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Social Welfare’s Santos Honored for Latinx Research

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Assistant Professor of Social Welfare Carlos Santos has been named winner of the 2019 Early Career Award by the Society for Research on Child Development Latino Caucus. The honor is the third national early career award received by Santos, who joined the UCLA Luskin faculty this year. Santos, whose doctorate is in developmental psychology, works in an interdisciplinary framework of intersectionality, focusing on how systems of oppression overlap – from heterosexism and racism to issues affecting undocumented youth. The SRCD award recognized his work on diverse groups within the “Latinx umbrella” that are often overlooked in research in the U.S. “From his early training and beyond, he has a steadfast commitment to engage in normative research with Latinx youth and families,” according to the SRCD Latino Conference awards committee. He will receive the award at the organization’s biennial conference this March in Baltimore. Santos also has been named a Rising Star by the National Multicultural Conference & Summit (NMCS), a coalition of four divisions of the American Psychological Association. The award, to be conferred in January, recognizes the efforts of early career psychologists with an interest in multicultural research, teaching, advocacy, policy or clinical care. In 2017, Santos also was honored as an Emerging Professional by the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race for outstanding research contributions in the promotion of ethnic minority issues within 10 years of graduation. “I think these recognitions affirm the need for an intersectional lens in the study of psychological issues among groups that experience multiple forms of marginalization,” Santos said. — Stan Paul

 

Senior Fellow Berk Ozler on Female Contraceptive Use in Cameroon

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World Bank economist and UCLA Luskin Senior Fellow Berk Ozler discussed his recent work educating young women in Cameroon about effective contraceptive use. Many of these women face barriers such as inaccurate information, side effects and long-term costs, he said during the Oct. 24, 2018, Senior Fellows Lecture. Widespread myths among the local community discourage young women from using birth control, he said. Of the young women who do use birth control, 22% stop because of reported side effects. Meanwhile, long-term costs prevent young women from using birth control at all. On the provider side, Ozler said inadequate on-the-job training leaves nurses unprepared to provide proper counseling. The providers’ implicit bias for or against birth control pressures young women into making decisions that may not be best for their reproductive health. Subsidies incentivize governments to invest in more birth control, but not in proper contraceptive education, he said. Ozler and his team developed a tablet-based app to address these issues. Based on a counseling framework developed by Cameroonian experts, the app enables nurses to counsel young women on birth control options. Ozler said the app will reduce provider bias, increase agency among young females and streamline the information collection process. He is confident the app will increase effective contraceptive use among young women in Cameroon. Ozler, the lead economist of the World Bank’s Development Research Group, is one of 12 new mentors in UCLA Luskin’s Senior Fellows program.— Myrka Vega 

 

U.S. Diplomat Shares Firsthand Tales of International Conflict Resolution

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Diplomat, lecturer and author Rick Barton discussed his experience serving as an American ambassador and his recently published book, “Peace Works: America’s Unifying Role in a Turbulent World,” at a Global Public Affairs gathering on Nov. 1, 2018. The ambassador immersed his audience in vivid recollections of his time abroad by weaving in stories of the people he met. Barton spoke of a young woman who became his translator and guide in Sarajevo. Her literal interpretations of Barton’s requests gave him access to vastly diverse spaces in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This allowed him to listen to local voices and better understand the conflict in the region, he said. Local involvement is a guiding principle Barton follows in post-conflict resolution, which “is hard work and it’s modest work,” he said. Building trust with the community through sincere actions is key. “One way you test your sincerity … is how you spend their money and where you put their people,” he said. Barton’s parting advice: Your actions prove your  commitment to building lasting peace. Barton spent more than 30 years tackling global conflict, including in 40-plus crisis zones ranging from Haiti to Turkey.  He is now a lecturer of public and international affairs at Princeton University. — Myrka Vega

View more photos from the event on Flickr.

 

