Ron Avi Astor

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Ron Avi Astor holds the Marjorie Crump Chair Professorship in Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs with a joint appointment in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His work examines the role of the physical, social-organizational and cultural contexts in schools related to different kinds of bullying and school violence (e.g., sexual harassment, cyber bullying, discrimination hate acts, school fights, emotional abuse, weapon use, teacher/child violence). This work documents the ecological influences of the family, community, school and culture on different forms of bullying and school violence. This work has been used worldwide. Astor’s studies have included tens of thousands of schools and millions of students, teachers, parents and administrators. Over the past 20 years, findings from these studies have been published in more than 200 scholarly manuscripts.

Along with his colleague Rami Benbenishty, Astor developed a school mapping and monitoring procedure that is used “at scale” regionally and with local students and teachers to generate “grassroots” solutions to safety problems. The findings of these studies have been widely cited in the international media, in the United States, and Israel.

Astor’s work has won numerous international research awards from the Society for Social Work Research, the American Psychological Association, the American Educational Research Association, the Military Child Educational Coalition and other research organizations. He has an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College. Astor is a fellow of APA, AERA, and an elected member of the National Academy of Education and American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.

His work has been funded by the Department of Defense Educational Activity, National Institutes of Mental Health, H.F. Guggenheim Foundation, National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Israeli Ministry of Education, a Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship, University of Michigan, USC and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and other foundations.

James Lubben

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James Lubben is Professor Emeritus at UCLA where he taught for 20 years and was Associate Dean and Department Chair. He is also Professor Emeritus at Boston College where he was the Louise McMahon Ahearn Endowed Professor in Social Work for 15 years. During his 35 years in the academy, Dr. Lubben mentored over 200 doctoral students and junior faculty. He served on over 50 doctoral dissertation committees and secured dissertation research funding for over 150 doctoral students. He has published over 125 peer reviewed articles and chapters and edited 7 books. He has been a principal investigator or collaborator on over $35 million (direct costs) of research and training grants.

The primary aim of his research examines social isolation as a behavioral health risk among older populations. To carry out this research, he developed the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS), an abbreviated measure designed for both research and clinical use among older populations. The LSNS has been translated into many languages and employed in studies throughout the world. Scores on the LSNS have been associated with a wide array of health indicators including mortality, morbidity, psychological distress and loneliness, cognitive impairment, and health care use.

Dr. Lubben served many years as a consultant to the World Health Organization regarding health and welfare systems development for aging societies.  He also served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist to Chile. Dr. Lubben served four terms (12 years) on the congressionally mandated Gerontology and Geriatrics Advisory Committee for the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He was elected to three different national boards for social work education: Society for Social Work and Research, Council on Social Work Education, and the Group to Advance Doctoral Education. He also served two terms (6 years) on the Executive Committee for the Grand Challenges in Social Work Initiative sponsored by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. Dr. Lubben is a Fellow in the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and also a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America.

Selected Publications

Chi, I., Chappell, N. L., & Lubben, J.   (2001). Elderly Chinese in Pacific Rim Countries – Social Support and Integration.  Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Lubben, JE, Blozik, E, Gillmann, G, Iliffe, S, Kruse, WR, Beck, JC, Stuck, AE. (2006). Performance of an Abbreviated Version of the Lubben Social Network Scale among Three European Community-Dwelling Older Adult Populations. The Gerontologist, 46(4):503–513.

Crooks, VC, Lubben, JE, Petti, DB, Little, D & Chiu, V. (2008). Social Network, Cognitive Function and Dementia Incidence in Elderly Women. American Journal of Public Health. 98:1221-1227.  PMCID: PMC2424087

Lubben, JE. (2009). Cultivating a New Generation of Scholars: The Hartford Doctoral Fellows Program.  In NR Hooyman (Ed.), Transforming Social Work Education: The First Decade of the Hartford Geriatric Social Work Initiative. (pp. 79-97). Alexandria, VA: Council on Social Work Education Press.

Sabbath, EL, Lubben, JE, Goldberg, M, Berkman, LF (2015). Social engagement across the retirement transition among young-old adults in the French GAZEL cohort. European Journal of Ageing 12(4): 311-320.  PMCID: PMC5549155

Lubben, J. (2017).  Addressing social isolation as a potent killer! Public Policy & Aging Report. 27(4):136-138.

