Archive for category: For Undergraduates

Category to differentiate content of interest to students in the undergraduate major in public affairs.

UCLA Team Wins $7.5 Million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE Researchers developed technology for turning carbon dioxide into concrete

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By Christine Wei-li Lee

A group of UCLA engineers has become the first university team to win the grand prize in the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE global competition. By mitigating the carbon footprint of concrete, the team’s invention could eventually be a major step in the global battle against climate change.

The UCLA CarbonBuilt team, led by Gaurav Sant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, won $7.5 million in the competition’s track for technologies related to coal-fired power generation.

The winning technology is a first-of-its-kind, eco-friendly approach for taking carbon dioxide emissions directly from power plants and other industrial facilities — emissions that would otherwise go into the atmosphere — and infusing them into a new type of concrete invented by the team. As it hardens and gains strength, the specially formulated concrete permanently absorbs and traps the greenhouse gas.

Through extensive research at UCLA and testing at the Integrated Test Center, a facility outside of Gillette, Wyoming, the researchers demonstrated that their process reduced the carbon footprint of concrete by more than 50% while producing concrete that was just as strong and durable as the traditional material.

Each CarbonBuilt concrete block stores about three-quarters of a pound of carbon dioxide — a significant amount considering an estimated 1 trillion concrete blocks will be produced annually by the year 2027.

Sant joined the UCLA faculty in 2010. He and a group of staff scientists, postdoctoral scholars and doctoral students began the research that led to the award in 2014. A team from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, led by Director JR DeShazo, supported the venture with public policy and economic guidance.

“Congratulations to the UCLA team and especially Gaurav for this significant achievement,” DeShazo said.

Gaurav Sant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering who leads the UCLA team, holds samples of the concrete produced using the eco-friendly technology.

Sant directs the UCLA Institute for Carbon Management and also holds a faculty appointment in the UCLA Engineering materials science and engineering department.

“As a third-generation civil engineer, I have been fascinated with the role that construction has played in solving societal challenges,” he said. “To have spent the past decade developing a solution to mitigate the carbon footprint of concrete with a phenomenal team, and to have won the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE doing something I’m passionate about, is an ultimate dream come true.”

Sponsored by NRG Energy and Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, the $20 million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE competition was launched in September 2015 to find ways to beneficially use carbon dioxide emissions. The nonprofit XPRIZE Foundation challenged a global community of problem-solvers to develop technologies for turning carbon dioxide from coal and natural gas power plant emissions into valuable products. A Canadian team called CarbonCure won the competition’s other track, for natural gas-based power generation.

UCLA’s entry was one of 47 submissions from 38 teams in seven countries. CarbonBuilt, formerly known as CO2Concrete, was named one of the 10 finalists in October 2017.

Sant said the original inspiration for the winning technology came from an unlikely source: seashells.

“Seashells are made of calcium carbonate, which is nature’s original cementation agent,” he said. “We were really motivated by the idea of how seashells were held together. And that’s how we really set about to turn carbon dioxide into concrete.”

Challenged by experts in academia and industry who said it couldn’t be done, Sant and his team spent the next seven years on a mission to prove them wrong.

First, the UCLA researchers developed a new formula for cement, which is the binding agent in concrete. They used hydrated lime, or portlandite, which can absorb carbon dioxide quickly, to replace traditional calcium silicate cement, known as ordinary portland cement. Then, the team created a method in which carbon dioxide taken directly from flue gas is quickly absorbed by portlandite as the concrete hardens.

In addition to absorbing carbon dioxide into the concrete, CarbonBuilt’s Reversa process reduces the amount of ordinary portland cement needed to produce concrete by between 60% and 90%. The process also occurs at ordinary temperatures and pressures. As a result, CarbonBuilt concrete has a much smaller carbon footprint than conventional concrete. That could go a long way toward reducing the world’s greenhouse gas output, since the production of traditional cement used in concrete is the cause of nearly 9% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Another compelling advantage of the new technology is that it is cost-effective. Unlike other carbon-mitigation technologies that require an expensive setup to capture the carbon dioxide emissions or purify them, the CarbonBuilt process allows for carbon dioxide in power and industrial plants’ flue gas to be utilized directly and converted at its source without those extra steps.

“It’s a transformative, eureka moment for UCLA and for science and engineering,” said Jayathi Murthy, the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of UCLA Engineering. “Through sheer tenacity and determination, Gaurav and his team were able to turn a research project into an innovative technology that can solve a real societal problem and drive positive change in the world.”

To advance to the finals, the UCLA researchers demonstrated that their technology could consume 135 kilograms (about 297 pounds) of carbon dioxide in 24 hours. In 2017, the team had to meet certain technical requirements, subject to verification by an independent firm. Those results were then evaluated by a panel of expert judges from academia and industry who assessed the amount of carbon dioxide that was converted into CarbonBuilt concrete, as well as the engineering, environmental and economic value of the construction material.

