Sicong (Summer) Sun

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Sicong “Summer” Sun (they/them) is an Assistant Professor of Social Welfare at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Born and raised in China, Dr. Sun is a first-generation immigrant and a nonbinary queer scholar. They hold a Ph.D. in Social Work and a Master of Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining UCLA, Dr. Sun was a faculty member at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare.

Dr. Sun is broadly interested in race, ethnicity, and immigration, poverty and inequality, social determinants of health, and health equity. As an applied interdisciplinary researcher, their scholarship centers on conceptual and empirical understanding of the intersections of racism, poverty, and health. Central to Dr. Sun’s work is investigating how racial/ethnic inequities in asset holding and financial capability—rooted in historical and contemporary structural racism—serve as upstream social determinants that fundamentally shape the downstream determinants of health and wellbeing across the lifespan. Their recent project examines racial/ethnic differences in the relationship between wealth and health. Dr. Sun’s research aims to inform social policies and programs to advance racial, socioeconomic, and health equity in the U.S. and global contexts.

Dr. Sun’s research has been published in multidisciplinary journals, including the Annual Review of Public Health, SSM-Population Health, Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, Children and Youth Services Review, and Journal of Family and Economic Issues. Among other awards, they have received the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Society for Social Work Research and the Jane Aron Fellowship from the National Association of Social Workers Foundation.

Selected publications:

Sun, S., Chiang, C. J., & Hudson, D. (2024). Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Association Between Parental Wealth and Child Behavioral Problems. Children and Youth Services Review.

Sun, S. (2023). Racial/Ethnic Heterogeneity in Parental Wealth and Substance Use from Adolescence to Young Adulthood. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.

Sun, S. (2023). Building Financial Capability and Assets to Reduce Poverty and Health Disparities: Race/Ethnicity Matters. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 1-20.

Sun, S. , Lee, H., & Hudson, D. (2023). Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Relationship Between Wealth and Health Across Young Adulthood. SSM – Population Health.

Ansong, D., Okumu, M., Huang, J., Sun, S., Huseynli, A., Chowa, G., Ssewamala, F., Sherraden M.S. & Sherraden, M. (2023). Financial Capability and Asset Building: Innovations in Social Protection and Development in Handbook on Social Protection and Social Development in the Global South Edited by Patel, L., Plagerson S., & Chinyoka I.

Chen, Y. C., & Sun, S. (2023). Gender Differences in the Relationship between Financial Capability and Health in Later Life: Evidence from Hong Kong. Innovation in Aging, igad072.

Sun, S. & Chen, Y. C. (2022). Is financial capability a determinant of health? Theory and evidence. Journal of Family and Economic Issues.

Sun, S. Chen, Y. C., Ansong, D., Huang, J., & Sherraden, M.S. (2022). Household financial capability and economic hardship: An empirical examination of the financial capability theory. Journal of Family and Economic Issues.

Sun, S. Huang, J, Hudson, D., Sherraden, M. (2021) Cash transfers and health. Annual Review of Public Health

Tozan, Y., Capasso, A., Sun, S., Neilands, T. B., Damulira, C., Namuwonge F., Nakigozi G., Bahar, O. S., Nabunya, P. Mellins, C. Mckay M. M., & Ssewamala, F. M. (2021). Effects and cost-effectiveness evaluation of a family economic empowerment intervention to increase ARV Adherence among HIV+ adolescents in Uganda. Journal of the International AIDS Society.

Ssewamala, F.M., Wang, J. S. H., Brathwaite, R., Sun, S., Mayo-Wilson, L.J., Neilands, T.B., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2021) Impact of a Family Economic Intervention on Health functioning of Adolescents Impacted by HIV/AIDS: A 5-year Randomized Controlled Trial in Uganda. American Journal of Public Health

Sun, S., Nabunya, P., Byansi, W., Bahar, O. S., Damulira, C., Neilands, T. B., Guo, S., Namuwonge, F. & Ssewamala, F. M. (2020). Access and utilization of financial services among poor HIV-impacted children and families in Uganda. Children and Youth Services Review, 104730.

Tozan, Y., Sun, S., Capasso, A., Wang, J. S. H., Neilands, T. B., Bahar, O. S., Damulira, C. & Ssewamala, F. M. (2019). Evaluation of a savings-led family-based economic empowerment intervention for AIDS-affected adolescents in Uganda: A four-year follow-up on efficacy and cost-effectiveness. PLOS ONE 14(12).