Fong, R., Lubben, J. & R. Barth, R.P. (Eds.). (2018). Grand Challenges for social work and society: Social progress powered by science. New York and Washington, DC: Oxford University Press.

Vilar-Compte, M; Vargas-Bustamante, A & Lubben, J. (2018). Validation study of the abbreviated version of the Lubben Social Network Scale Spanish translation among Mexican and Mexican-American older adults. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology. 33:83-99.

Lachman, M. E., Lipsitz, L., Lubben, J., Castaneda-Sceppa, C., & Jette, A. M. (2018). When Adults Don’t Exercise: Behavioral Strategies to Increase Physical Activity in Sedentary Middle-Aged and Older Adults. Innovation in Aging, 2(1), gy007. http://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igy007. PMCID: PMC6037047

V. Kelly Turner

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Kelly Turner (she/her) is an associate professor of urban planning and geography and serves as associate director of the Luskin Center for Innovation (LCI). She leads LCI’s research on heat equity which provides evidence-based approaches to protect people, especially vulnerable populations, where they live and work.

Dr. Turner’s current research encompasses heat governance and policy, planning for climate resilient communities, and producing actionable data for heat-health equity. Her work has been published in Nature, Environmental Research Letters, and the Journal of the American Planning Association and funded by the National Science Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Strategic Growth Council of California. She has served as a panelist for the National Academy of Sciences and as a Science Advisor to the Arsht-Rockefeller Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance.

Dr. Turner prioritizes science communication to broad audiences. She is co-author on LCI’s Heat Policy Brief Series and regularly advises local and state officials on heat policy. She is an Association of American Geographers Elevate the Discipline Climate and Society Communications Fellow and serves on the executive committee for the Environment and Climate Change Literacy Projects. She regularly appears on television, radio, and print media including CNN, NPR, and NBC. She has published an OpEd in the LA Times and produced several murals with local artists using Cool Paint.

She received a doctoral degree in geography from the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Wellesley College.

Publications

Ye, X., Turner, VK., and She, B. 2018. Automating land subdivision database cleaning and merging for neighborhood-scale urban analysis. International Journal of Digital Earth: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538947.2018.1502370

Turner, V.K. and Kaplan, DH. 2018. Geographic Perspectives on Urban Sustainability: Past, Current, and Future Research Trajectories. Urban Geography. Online: https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2018.1475545

Mapes, J., Kaplan, D., Turner, VK., and Willer, C. 2017. Building ‘College Town’: Economic Redevelopment and the Construction of Community. Local Economy, 32(7).

Turner, V.K. and Galletti, C. May 24, 2017. Addressing Climate Change through Design: A Land Systems Science Approach to Assessing Microclimate Regulation in New Urbanist Developments. Public Square: A CNU Journal. Available Online: https://www.cnu.org/sites/default/files/2017_NewUrbanResearch_AddressingClimateChangeThroughDesign_TurnerGalletti.pdf

Turner, V.K. 2017. Developing Sustainable Cities: The Real Estate Rigidity Trap. Ecology and Society, 22(2):1.

Turner, V.K., Jarden, K.*, and Jefferson, A. 2016. Resident perspectives on green infrastructure in an experimental suburban stormwater management program. Cities & the Environment, 9(1): 4.

Turner, V.K. 2016. How do conventional master planning processes facilitate or constrain sustainable urbanism? An environmental management perspective. Society & Natural Resources, 29(12):1483-1500.

Shook, E. and Turner, V.K. 2016. The Socio-Environmental Data Explorer (SEDE): A Social Media Enhanced Decision Support System to Explore Risk Perception to Hazard Events. 2016. Cartography and GIS. DOI:10.1080/15230406.2015.1131627

Minn, M., Cutts, BB., Greenberg, JA., Fraterrigo, JM., and Turner, VK. 2015. Detection of Foreclosure-related Landscape Management Changes Using Landsat. Applied Geography, 62: 217-224.

Turner, V.K. and C.S. Galletti. 2015. Do sustainable urban designs generate more ecosystem services? A Case Study of Civano, Tucson, Arizona, USA. The Professional Geographer, 67(2):204-217.

Turner, V.K., K. Benessaiah, S. Warren, and D. Iwaneic. 2015. Essential Tensions in Interdisciplinary Environment-Society Research Centers. Higher Education, 70 (4):649-665.