Originally scheduled for February 2020, the competition’s final round was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2020, the UCLA team deployed to the Integrated Test Center to demonstrate its system on an industrial scale. The demonstration ran for four months and produced nearly 150 metric tons (more than 330,000 pounds) of CarbonBuilt concrete blocks. Some of the concrete blocks were donated to the Eastern Shoshone tribe for housing projects on the Wind River Reservation in Fort Washakie, Wyoming.

The funds from the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE award will support innovative carbon-mitigation research and technology development at UCLA Engineering. CarbonBuilt, which is a private company founded by Sant, has secured rights related to the project’s patent portfolio owned by UCLA to commercialize the technology.

Prior to winning the grand prize, the team has raised $10 million toward the development of the CarbonBuilt technology. In addition to a $500,000 award from the XPRIZE Foundation in 2018 for reaching the finals, Sant secured a $1.8 million grant in 2019 from the Department of Energy. (Additional testing to complete the DOE grant recently concluded at the National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, Alabama.) And the Anthony and Jeanne Pritzker Family Foundation contributed $1.5 million in 2017.

Many UCLA faculty members have contributed to the team’s success, including Center for Innovation Director DeShazo, a professor of public policy and of civil and environmental engineering; Dante Simonetti, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering; Laurent Pilon, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and of bioengineering; Richard Kaner, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry and of materials science and engineering; and Mathieu Bauchy, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering.

Additional team members include current and former UCLA Engineering project scientists Dale Prentice, Gabriel Falzone, Iman Mehdipour and Bu Wang; Hyukmin Kweon, a former UCLA postdoctoral scholar; Zhenhua Wei, a former doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering; Camly Tran, executive director of the Institute for Carbon Management; and seasoned industry advisers including Edward Muller, Stephen Raab and CarbonBuilt CEO Rahul Shendure.

Serious Impacts of Coronavirus Felt Broadly Across Los Angeles County UCLA Luskin survey details effect of falling incomes, COVID-19 health issues and pandemic-related restrictions on Angelenos’ quality of life

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By Les Dunseith

Residents of Los Angeles County have been deeply affected by the COVID-19 crisis, with significant numbers citing the pandemic’s adverse impact on their finances, health and children’s education, according to UCLA’s sixth annual Quality of Life Index.

“A year ago we speculated about how resilient our region would be in the year to follow,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, who oversees the index. “We now know that Los Angeles County has demonstrated robust resilience, but a significant toll has been exacted on our residents by the tumultuous events. Many of our residents — especially younger ones — are anxious, angry and steadily losing hope about their future in Los Angeles.”

This year’s Quality of Life Index, or QLI, was based on interviews with 1,434 county residents over a 20-day period beginning on March 3, just as vaccinations were beginning to fuel optimism about a possible return to more normal life. Last year’s survey, conducted in the earliest stages of the pandemic, found high levels of anxiety about the possible impacts of COVID-19. Twelve months later, respondents said many of those fears had come to pass:

  • More than half of those surveyed (54%) reported that they or a close family member or friend had tested positive for the coronavirus.
  • Forty percent said their income went down because of the pandemic, with 22% saying it dropped “a lot” and 18% reporting “some” decline. Roughly 1 in 5 (18%) said they had lost their job at some point during the COVID-19 crisis.
  • Three-quarters of parents (76%) with school-age children felt their kids had been “substantially hurt, either academically or socially,” by pandemic-related distance learning and quarantine experiences.

In addition, nearly a fifth (17%) of all respondents reported that their income declined “a lot” in the past year and that they also suffered at least two specific negative impacts, such as a job loss, a wage or salary reduction, a decline in work hours or difficulty paying their rent or mortgage. This group was disproportionately composed of women under age 50, single people, renters, those without college degrees and those with household incomes of less than $60,000.

“These are among the most vulnerable individuals living in our county,” Yaroslavsky said.

The QLI, a joint project of the UCLA Luskin Los Angeles Initiative and The California Endowment with major funding provided by Meyer and Renee Luskin, asks a cross-section of Los Angeles County residents each year to rate their quality of life in nine categories and 40 subcategories. Full results of this year’s survey were made available April 19 as part of UCLA’s Luskin Summit, which is taking place virtually.

Mirroring last year’s result, this year’s overall quality-of-life rating held steady at 58 (on a scale of 10 to 100), which is slightly more positive than negative. But researchers noted that marked changes emerged among specific racial and ethnic groups, especially with younger residents.

Younger Angelenos: Sinking optimism, tempered by race

Reflecting a trend seen in recent QLI surveys, the county’s younger population — those between the ages of 18 and 49 — rated their quality of life lower than older residents, and the pandemic seems to have exacerbated that disparity.

“The varied manifestations of COVID-19,” Yaroslavsky said, “fell most heavily on the shoulders of younger county residents.”

In particular, researchers observed a growing belief by younger Angelenos that the cost of living in the region is threatening their ability to make ends meet, get ahead or gain some sort of financial security.Yet even among this demographic, the survey revealed a distinct divergence in views between Latinos and whites, the two largest racial/ethnic groups in the county. While they have faced demonstrably harder challenges in the region, Latino residents overall were more positive about their quality of life than whites — and this was particularly pronounced among younger residents.