 

Courses of instruction in the program: Foundations of Social Welfare Policy; HBSE: Theoretical Perspectives in Social Work and Social Welfare

For full list of publications please visit their page at:

Google scholar: ‪Sicong (Summer) Sun – ‪Google Scholar

Research Gate: Sicong Sun (researchgate.net)

Connect with them on X: @drsummersun

Sherod Thaxton

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Sherod Thaxton is Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, and former Faculty Director of the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. He also holds secondary appointments in the Department of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and in the Departments of African American Studies and Sociology at the UCLA College of Letters and Sciences. Professor Thaxton teaches Business Crime, Capital Punishment, Criminal Adjudication, Criminal Law, Federal White Collar Crime, Habeas Corpus and Introduction to Legal Analysis. His scholarships centers on quantitative empirical legal studies, with a substantive focus on criminal law, criminal procedure, and the sociology of crime and punishment. Prior to joining UCLA, he taught at the University of Chicago Law School and worked as a federal public defender in Northern California.

After receiving his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of California at Davis, Professor Thaxton enrolled in the sociology program at Emory University and studied under the direction of Robert Agnew. While pursuing his graduate studies, he was the principal investigator of the Death Penalty Tracking Project for the Office of the Multi-County Public Defender in Atlanta, Georgia. At Emory, he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees—specializing in criminology and social psychology. He received his law degree from the University of Chicago Law School where he was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics, an Academy of Achievement student honoree, and a Public Interest Law Prize recipient. He was also an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and the University of Chicago Legal Forum. Prior to law school, he was a Soros Justice Postgraduate Fellow at the Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation and a Law and Social Science Doctoral Fellow at the American Bar Foundation.

 

Bibliography
Articles and Chapters

Shrinking the Accountability Deficit in Capital Charging, in Oxford Handbook of Prosecutors, 565 (edited by Russell Gold, Kay Levine & Ronald Wright, Oxford University Press, 2021). Full Text

How Not to Lie About Affirmative Action, 67 UCLA Law Review 834 (2020). Full Text

Metrics of Mayhem: Quantifying Capriciousness in Capital Cases, in The Eighth Amendment and its Future in a New Age of Punishment, 266 (edited by Meghan Ryan & Will Berry, Cambridge University Press, 2020). Full Text

Reexamining the Link between Parental Knowledge and Delinquency: Unpacking the Influence of Adolescents’ and Parents’ Perceptions (with Heather Scheuerman & Jessica Grosholz), 40 Deviant Behavior 703 (2019). Full Text

When Criminal Coping is Likely: An Examination of Conditioning Effects in General Strain Theory (with Robert Agnew), 34 Journal of Quantitative Criminology 887 (2018). Full Text

Disentangling Disparity: Exploring Racially Disparate Effect and Treatment in Capital Charging, 45 American Journal of Criminal Law 95 (2018). Full Text

Disciplining Death: Assessing and Ameliorating Arbitrariness in Capital Charging, 49 Arizona State Law Journal 137 (2017). Full Text

Race, Place, and Capital Charging in Georgia, 67 Mercer Law Review 529 (2016). Full Text

Un-Gregg-ulated: Capital Charging and the Missing Mandate of Gregg V. Georgia, 11 Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy 145 (2016). Full Text

Leveraging Death, 103 Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 475 (2013). Full Text

Does Victimization Reduce Self-Control? A Longitudinal Analysis (with Robert Agnew, Jessica Grosholz, Deena Isom, Heather Scheuerman, and Lesley Watson), 39 Journal of Criminal Justice 169 (2011). Full Text

Do Frustrated Economic Expectations and Objective Economic Inequity Promote Crime? A Randomized Experiment Testing Agnew’s General Strain Theory (with Nicole Leeper-Piquero, Alex R. Piquero, and Cesar J. Rebellon), 6 European Journal of Criminology 47 (2009). Full Text

A General Strain Theory of Racial Differences in Criminal Offending (with Robert Agnew, Joanne M. Kaufman, and Cesar J. Rebellon), 41 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 421 (2008). Full Text

Determining ‘Reasonableness’ without a Reason? Federal Appellate Review Post-Rita v. United States, 75 University of Chicago Law Review 1885 (2008). Full Text

The Nonlinear Effects of Parental and Teacher Attachment on Delinquency: Disentangling Strain from Social Control Explanations (with Robert Agnew), 21 Justice Quarterly 763 (2004). Full Text