Turner, V.K. 2014. Institutional Barriers to Sustainable Urban Development: A Case Study of Civano in Tucson, Arizona. Cities and the Environment, 7(2): 5.

Lerman, S.B., V.K. Turner, and C. Bang. 2012. Biodiversity in suburban developments: Homeowners Associations as a vehicle for promoting urban biodiversity. Ecology and Society, 17(4):45.

Turner, V.K. and D.C. Ibes. 2011. The Impact of Homeowners Associations on Residential Water Demand Management in Phoenix, AZ. Urban Geography, 32(8):1167-1188.

Elin, N. and V.K. Turner. 2010. Recycling the City: Darning Downtown Phoenix. Critical Planning, 17:155-173.

 

Liz Koslov

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Liz Koslov is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, where she studies the social dimensions of climate change, questions of environmental and climate justice, and how cities are adapting to effects such as extreme weather and sea-level rise.

Recent publications include pieces on sociology and the climate crisis, flood maps, and the possibilities for collective climate adaptation amidst denial and public silence. Her current book project, Retreat: Moving to Higher Ground in a Climate-Changed City, offers an ethnographic account of “managed retreat” from the coast in New York City after Hurricane Sandy. Koslov’s research on this topic has been cited in outlets such as Scientific American,The New Yorker, and WWNO New Orleans Public Radio.

Prior to joining UCLA, Koslov was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at MIT.

Amada Armenta

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Amada Armenta’s research examines the connections between the immigration enforcement system and the criminal justice system, and the implications of this connection for immigrants, bureaucracies, and cities.

Her award-winning book, “Protect Serve and Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration Enforcement” (University of California Press, 2017), analyzes the role of local law enforcement agencies in immigration enforcement in Nashville, Tennessee. Currently, she is working on her second book project, an examination of the legal attitudes of unauthorized Mexican immigrants in Philadelphia.

Dr. Armenta’s research has been published in journals of sociology, law and society, and policy. She has received research funding from the American Sociological Association, the National Science Foundation, the American Society of Criminology, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Prior to joining Luskin as a faculty member, she was an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Amy Ritterbusch

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Dr. Amy E. Ritterbusch is an Assistant Professor of Social Welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her work illuminates both the theory and practice of participatory action research (PAR), invoking the Latin American origins of this mode of inquiry, and focuses on multiple forms of state violence perpetrated against what she and activist co-authors refer to as ‘street-connected’ communities, including children and youth who depend on the streets for survival in the absence of other caring structures. Dr. Ritterbusch leads PAR collectives in Colombia and Uganda that work in solidarity with street-connected-communities against police violence and forced displacement.

The urgency of action, from the streets toward policy, is a key focus of Dr. Ritterbusch’s scholarship, and her work offers methodological and theoretical insights on how to do PAR with historically marginalized communities in ways that repel extractive, unilateral, and colonial modes of traditional scientific inquiry.  Throughout her research and teaching career, she has explored different forms of radical accompaniment of social leaders on the frontlines in the global South and continues to imagine new pathways forward toward a Fals Bordian ciencia popular involving the collective work of movements and academics in protective spaces that grow in distance from both the non-profit and academic industrial complex.

Dr. Ritterbusch’s scholarship involves public intellectual work in the global South including human rights shadow reports, street-level organizing and collective writing that seeks to influence policy outcomes for social justice. Her research has been funded by the Open Society Foundations, the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright U.S. Program and other networks promoting global social justice.

 

Selected Collective and Individual Publications:

Correa-Salazar, C., Martínez, L., Maldonado Salamanca, D., Ruiz, Y., Rocío Guarín, L.,  Hernández Guarín, A.,  & Ritterbusch, A. (2022) Reflections on activism, the academy and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex in Colombia: What a revolutionary ethos might look like, Global Public Health

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2022.2042354

Ritterbusch, A., Simbaqueba Gomez, A.L., Restrepo, J., Montes, N., Rentería, C., Velazco, Y., García Jaramillo, S. & Maldonado, D. (2021). Growing Up Guerreándola: On Adolescent Formations of Conscientização in Colombia. The Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 48(4): 118-146.