“Repeatedly, younger Latinos are more positive about their own conditions and express greater approval and positivity toward the variety of public officials and governmental entities that affect their lives,” said Paul Maslin, a public opinion and polling expert with Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3 Research) who has overseen the QLI survey process since 2016. “Among younger white residents in Los Angeles County, a greater sense of frustration and even bitterness is apparent.”

The survey uncovered a number of noteworthy differences in these two groups’ views of the pandemic, public officials and the opportunities available in the region:

  • Younger white residents were evenly split over whether the handling of the pandemic had been fair or unfair to “people like them” (48% vs. 49%), whereas younger Latinos reported that it had been fair to them by a 2-to-1 margin (65% vs. 33%).
  • About two-thirds (68%) of younger whites believe the Los Angeles area is a place where the rich get richer and the average person can’t get ahead, compared with only 55% of younger Latinos.
  • Younger Latinos had more favorable views of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (57%) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (53%) than younger whites, 57% of whom had unfavorable views of Garcetti and 62% unfavorable views of Newsom.
  • Younger white residents rated the response to the pandemic — across all levels of government — much more harshly than younger Latinos. Only about a third of whites approved of the response of federal, state and county governments and local school districts. Latinos’ ratings of approval were at least 20 points higher for every level of government and for local school districts.
  • However, in terms of paying their rent, more younger Latinos (43%) reported falling behind than did young whites (31%).

The 2021 QLI: Resilience and change

While this year’s quality-of-life rating remained at 58 overall, reflecting a remarkable resilience among county residents, several significant shifts within the nine major categories that make up the survey tell a different story.

This was most noticeable in the education category, where the satisfaction rating of respondents with children in public schools dropped from 58 last year to 52 this year, one of the most dramatic one-year declines in any category in the QLI’s history.

Satisfaction ratings for public safety also fell over the past year, from 64 to 60, influenced significantly by a growing concern over violent crime. And respondents’ rating of the quality of their neighborhoods dropped from 71 to 68.

On the other hand, satisfaction with transportation and traffic rose from 53 to 56, which researchers attribute to a significant reduction in commuter traffic caused by pandemic-related workplace shutdowns.

With regard to the workplace, 57% of employed respondents said they currently work from home or split time between home and their place of work. As to the future, 77% said they would prefer a mix of working from home and their workplace when the pandemic ends, with just 16% wanting to “almost always work at home.”

The 2021 UCLA Luskin Quality of Life Index is based on interviews with a random sample of residents conducted in both English and Spanish, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6%. The QLI was prepared in partnership with the public opinion research firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3 Research).  The full reports for 2021 and previous years are posted online by the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.

Report Sets Path Toward Clean Drinking Water for all Californians Study co-authored by UCLA Luskin researchers finds hundreds of public water systems are out of compliance

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By Michelle Einstein

California was the first U.S. state to legally recognize access to safe, clean and affordable water as a human right. But substantial parts of the state lack access to drinking water that meets those criteria.

A new study (PDF) published by the California State Water Board and supported by UCLA research identifies a risk for failure among a significant portion of the state’s small and medium-sized public water systems. The report is the first comprehensive analysis of how clean water is provided in California, and it estimates how much it would actually cost to deliver safe water to every resident.

The research was a collaboration between the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, the water board’s Needs Analysis Unit, Corona Environmental Consulting, Sacramento State University’s Office of Water Programs, the Pacific Institute and the University of North Carolina’s Environmental Finance Center.

Of the 2,779 public water systems evaluated in the study, nearly half are at some risk of failing to provide an adequate supply of safe drinking water. To measure the health of water systems, the researchers assessed each water system using 19 indicators for water quality, accessibility, affordability and operational capacity.

Based on those assessments, each system received an overall rating indicating how likely it would be to fail — from “not at risk” at the top end of the scale, to “potentially at risk” and “at risk” for the systems with the lowest scores. The researchers found 25% of water systems to be “at risk,” while an additional 23% are “potentially at risk.”

The study also identified locations where groundwater quality is out of compliance with the state’s safe water drinking standards. About one-third of domestic wells and one-half of state small water systems were found to be at a high risk for containing contaminants like nitrate and arsenic.

“Illuminating the extent of at-risk water systems is an important step,” said Gregory Pierce, the study’s principal investigator and an associate director at the Luskin Center for Innovation. “By more fully understanding the issues, we can move to more resilient and accessible water sources.”

The study noted that water quality and infrastructure issues vary substantially across the state. For instance, Kings County, in central California, has the highest proportion of at-risk public water systems (75%), while San Francisco County and Modoc County in the northern part of the state have zero at-risk systems.

The research incorporated a comprehensive evaluation of thousands of water systems and hundreds of thousands of wells, as well as input from water managers, environmental nonprofits and advocacy groups.

Among the other findings:

Holistic solutions can help.

