions with colleagues were recognized as “pioneering” (Jugert et al., 2020, p. 949, Child Development) in showing the effects of peers and peer networks on ethnic-racial identity. He was awarded multiple early career awards for achievement in research from three different national professional associations. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Santos is a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Forum on Children’s Well-Being. He is a principal grant reviewer for the US Dept of Ed/IES, an ad hoc reviewer for NSF, and a former Associate Editor of the Journal of Adolescent Research. His co-edited book, Studying Ethnic Identity: Methodological and Conceptual Approaches Across Disciplines, was published by the American Psychological Association Press in 2015.

Laura Wray-Lake

May 10, 2016/in Social Welfare Adolescents, Children and Families, Civic Engagement, Education, Empowerment, Equity, Political Behavior, Social Responsibility, Youth Development Laura Wray-Lake All Faculty, Senate/Field/Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Les Dunseith

Dr. Laura Wray-Lake’s research is primarily focused on youth civic engagement. The starting point for this research is the assumption that adolescents and young adults hold abundant potential and act as positive change agents and address society’s problems on local, national, and global scales. In Dr. Wray-Lake’s work, civic engagement is intentionally broadly defined to include behaviors as well as values, skills, knowledge, and motivations; political and helping-oriented forms of engagement; and informal and formal ways of being civically engaged. Her work also prioritizes young people’s own definitions of civic engagement, as youth are continually reimagining ways of being civically engaged that align with their opportunities and contexts.

Grounded in a developmental perspective, Dr. Wray-Lake uses quantitative and qualitative methodologies to understand how and why young people become civically engaged. Her research has documented developmental change over time in different forms of civic engagement, examined factors that promote and hinder youth civic engagement, and considered the role of culture, context, and historical time in shaping youth civic engagement. Dr. Wray-Lake has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and an SRCD Monograph entitled Pathways to Civic Engagement among Urban Youth of Color. Her forthcoming book, written with a team of colleagues, is called Young Black Changemakers and the Road to Racial Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Dr. Wray-Lake’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Templeton Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Haynes Foundation, and AmeriCorps. She received the Mid-Career Award for Research Excellence from the Society for Research on Adolescence in 2020.

Current Research Projects Include:

A longitudinal study of youth activism in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to understand experiences of youth activists with different social identities.
A mixed-methods study of ageism against adolescents to understand the negative stereotypes adults have of adolescents that can hinder civic engagement and thriving.

Dr. Wray-Lake is a member of the Vote16 Research Network, a collaborative of researchers, advocates, government officials, and educators working to study the impact and implementation of lowering the voting age to 16. She has written several pieces, including for Perspectives on Psychological Science, that review evidence showing that 16 and 17-year-olds are capable and ready for the right to vote.

Dr. Wray-Lake is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Research on Adolescence, and recently co-edited a special series on Dismantling Systems of Racism and Oppression during Adolescence focused on Black youth; Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) youth; and resistance and activism among youth of color.

A full list of Dr. Wray-Lake’s publications can be found on google scholar or ResearchGate. Please contact Dr. Wray-Lake for a copy of any publication.

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