Urban Planning Students Take Home Scholarship Awards

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Four UCLA Luskin Urban Planning students were winners at the 2018 Women’s Transportation Seminar, Los Angeles Area Chapter, annual scholarship awards dinner held Nov. 8 in downtown Los Angeles. Two doctoral students, Hannah Rae King and Miriam Pinksi, each won Myra L. Frank Memorial Graduate Scholarships of $10,000 and $7,500, respectively. Urban planning master’s student Cassie Halls is the inaugural winner of the $5,000 Stantec scholarship. Halls was also among award winners – with urban planning master’s student Kidada Malloy – at the American Public Transportation Foundation’s annual conference in Nashville this past October. Joceline Suhaimi, a student in UCLA Luskin’s Urban and Regional Studies undergraduate minor, also received a WTS award. Suhaimi, who is majoring in civil engineering, won the Ava Doner Undergraduate Scholarship. “Transportation is a basic human need, and I want to make it accessible to all people, regardless of age, ability, income and car ownership,” said Suhaimi, who will receive $10,000. “This scholarship will allow me to continue education and pursue my career goals.” Allison Yoh, MA UP ’02 Ph.D. ’08, served as co-emcee for the awards. Yoh is now director of transportation planning for the Port of Long Beach. WTS-LA is a chapter of WTS International founded in 1977. The organization has more than 6,500 members (men and women) with 79 chapters in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. — Stan Paul

Preventing Suicide Among Veterans and Other Vulnerable Groups

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Experts on suicide, particularly among veterans, led a wide-ranging conversation about risk factors and effective interventions at an event hosted by UCLA Luskin Social Welfare. Professor Mark S. Kaplan shared insights from his extensive research of at-risk populations with the gathering of students and social workers. “What many vulnerable young veterans returning from places like Afghanistan and Iraq needed more than anything else was not a psychiatrist but a social worker, somebody who could help them with that transition into civilian life, somebody who could help them with their family and their community,” he said. “It was really a challenge of reintegration that mattered most; it wasn’t a psychiatric problem.” The Nov. 6, 2018, panel included Susan Pindack, a social worker with the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System; Sam Coleman, a lecturer at Cal State Long Beach and coordinator of the Veterans for Peace PTSD Working Group; and Carolyn Levitan, director of the crisis line at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services’ Suicide Prevention Center. The panel’s broad experience led to an expansive discussion that touched on Civil War fighters who took their own lives, firearm use among female soldiers, the role of pain management in preventing suicide and the impact of the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why.” Students from the Mental Health Caucus at UCLA, one of several event co-sponsors, led a question-and-answer session after the panel presentations. — Mary Braswell

View a Flickr album from the event here.

 

 

International Recognition for L.A.’s Food Chain Innovations

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Los Angeles’ innovative food purchasing system, spearheaded by UCLA Luskin Urban Planning lecturer Paula Daniels, has been recognized by the United Nations for its impact in promoting sustainable agriculture. The city’s Good Food Purchasing Program creates a food supply chain guided by nutrition, environmental sustainability, animal welfare and impact on local economies. The program was honored for harnessing the buying power of all city departments and the Los Angeles Unified School District to benefit students, growers, distributors and entrepreneurs. Since its launch in 2012, the program has expanded across the United States with support from the Center for Good Food Purchasing. The non-governmental organization is a spin-off of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council founded by Daniels in 2011. The L.A. program was one of eight from around the world to be recognized by the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, the World Future Council and IFOAM Organics International. Daniels accepted the honor on behalf of the city at a ceremony in Rome in October 2018. On the same day, Daniels learned she had received an Ashoka Fellowship, awarded to innovators and entrepreneurs seeking creative solutions to the world’s biggest social challenges. “There’s so much interest, desire, will to make the food system more equitable and environmentally sound,” Daniels said in a Forbes article. “The fact that people are responding to our idea as a way forward for them is incredibly gratifying.”

 

Urban Planning Alumni Take Awards at ACSP Conference

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Two UCLA Luskin Urban Planning alumni received prestigious awards for their work as doctoral students from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning at its annual conference held this year in Buffalo, New York. Sean Kennedy UP Ph.D. ’18 is the winner of the Gill-Chin Lim Award for the best dissertation on international planning.  Anne Brown, who also completed her Ph.D. in spring 2018, won the Barclay Gibbs Jones Award for the best dissertation in planning. Brown is the third Luskin alum to do so in the last four years, said Brian Taylor, professor of urban planning and director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the Luskin School. In addition to receiving a cash prize of $1,000, Kennedy was invited to present his paper, “Global Energy Transition and their Contradictions: Emerging Geographies in Energy and Finance in Indonesia and California,” at the ACSP conference. Kennedy is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA. Brown is now an assistant professor in planning, public policy and management at the University of Oregon. Since its publication, Brown’s award-winning work has been noted in the media and was the subject of a Los Angeles Times op-ed she authored on racial discrimination in the taxi industry. Brown received $500 and also was invited to present her dissertation, “Ridehail Revolution: Ridehail Travel and Equity in Los Angeles,” at the conference.