  • In the short term, bottled water and home filtration systems can be used to help communities that need clean drinking water immediately. The researchers estimate that those short-term interventions would cost between $500 million and $1.6 billion over the next five to nine years.
  • Long-term solutions include enhancing water treatment; consolidating small, underperforming water systems; and providing experts to advise communities on how to improve those systems. The study estimates a wide range of total costs for those solutions, depending on which actions local systems adopt, but the midpoint estimate is about $5.7 billion.

More funding will be needed.

  • The Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, which was established in 2019 to help bring adequate drinking water to disadvantaged communities, already provides critical financial support. But for all California communities to have reliably safe drinking water, more financial resources are likely needed.
  • Additional funding could come from a variety of sources, including the state legislature, the governor’s office and federal agencies.

The analysis suggests prioritizing funding for water systems that are currently most at risk and that are located in underserved communities. It also sets the stage for a deeper investigation of how the state can ensure safe, clean and affordable water for all — an especially salient issue as Congress is considering a federal infrastructure bill that would, in part, address the systems that deliver drinking water throughout the U.S.

“I’m optimistic that as a nation, we’re talking about upgrading our pipes and cleaning up our contaminated drinking water,” said Peter Roquemore, a co-author of the study and a researcher at the Luskin Center for Innovation. “Infrastructure might not always be glamorous, but the impacts of fixing our water systems would be huge.”

UCLA Researchers Evaluate Efforts to Curb Trade of Conflict Minerals Report finds ‘meaningful progress’ over past decade, but issues including child labor violations persist

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By Stan Paul

Over the past decade, the U.S. and other nations have implemented programs intended to monitor and mitigate human rights abuses and armed conflict related to mining operations around the world.

A new report co-authored by UCLA researchers has found that those so-called due diligence programs have fostered “meaningful progress” in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the countries targeted by the initiatives. But child labor and other violations are still taking place.

Tin, tantalum and tungsten are commonly used in computers and cell phones and a wide array of other electronics. In some countries like the DRC, those materials are designated as “conflict minerals” because the areas in which they’re mined are affected by armed violence — and in some cases, the violence is related to mining operations.

Researchers collected data in 2019 from 104 mine sites, as well as 1,054 households and 1,000 people living in villages around those mine sites, in the provinces of South Kivu and Maniema. They found that areas with due diligence programs see less interference by the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Compared to areas without due diligence programs, more than 50% fewer mines in areas served by due diligence programs reported a military presence or improper taxation by soldiers.

The study also found that, in villages near the mines served by those programs, the number of households reporting a military presence was 27% lower than in villages without the programs.

However, the analysis also revealed that mines in the areas covered by the diligence programs do not have significantly lower rates of child labor than those outside of the programs’ purview. Some child labor was reported at roughly one-third of mines, whether they were covered by the programs or not.

“We uncovered reasons to applaud these programs, but also room for improvement, particularly with respect to child labor,” said Darin Christensen, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of public policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. “Unsurprisingly, the due diligence program is not a panacea — it reduces important risks associated with mining in the eastern Congo but does not eradicate all harms.

“In better isolating its impacts, we hope to clarify where further efforts are needed to promote sustainable livelihoods and human security in mining regions.”

Christensen is the co-founder (with UCLA professors Graeme Blair and Michael Ross) of the UCLA-based Project on Resources and Governance, which led the study’s research design and analysis. The report’s other contributors are the International Peace Information Service, a Belgian research institute; Sub-Saharan Field Research & Consulting Services, a Kenyan research agency; and Ulula, a Canadian software and analytics provider.

International efforts to mitigate or eliminate the negative impacts of conflict minerals have focused on keeping the minerals out of global supply chains. The aim is to break the link between mining and conflict by identifying and boycotting suppliers who contribute, willingly or unwillingly, to armed groups or human rights abuses, according to the report.

This strategy is reflected in regulatory efforts such as the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act in the U.S. and the European Union’s more recent Regulation on Conflict Minerals. Those policies require U.S. and European companies that source certain minerals from conflict-affected areas, like eastern Congo, to conduct due diligence around the production and processing of minerals to verify that suppliers respect human rights and do not contribute to conflict.

But more than a decade after Dodd-Frank, there had been scant research on whether due diligence programs are improving economic and security conditions.

The report also found that areas covered by due diligence programs report a greater presence of government regulators.

Researchers found that the proportion of households reporting tax collection and services provided by the government regulators who are responsible for monitoring the mining sector was 58% higher in areas served by the programs than in those that aren’t. However, when households were asked whether they felt secure, there was no statistical difference in responses between those in areas served by the program and those that were not.

View an animation about this study

Using Art and Technology, Proposal Aims to Increase Bike Commuting in L.A. Project by UCLA faculty envisions collaborative bicycle 'flows' that generate digital exhibitions across the city

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By Jonathan Van Dyke

For many Los Angeles residents, the daily commute is frustrating. A project by three UCLA faculty members aims to change that — especially for those who ride to work on two wheels — by creating bicycle “flows” that produce real-time digital art exhibitions throughout the city.