A General Strain Theory Approach to Families and Delinquency (with Robert Agnew and Cesar J. Rebellon), in Families, Crime and Criminal Justice, (edited by Greer L. Fox and Michael L. Benson, JAI Press, 2000). Full Text

José Loya

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José Loya is an Assistant Professor in Urban Planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs and faculty affiliate with the Chicano Studies Research Center. His research addresses Latino issues in urban areas by connecting ethno-racial inequality and contextual forces at the neighborhood, metropolitan, and national levels. His research discusses several topics related to stratification in homeownership, including ethno-racial, gender, and Latino disparities in mortgage access. José received his PhD. at the University of Pennsylvania in Sociology and holds a master’s degree in Statistics from the Wharton School of Business at Penn. Prior to graduate school, José worked for several years in community development and affordable housing in South Florida.

Emily Weisburst

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I am an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. My research focuses on topics in labor economics and public finance, including criminal justice and education.

I recently earned my Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin. While in graduate school, I worked as a Staff Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President and as a research associate for the RAND Corporation on joint projects with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. I have also received the NAED Spencer Dissertation Fellowship to support my research on the impact of funding for police in public schools on student disciplinary outcomes and educational attainment in Texas.

My research interests include understanding factors that impact police decision-making and public trust in police. I am also interested in how interactions with the criminal justice system affect individuals, families and communities. A recent paper examines how much police discretion matters to law enforcement outcomes, after accounting for offense context. In this project, I find that the likelihood that an incident results in an arrest critically depends on the officer that shows up to respond to an offense reported through a police call for service.

For more information about my work, check out my website: emilyweisburst.com

Natalie Bau

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Natalie Bau is an assistant professor of economics and public policy at UCLA. She is an economist studying topics in development and education economics and is particularly interested in the industrial organization of educational markets. She has studied private schooling and teacher compensation in Pakistan, the relationship between negotiation skills and girls’ educational outcomes in Zambia, and the interactions between educational investment and cultural traditions in Indonesia, Zambia, and Ghana.

Dr. Bau received her PhD in public policy from Harvard University, and is currently an affiliate of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the Centre for Economic Policy and Research.  Prior to joining UCLA, she was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Toronto.

Personal Academic Website.

Michael Lens

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Michael Lens is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, Chair of the Luskin Undergraduate Programs, and Associate Faculty Director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. Professor Lens’s research and teaching explore the potential of public policy to address housing market inequities that lead to negative outcomes for low-income families and communities of color. This research involves housing interventions such as subsidies, tenant protections, and production. Professor Lens regularly publishes this work in leading academic journals and his research has won awards from the Journal of the American Planning Association and Housing Policy Debate.

In ongoing research, Professor Lens is studying the neighborhood context of eviction, the role of charter schools in neighborhood change, and is engaged in multiple projects (with Mike Manville and Paavo Monkkonen) concerning housing supply in California. Lens is also working on a book project that examines fifty years of neighborhood change in Black neighborhoods following the 1968 Fair Housing Act.

Professor Lens’s research has received funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the Arnold Foundation, and the Terner Center for Housing Innovation, among other sources.

Professor Lens teaches courses on quantitative analysis, poverty and inequality, community development, housing policy, and research methods.

For an appointment, please send an email.

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

It’s Time to End Single-Family Zoning
Journal of the American Planning Association (Forthcoming)
With Michael Manville and Paavo Monkkonen
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Extremely Low-Income Households, Housing Affordability and the Great Recession
Urban Studies 55(8): 1615-1635
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Spatial Job Search, Residential Job Accessibility, and Employment Outcomes for Returning Parolees
Demography 54: 755-800
With Naomi Sugie
Download file

Employment Proximity and Outcomes for Moving to Opportunity Families
Journal of Urban Affairs 39(3): 547-562
With C.J. Gabbe
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Job Accessibility Among Housing Subsidy Recipients
Housing Policy Debate 24(4): 671-691
Best Paper of 2013-14, Housing Policy Debate
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The Impact of Housing Vouchers on Crime in U.S. Cities and Suburbs
Urban Studies 51(6): 1274-1289
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The Limits of Housing Investment as a Revitalization Tool: Crime in New York City
Journal of the American Planning Association 79(3): 211-221
Best Article of 2014, Journal of the American Planning Association
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Safe, but Could be Safer: Why do Voucher Households Live in Higher Crime Neighborhoods?
Cityscape 15(3): 131-152
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Subsidized Housing and Crime: Theory, Mechanisms, and Evidence
Journal of Planning Literature 28(4): 352-363
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American Murder Mystery Revisited: Do Housing Voucher Households  Cause Crime?
Housing Policy Debate, 22(4): 551-574
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Do Vouchers Help Low-Income Households Live in Safer Neighborhoods? Evidence on the Housing Choice Voucher Program (with Ingrid Gould Ellen and Katherine O’Regan)
2011, Cityscape, 13(3): 135-159
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Robin Liggett