DOI: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol48/iss4/7

Ritterbusch, A., Pinzon, E., Reyes, R., Pardo, J., Jaime, D., Correa-Salazar, C. (2020). ‘I feel safer in the streets than at home’: Rethinking harm reduction for women in the urban margins. Global Public Health. 15(10): 1479-1495.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2020.1751234

Ritterbusch, A. & El Cilencio. (2020). ‘We will always be street’: Remembering the L in Bogotá, Colombia. City. 24(1-2): 210-219.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2020.1739915

Ritterbusch, A., Boothby, N., Mugumya, F., Wanican, J., Bangirana, C.,   Nyende, N., Ampumuza, D., Apota, J.  & Meyer, S. (2020). Pushing the Limits of Child Participation in Research and Policy-Making: Reflections from a Youth-Driven Participatory Action Research (YPAR) Initiative in Uganda. International  Journal of  Qualitative Methods. 19:1-12.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406920958962

Ritterbusch, A. (2019). Empathy at Knifepoint: The Dangers of Research and Lite Pedagogies for Social Justice Movements. Antipode 51(4): 1296-1317.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12530

Human Rights Reports

Comisión Ciudadana Nacional e Internacional (National and International Citizen Commission). (2022). “En Colombia Nos Volvimos Cifras”: Informe para el esclarecimiento de los hechos occuridos el 9, 10 y 11 de septiembre de 2020 en Bogotá y Soacha [In Colombia We Became Numbers’: Shadow Report for the Historical Clarification of the [Police Brutalities] Occurring on the 9th, 10th and 11th of September of 2020 in Bogotá and Soacha]. Bogotá: CCEEU (La Coordinación Colombia Europa Estados Unidos) Available online:

https://www.cinep.org.co/es/informe-en-colombia-nos-volvimos-cifras/

https://coeuropa.org.co/en-colombia-nos-volvimos-cifras/

Simbaqueba, A., Restrepo, J. & Ritterbusch, A. (2020). Vidas y territorios en disputa: dolor, memoria y lucha de la población LGBTI en las laderas [Lives and territories in dispute: Pain, memory and struggle of the LGBTQ community in the urban margins]. National Truth Commission. Bogotá, Colombia.

Available online: https://issuu.com/vidas_territorios_en_disputa/docs/vidas_y_territorios_en_disputa_–_dolor__memoria_y

Blandón, T., Espinosa, J., González, T., Camacho Iannini, S.I., Juanita, Llano Agudelo, A., Fonseca, C., González Coy, P., Guardiola Navarro, A.C., Leguízamo Parales, M.V., Maldonado Salamanca, D., Pérez, C., Pérez, G., Romero, A., Ruiz, Y., Salamanca Cortés, J., Sarasty, A.S., Uribe Durán, S., Victoria Mena, P., Weinstein, L., Summer, V., Ritterbusch, A. & González, M. (2019). Sueños furiosos: Aportes para la construcción de una agenda política trans [Furious Dreams: Contributions for the Construction of a Trans Political Agenda]. Institute on Inequality and Democracy. Luskin School of Public Affairs, UCLA.

Available online:

https://challengeinequality.luskin.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2019/09/Ritterbusch-Amy-SUE%C3%91OS-FURIOSOS.pdf

Tovar, M., Trejos, C., Giraldo, Y., Delgado, G., Lanz, A., Lanz, S., León, S., Lloreda, A., Pardo, L., Morales, A., Salamanca, J & Ritterbusch, A. (2017). Destapando la olla: Informe sombra sobre la intervención en el Bronx [Uncovering the Pot: Shadow Report on the [Police] Intervention in El Bronx]. Bogotá: Impresol Ediciones.

Available online:

https://issuu.com/cpat_ong/docs/destapando_la_olla_

Cubides Kovacsics, M.I., Lloreda, A., Pardo, L., Picasso, N., Lanz, A., Ritterbusch, A., Montoya, M.J., Guzmán, Y., Cocomá, A., Rubianogroot, M., Vargas, M.A., Chaux, S. (2016). Ley Entre Comillas: Informe de Derechos Humanos del Observatorio de Trabajo Sexual [. Bogotá: Parces – PAIIS.