One of the project’s goals is to make cycling to work feel as accessible and safe as other modes of travel, so the professors envision groups, or flows, of cyclists that would be organized by a smartphone app. The app would encourage reluctant or inexperienced cyclists to participate by pointing them toward those flows, suggest routes that are optimized for enjoyability and safety over efficiency or speed, and enable participants to share their experiences.

Those experiences, in the form of text, photos, videos and other creative submissions, would feed directly into digital murals throughout Los Angeles. The murals would be located in community spaces and transportation hubs around the city — including, for example, a large interactive display at the Los Angeles State Historic Park, adjacent to Chinatown — elevating biking to work to a collective creative experience.

“We envision the cooperative bike flows as a type of performative media artwork that is shared live with all of Los Angeles in public spaces and on the internet,” said Fabian Wagmister, the project’s principal investigator and the founding director of the UCLA Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance, known as UCLA REMAP.

“By inviting communities to think about bicycle riding as a way to express themselves in the urban landscape, we can strengthen commuters’ ownership of the system and offer a deeper level of engagement in the future of the city.”

The project, called Civic Bicycle Commuting, or CiBiC, is co-led by Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, distinguished professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin, and Jeff Burke, co-director of REMAP and a UCLA professor in-residence of theater.

The project already is gaining some traction: In February, the initiative received $50,000 in funding  from the Civic Innovation Challenge, which is funded by the National Science Foundation in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. CiBiC is now in contention for an additional grant of up to $1 million, which the researchers would use to create a prototype of the project.

CiBiC’s art-led approach makes it somewhat of an anomaly among most of the competitors in its category, “communities and mobility.” Most of the other proposals have origins in the STEM fields and social sciences.

To ensure the project incorporates the diverse experiences and needs of Los Angeles commuters, the researchers are soliciting input from Los Angeles neighborhood groups. Loukaitou-Sideris said the team will especially seek participation from low-income residents of Chinatown, Solano Canyon, Dogtown and Lincoln Heights.

“We want to hear from community groups and residents and understand how we can create something that is tailored to their needs,” she said.

The researchers also are collaborating with Eli Akira Kaufman, executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, who said the project could demonstrate how transformative bicycle culture could be in Los Angeles if bicyclists could help create infrastructure that reflected their needs.

“Instead of allowing the built environment to dictate the culture of bicycling in Los Angeles, we need to uplift the culture of bicycling to make sure the built environment is defined by the social infrastructure and the people who use it,” he said.

Aggregated data from the app could also eventually be used to influence Los Angeles’ long-term infrastructure planning.

And Wagmister said the project stands to both reflect and amplify the city’s creative spirit: “We want to create an alternative transportation system in Los Angeles, one that values our collective creative capacity to transform the city for all.”

Undergrads Come Together During a Year of Staying Apart UCLA Luskin student group works to build peer-to-peer connections guided by the major's public service ethos

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By Mary Braswell

In the fall of 2020, Kaylen Gapuz was excited to begin her life as a Bruin but anxious about how to make campus connections at a time when COVID-19 demanded learning from afar.

So when she spotted an email invitation to pair up with a mentor through the Luskin Undergraduate Student Association, she quickly applied.

Throughout the first months of her freshman year, the public affairs pre-major talked weekly with senior Hannah Feller, who answered questions, offered advice and became “a good mentor, resource and friend, all in one, which I will forever appreciate,” Gapuz said.

This year, more than 70 students were matched with mentors, one of several initiatives launched by the association to strengthen the bonds among UCLA Luskin’s undergraduates, even as the pandemic kept them apart.

LUSA, as the group is known, came into existence in 2019, not long after the public affairs major debuted at UCLA. This year, by necessity, it greatly expanded its virtual reach.

A new website includes a blog inviting members to share their own takes on the issues that move them, and the group has hosted several remote gatherings guided by the public service ethos the major is known for. 

Throughout the year, members have come together for conversations on topics such as policing, environmental justice, gentrification and, of course, the tumultuous 2020 election. In the fall, a panel of candidates running for local office across California — including Nithya Raman, who would go on to win a seat on the Los Angeles City Council — appeared at a LUSA event to share personal stories of why they chose politics as an avenue for change-making. 

To draw Luskin undergrads to these gatherings at a time of chronic Zoom fatigue, LUSA’s leaders have been careful to choose timely topics while also offering social contacts, insights on navigating the major and advice on preparing for the working world. 

“The whole point of LUSA is to be a peer-to-peer environment,” said Feller, a public affairs and economics double-major who serves as the group’s president. 

At one LUSA session, Feller shared tips from her personal experience landing several internships — well before she was placed with the nonprofit World Trade Organization Los Angeles for her senior capstone experience.

“I’m by no means an expert on this topic, but I have had a fair share of finding internships, and a lot of this is information that older students taught me while I was going through the process,” Feller told the gathering. 

This type of programming offers a student’s eye view that complements the major’s curriculum and the resources offered by UCLA.