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Before retiring, Professor Liggett held a joint appointment between the Department of Architecture in the School of the Arts and Architecture and the Department of Urban Planning in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA where she taught courses in quantitative methods and computer applications in Architecture and Urban Planning.

Professor Liggett received her PhD and MS in Operations Research from the UCLA Graduate School of Management and a BA in Mathematics from Pomona College.

Professor Liggett continues to participate in a number of research projects related to Transportation Planning and Computer-Aided Design. Her most recent projects include the evaluation of multi-modal street performance measures, predictors of bicycle and pedestrian crashes, and the development of computer tools for analysis of the energy implications of climate on the design of buildings.

 

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

The Geography of Transit Crime. Documentation and Evaluation of Crime Incidence on and around the Green Line Stations in Los Angeles
Loukaitou-Sideres, A., Liggett, R., and Iseki, H., Journal of Planning Education and Research 22, 2002, pp. 135-161.

Very Simple Design Tools: A Web Based Assistant for the Design of Climate Responsive Buildings
La Roche, P., and Liggett, R., Architectural Science Review, Vol. 44, December 2001, pp. 437-448.

Journeys to Crime: Assessing the Effects of a Light Rail on Crime in the Neighborhoods
Liggett, R., Loukaitou-Sideres, A., and Iseki, H., Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2003, pp. 85-115.
Protecting Against Transit Crime: The Importance of the Built Environment
Liggett, Robin, Loukaitou-Sideris, Anastasia and Iseki, Hiroyuki, in Daniel J. B. Mitchell (ed.), California Policy Options 2004, UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research and The Ralph and Goldy Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, January 2004, pp. 139-156.

Todd Franke

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Trained in social work and educational psychology, Professor Franke seeks to achieve a better understanding of, and improve the responsiveness of service systems in the fields of social services, education and health. Using cognitive theory to better define policy issues related to the integration of these two important fields, Dr. Franke’s research has focused in part on the impact of disability and chronic illness on school-age children. He is currently conducting a study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on the use of personal assistance services for children with disabilities. In addition, Dr. Franke studies how adolescents solve social problems; urban mobility and its impact on children’s education and social development; and how to successfully integrate health and social services in school settings.

Dr. Franke is active in several local and regional efforts to restructure social services in the schools, helping to conceptualize planning and implementation and the design of evaluation measures in Los Angeles Unified School District, the country’s second-largest school district. He also serves as a consultant to local school districts for the preparation of funding proposals for Healthy Start, a state program to establish linkages between community social service agencies and schools. HIs primary work occurs at the intersection of youth violence (child welfare and gang involved youth) and education. In these areas he designs and undertakes evaluative research and has obtained over $9 million in research funding over the past 7 years. He is currently the Associate Director of the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities.

Dr. Franke has been involved with agencies that serve thousands of families representing unique geographic and cultural communities in California, particularly southern California counties. He recently prepared a report for the Los Angeles City Council which examines the measurement issues involved in assessing the success of gang-related and youth development prevention and intervention programs in the city. The link between involvement in the child welfare system and gang involvement is well documented. Dr. Franke is currently the Co-PI of the Best Start LA Initiative which aims to shape, strengthen and support five Los Angeles communities by building resources and providing access to activities that improve the well-being, development and care experienced by pregnant women, parents of newborns and children age 3 and under.

Dr. Franke was also the Principal Investigator for the First 5 LA-funded Partnership for Families Initiative, which is a secondary prevention initiative that is designed to prevent child maltreatment in vulnerable families. Dr. Franke has been the PI for the Small County Initiative, which was designed to systematically examine California’s efforts to build and enhance child abuse and neglect prevention efforts in 11 rural counties in northern California. Additionally, he has numerous years of experience in conducting cross-sectional and longitudinal research in the fields of education, child welfare and adolescent violence.