Available online:

https://issuu.com/adrianamarialloreda/docs/ley_entre_comillas_informe_ddhh_tra

Chris Zepeda-Millán

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Biography:

Born and raised in the East Los Angeles barrio of Boyle Heights, Chris Zepeda-Millán was the first Chicano to receive a Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Cornell University. His research has been published in top political science and interdisciplinary academic journals, such as the American Journal of Political Science (AJPS), Political Research Quarterly (PRQ), Politics, Groups and Identities (PGI), Critical Sociology, the Chicana/o Latina/o Law Review, Social Science Quarterly (SSQ), and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS). His first book, Latino Mass Mobilization: Immigration, Racialization, and Activism (Cambridge University Press) received multiple national honors, including the prestigious Ralph J. Bunche “Best Book on Ethnic and Cultural Pluralism Award” from the American Political Science Association (APSA), the “Best Book on Race and Immigration Award” from the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics (REP) Section of the APSA, and the coveted “Charles Tilly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship  Book Award” from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements. He is currently working on multiple research projects, including a co-authored book tentatively titled, Walls, Cages, and Family Separation: Immigration Policy in the Time of Trump (2020).

As a publicly engaged scholar, Professor Zepeda-Millán has been interviewed by several local, national, and international media outlets. His public intellectual work includes working with local and national community organizations, publishing op-eds in local newspapers across the country, and being an invited contributor to NBC News, Latino Decisions, the London School of Economics’ USA blog, The Progressive magazine, and The Huffington Post. Professor Zepeda-Millan has also been involved in various social movements related to environmental and global justice, labor, student, immigrant, and indigenous rights.

Prior to joining the Departments of Public Policy and Chicana/o Studies and becoming the Director of Faculty Research for the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative (LPPI) at UCLA, Professor Zepeda-Millán was a Provost Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago, as well as a faculty member at Loyola Marymount University and UC Berkeley, where he chaired the Center for Research on Social Change. More information about his research and teaching can be found at zepedamillan.com.

Courses:

Immigration Policy
Latino Politics
Labor Unions & Politics
Social Movements
Racial Politics
Interdisciplinary Research Methods
Urban Politics

Books:

Latino Mass Mobilization: Immigration, Racialization, and Activism (Cambridge University Press 2017).

Selected Articles & Book Chapters:

“Mobilizing for Immigrant Rights Under Trump.”
With Sophia Wallace. Charting the Resistance: The Emergence of the Movement Against President Donald Trump. Eds. Sidney Tarrow and David Mayer (Forthcoming, Oxford University Press).

“The Political Effects of Having Undocumented Parents: How Parental Illegality Impacts the Political Behavior of their U.S.-Born Children.”
With Alex Street and Michael Jones-Correa. Political Research Quarterly. Vol. 70 (4): 818-832, 2017.

“The Impact of Large-Scale Collective Action on Latino Perceptions of Commonality and Competition with African-Americans.”
With Michael Jones-Correa and Sophia Wallace. Social Science Quarterly (SSQ), Vol. 97 (2): 458-475, 2016.

“Weapons of the (Not So) Weak: Immigrant Mass Mobilization in the U.S. South.”
Critical Sociology, Vol. 42 (2): 269-287, 2016.

“Mass Deportation and the Future of Latino Partisanship.”
With Alex Street and Michael Jones-Correa. Social Science Quarterly (SSQ), Vol. 96 (2): 540-552, 2015.

“Perceptions of Threat, Demographic Diversity, and the Framing of Illegality: Explaining (non)Participation in New York’s 2006 Immigrant Protests.”
Political Research Quarterly (PRQ), 67(4): 880-888, 2014.

“Triangulation in Social Movement Research.”
With Phil M. Ayoub and Sophia J. Wallace. Methodological Practices In Social Movement Research. Donatella della Porta (Ed.), Oxford University Press, 2014.

“Spatial and Temporal Proximity:  Examining the Effects of the 2006 Immigrant Rights Marches on Political Attitudes.”
With Sophia Wallace and Michael Jones-Correa. American Journal of Political Science (AJPS), 58(2): 433-448, 2014.

“Racialization in Times of Contention:  How Social Movements Influence Latino Racial Identity.”
With Sophia Wallace. Politics, Groups, and Identities (PGI), 1(4): 510-527, 2013.

“Undocumented Immigrant Activism and Rights.”
Battleground Immigration: The New Immigrants, Vol. 2., Ed. Judith Warner, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008.

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.