As one strategy to keep members engaged during an age of virtual connections, LUSA expanded its leadership team, Feller said. In addition to five elected executive board members, several other students stepped up to edit the blog, manage an active social media presence and organize special events.

Third-year public affairs major Samantha Schwartz was inspired to take on the mentorship initiative, an outreach to first- and second-year students at UCLA interested in learning more about the public affairs program.

In her weekly check-ins with Feller, Gapuz said, “Hannah was very much able to tailor the experience to the two of us,” and the women would chat about classes and professors, how to juggle the workload, and their shared interest in business consulting. 

“Especially this year, because of the remote nature of everything, it was just good to have a link to someone at a regular time when you know you can ask questions and not have to wonder what to do,” Gapuz said.

“Our mentorship pairing is what convinced me that the public affairs major is right for me.”

How the Weinstein Scandal Ignited a Movement Gains made in the #MeToo era are tempered by unresolved questions of accountability, journalist Megan Twohey tells a UCLA audience

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By Mary Braswell

The New York Times investigation that exposed producer Harvey Weinstein’s long history as a sexual predator set off a chain of events that led to prison for the Hollywood power broker and empowerment for women around the world who stepped up to share their own stories of abuse.

Today, the story continues to unfold, with contours of the investigation now coming to light and nagging questions of accountability still unanswered, journalist Megan Twohey told a UCLA audience during a March 9 virtual lecture.

Twohey and Jodi Kantor shared a byline on that first blockbuster piece in the fall of 2017, part of a body of work that would earn their newspaper the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Both reporters were bowled over by the whirlwind of events that followed.

“One day we were working on this incredibly difficult story, and then just a few days later we started to see change happening everywhere,” Twohey said. “The #MeToo movement turned out to be more sweeping and durable than we could have ever predicted.”

Twohey’s talk was the latest in the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Lecture Series, which brings together scholars as well as national and local leaders to address society’s most pressing problems, such as the culture’s long history of men getting away with abusing their authority. Though hundreds of powerful men have lost their jobs since Twohey and Kantor’s story broke, the fallout continues, including in the recent mini-series “Allen v. Farrow,” which documents the sexual abuse case against filmmaker Woody Allen.

As the team’s reporting continued over months and years, “there was also growing confusion and frustration that in some ways it felt like everything was changing — and then it also felt like nothing was changing at all,” Twohey said.

‘At a time when everything can feel stuck, and the very notion of “truth” is collapsing, we want you to know that journalism and facts can win.’ — Megan Twohey

The story, they realized, was less about one man’s misdeeds and more about a sprawling system of coercion and complicity that had facilitated predatory behavior for generations.

“The real moral of the Weinstein story began to dawn on us,” Twohey said. “For decades this man had racked up allegation after allegation and, instead of stopping him, more and more people had helped him.”

During the event, which drew viewers from around the world, Twohey described the pervasive use of non-disclosure agreements to buy the silence of women who lodged complaints.

“Nobody would say that a victim of sexual harassment or sexual assault shouldn’t receive financial recompense for what’s happened to them,” she said. “I think the real question here is the secrecy … that allows predators to cover their tracks and to keep hurting other people.”

The #MeToo movement transformed cultural norms, but there is still no consensus on how to handle sexual abuse cases, Twohey said.

“What is the scope of behavior under scrutiny?” she asked. “Are we talking only about allegations of rape and sexual harassment, or are we talking about grayer areas, like a boss’ awkward hand on an employee’s back?”

Complicating the conversation are charges that the #MeToo era has led to false accusations and quick ousters without due process.

But Twohey assured the audience that, “at a time when everything can feel stuck, and the very notion of ‘truth’ is collapsing, we want you to know that journalism and facts can win.”

Twohey and Kantor reveal details of their reporting journey, including information that was originally off the record, in their 2019 book “She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement.”

“When we started we had no idea whether Harvey Weinstein had done anything wrong. Remember, he was considered a humanitarian, a philanthropist,” Twohey told the Luskin Lecture audience.

Over the next several months, the two journalists approached a long list of sources, persuaded them to tell their stories, then appealed to them to go public. They also amassed records including Weinstein Company accounting records, human resources complaints, notes from internal conference calls, emails and more.

“When we went back to women to ask them to go on the record, we were asking them to stand on a body of evidence,” Twohey said.

Satisfied that the story was air-tight, the New York Times prepared to publish, knowing that Weinstein had launched a campaign to discredit the women who had come forward — and also aware that another journalist, Ronan Farrow, was racing to break the story. His reporting for the New Yorker, published a few days later, earned a share of the Pulitzer for Public Service.

Days after the stories went to press, Weinstein was fired from the film studio he co-founded. Within months, he was arrested and charged with rape in New York. In February 2020, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

At the Luskin Lecture, Twohey spoke with UCLA’s Meredith Phillips, an associate professor of public policy and sociology and chair of the undergraduate program at UCLA Luskin, about parallels between investigative journalism and social science research, two fields that require strict adherence to evidence from many sources.

Twohey said that throughout her coverage of the Weinstein story and its aftermath, she honored the distinction between journalism and advocacy.

“We reporters gather the facts, pick up a pen and hope that by revealing the truth we can help bring about change.”

Study Analyzes Energy Conservation Tactics During Peak Periods Research by Luskin Center for Innovation focuses on 'demand response programs' that encourage users to save energy when the electrical grid is under stress

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By Colleen Callahan

New research by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation has identified how effective certain incentives can be in motivating people to use less energy in their homes.

Electricity providers often need to encourage customers to reduce consumption in order to prevent blackouts or to avoid having to activate additional power plants — often natural gas-powered plants that pollute the environment.

The researchers found that promotional messages about how customers could save money on their electricity bills or earn other financial rewards were effective at motivating them to use less energy.

For the study (PDF), which was funded by a grant from the California Energy Commission, the UCLA researchers assessed data from energy bills for more than 20,000 California households in territories served by Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

The customers all participate in “demand response programs,” which encourage users to save energy at times of high stress on the electrical grid, like during heat waves; they all also used one of two smartphone apps — Chai Energy or OhmConnect — that help users manage their home energy consumption. Often, the apps offered cash incentives to participants for adjusting their thermostats during times when demand for energy was highest.

The study revealed that offering participants financial rewards, on top of the amount of money they’d save simply for using less energy, had a measurable effect on reducing their energy use — although the amount of the financial incentive made relatively little difference. Collectively, the 20,000 households in the study had received over $1 million in rewards over the previous two years through those incentive programs, in addition to the savings on their electricity bills from using the apps.

Encouraging flexibility in our energy system is especially important as the nation’s infrastructure continues to shift to clean energy. For instance, weather can be unpredictable and impact the amount of electricity generated by solar panels or wind turbines. Demand response programs can be effective at reducing energy use during these times to avoid blackouts.

“In more good news for the environment, our study found that demand response programs result in overall reduction in energy use — not merely a shift of consumption to other hours or days,” said JR DeShazo, the study’s principal investigator and the director of the Luskin Center for Innovation.

That finding is particularly significant because some observers had suspected that demand response programs merely encouraged energy customers to shift their electricity use to other times of day — for example, by waiting to run their dishwashers or clothes dryers during overnight hours, when overall energy demand was lower — but without actually reducing the amount of energy they consumed. But the UCLA report concluded that customers’ energy consumption did not increase in the hours or days surrounding a demand response event, suggesting that the approach resulted in actual reductions in consumption.

The households with the greatest reduction in consumption during demand response events were those with solar panels, plug-in electric vehicles and automation devices — gadgets like smart thermostats that can automatically alter energy usage but can be overridden by the owner. For example, automation devices can delay charging an electric vehicle or turn down an air conditioner until an off-peak time.

“Automation devices make participating in demand response programs effortless, and ultimately rewarding,” said Kelly Trumbull, a co-author of the study and a Luskin Center for Innovation researcher. “They also help secure predictable and reliable energy savings.”

Demand response providers typically reward users based on their energy conservation relative to an energy consumption goal assigned by the utility. Researchers found that households reduce their energy use more when that consumption goal is more ambitious, assuming all other factors are constant.

“This finding underscores the importance of setting baselines and communicating them to customers,” DeShazo said. “If we are asked to do more, we often will.”

The study recommends actions utilities and third-party demand response providers — like the ones that market the energy management apps — can take to maximize both the environmental and economic benefits of residential demand response programs, including:

  • Offering financial incentives and emphasizing the economic benefits to participants.
  • Supporting the adoption of automation devices like smart thermostats.
  • Inducing greater energy savings by setting ambitious conservation targets for customers.

Most Californians, depending on their electricity providers, are eligible to participate in existing demand response services.

2020 Stimulus Program Failed to Reach State’s Most Economically Vulnerable Districts UCLA report is a call to action for policymakers as they craft new economic recovery plans

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A new UCLA study found that the 2020 federal stimulus program that offered forgivable loans to small businesses affected by the pandemic might have widened economic disparities.

The study, by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative and the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, examined data for California congressional districts, and the authors assert that aid largely failed to reach the districts with the greatest need.

The California districts with the lowest average household incomes and highest proportions of people of color received the lowest amounts of support through the Paycheck Protection Program, the study found. The 10 districts that received the least funding have a median household income of a little over $66,000, and people of color make up 66% of their populations.

By comparison, the 10 districts that received the most paycheck protection funds have a median household income over $108,000, and a smaller proportion of residents of color, 53%. In fact, although a plurality of Californians are Latino, none of the 14 districts with majority-Latino populations were among the top 10 districts in terms of receiving paycheck protection funds.

According to the authors, the fact that more stimulus aid went to districts with economic bases that were stronger to begin with will only exacerbate pre-pandemic economic inequalities that have made communities of color more vulnerable to economic shocks.

As the Biden administration and Congress discuss ongoing federal recovery efforts, fixing the inequities of previous stimulus efforts should be a priority, said Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, research director at the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative and a co-author of the report.

“The pandemic has devastated communities of color, which have lost jobs and income at disproportionate rates, with scant support from the federal government,” Dominguez-Villegas said. “In order to emerge from the pandemic and into the recovery without greater inequality, we need action now to uplift the people who need help the most.”

A previous study by the two research centers produced similar findings about the racial inequities of the Paycheck Protection Program. By presenting data at the congressional district level, the new report should give policymakers an even clearer picture of the winners and losers created by previous stimulus efforts, said Silvia González, a staff researcher at the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and a co-author of the report.

And although the report focuses on California, it should help officials in other states understand the importance of equity and racial justice in upcoming federal efforts, the authors write.

“Neighborhoods across the nation will emerge from the pandemic with fewer community-serving businesses and lost jobs that may not be recovered if they do not get immediate financial support,” Gonzalez said. “Our congressional leaders must ask themselves whose paychecks need the most protection and prioritize small entrepreneurs who otherwise stand to lose it all during this crisis.”

The report recommends that future stimulus efforts provide targeted support for minority-owned businesses and provide detailed data to specifically track how the new efforts influence racial and income inequality. It also recommends that some of the relief funds be invested in outreach campaigns to ensure that business owners are aware of the funding programs and understand how to submit funding applications.

The report was made possible by a grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation.

Think the California Electorate Is a Liberal Monolith? Think Again UCLA report shows that voting on 2020 statewide ballot measures varied significantly across racial groups and regions

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By Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas

It’s a widely held canard that California voters, and particularly people of color, are eager to throw their weight behind any progressive cause, but the reality is more nuanced and complex, say UCLA researchers who analyzed ballots cast by Latinos and Asian Americans on a variety of statewide propositions last November.

Their report, released today by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, offers a comprehensive look at how both race and geography influenced voter support for 2020 ballot measures dealing with affirmative action, rent control, employee protections for gig workers and other issues.

The researchers examined official ballot data from nine counties with large Asian American and Latino populations — Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Fresno, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego — and found that while voters in heavily Latino precincts often aligned with those in high-density Black areas, voting in heavily Asian American precincts closely mirrored majority-white precincts.

Significant differences emerged regionally as well, with voters in the Bay Area taking the most progressive stances and those in places like the Central Valley and Orange County staking out more conservative positions, regardless of race.

“The report challenges the idea that California is a solidly progressive state or that people of color will vote in monolithic ways,” said report co-author Natalie Masuoka, an associate professor of political science and Asian American studies. “Even in California, significant outreach is necessary from political campaigns that takes into account the diversity of opinions and experiences across the state, especially in instances where the ballot box is used to push for bold and significant change.”

Proposition 15, for example, the unsuccessful bid to increase taxes on commercial and industrial properties, was largely supported by voters in Black and Latino precincts across the state but opposed in high-density Asian American and white precincts. Support was strongest in the Bay Area among all the demographic groups analyzed and was lowest among white precincts in Southern California and the Central Valley, excluding Los Angeles County, the report shows.

The researchers found a similar interplay among racial and geographic factors in other high-profile ballot measures:

Proposition 16 aimed to reinstate affirmative action in government decisions, such as university admissions and procurement, but was defeated by about 57%.

  • Over 60% of voters in precincts with large Black populations and 54% in predominantly Latino precincts supported the measure, compared with only 46% in largely Asian American precincts and 44% in majority-white precincts.
  • Support was stronger in the Bay Area’s Latino and Asian American precincts than in Central and Southern California’s Latino and Asian American precincts.

Proposition 21, which was defeated by nearly 60%, sought to allow local governments to expand rent control protections.

  • Voters in predominantly Latino and Black precincts showed the strongest support across the state, averaging more than 50% in favor. In contrast, an average of 41% of voters in Asian American precincts and 36% in white precincts supported the measure.
  • While Bay Area voters favored the measure overall, there was a marked difference in support between Black and Latino precincts and Asian American and white precincts.

Proposition 22, approved by nearly 59% of the electorate, defined gig workers like Uber and Lyft drivers as independent contractors, removing employee protections passed by the state Legislature.

  • The report found stronger regional than racial differences, with voters in Central and Southern California supporting the measure at higher rates than those in the Bay Area, regardless of race — an average of 61% vs. 47%.
  • Asian American precincts voted in support of the measure at higher average rates than Latino precincts — 57% vs. 52%.

The data show that the politics of California’s various regions can play an influential role in voters’ political preferences, whatever their racial or ethnic background. Similarly, well-financed campaigns — like Yes on Proposition 22, which broke state records for ballot measure funding — can level out differences among racial groups, the authors note. Going forward, they say, progressive campaigns would do well to consider these factors in their efforts to reach California’s diverse communities.

“California is often looked to as a national leader for progressive policy changes, and the state’s diversity is often cited as one of its strengths in making it possible,” said Sonja Diaz, founding director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative. “As we push for policy that leads with equity and fairness, the report shows a need to ensure that robust education and outreach makes the stakes and opportunities clear to help California voters make informed decisions.”