Sean Kennedy, right, with Ashok Das UP Ph.D. ’08

Anne Brown

Fostering Leadership: 2018-2019 Senior Fellows Breakfast

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UCLA Luskin hosted an opening breakfast to kick off the 22nd year of the Senior Fellows Leadership Program, a mentoring program that matches UCLA Luskin graduate students with distinguished leaders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors. This program gives students an opportunity to enhance their academic experience by connecting and establishing networks with leaders in their areas of interest. This year, Dean Gary Segura welcomed 12 new Senior Fellows, including several UCLA alumni, in addition to the 36 returning Senior Fellows, making up the largest group of Senior Fellow mentors in the program’s history. Edmund Cain, vice president of grant programming at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and returning Senior Fellow, was the keynote speaker for the Oct. 25, 2018, breakfast, which was organized by UCLA Luskin External Programs and Career Services. The event served as an icebreaker for students and their new Senior Fellow mentors, who will serve as role models for the next generation of leaders in public policy, social welfare and urban planning.

This year’s new Senior Fellow mentors are:

  • Bob Alvarez, BA ’88, chief of staff, California State Sen. Cathleen Galgiani
  • Michael Alvidrez, MA UP ’83, external ambassador, CEO emeritus, Skid Row Housing Trust
  • Cecilia Choi, foreign service officer, U.S. Dept. of State; UCLA Diplomat in Residence
  • Honorable Mike Gatto, former California Assembly member, D-43rd District
  • Seth Jacobson, MPP ’03, senior director, energy and water programs, Climate Resolve
  • Cheryl Mathieu, PhD ’05 (Social Welfare), founder and CEO, AgingPro
  • Honorable Brian Nestande, former California Assembly member, R-42nd District
  • Berk Özler, lead economist, Development Research Group, The World Bank
  • Paco Retana, MSW ’90, vice president of programs, Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic
  • Joel Reynolds, western director, senior attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council
  • Faye Washington, president & CEO, YWCA Greater Los Angeles
  • Emily Williams, MPP ’98, senior deputy for human services and child welfare, Office of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas

For more information about the Senior Fellows Leadership Program or to access a list of all past and returning Senior Fellows, click here.

View more images from the 2018-2019 Senior Fellows Breakfast.

Public Policy student Alexandra Bjerg, left, with Kafi Blumenfield of the James Irvine Foundation and Michele Prichard of Liberty Hill. Photo by Todd Cheney

NSF Grant Funds New Approach to Analyzing News Data

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The National Science Foundation has awarded a UCLA research team more than $944,000 to develop a framework for integrating massive amounts of data from several types of news sources. The cross-campus collaboration between the Department of Communication and the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs will produce a database that analyzes text, images, video and audio from print, television and online media.  “No one has attempted to merge different sources of social and mass media data into one database,” said Assistant Professor of Communication Jungseock Joo, the principal investigator. Using cutting-edge computational methods, the team will build a system to automatically evaluate the data to identify topics, actors, events, sentiments and other large-scale patterns. The team includes UCLA Luskin’s Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld, an assistant professor of public policy who has studied vast troves of social media data in his research into subnational conflict. Steinert-Threlkeld said the new tool will enable researchers, students, policymakers, politicians and ordinary citizens to learn more about how information is disseminated. The team, which includes UCLA Communication faculty members Francis Steen and Tim Groeling, will collaborate with Stanford University’s Jennifer Pan, a specialist on social media data from China. — Mary Braswell

Jungseock Joo

Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld

A Strong Launch for the Undergrad Program in Public Affairs

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UCLA Luskin’s just-launched undergraduate program is off to an exciting start. A month into the new academic year, 90 students have declared public affairs as a pre-major, and dozens more have reached out. The ambitious program combines critical thinking, social science methodology and deep engagement in the community. Freshman Callie Nance was immediately attracted to the public service ethos at the heart of the major. “This major doesn’t just expand knowledge,” she said. “It shows us how to do something with that knowledge, to make an impact.” That sentiment is reflected in the undergraduate program’s motto: Developing Leaders Engaged in Social Change. “Our students are developing knowledge and skills in the service of solving society’s most pressing problems, which is really what distinguishes this major from others,” said Undergraduate Affairs Chair Meredith Phillips, who is also an associate professor of public policy and sociology. The energy surrounding the major was on display during an undergraduate open house during the first week of school. Phillips led the welcoming committee, along with more than 20 faculty from across the School and Dean Gary Segura, who noted that he too will teach an undergraduate course this year, Foundations and Debates in Public Thought. The event offered a glimpse of the resources available to students pursuing the B.A. in Public Affairs. Freshman and sophomores freely mingled with professors who teach graduate-level courses and conduct cutting-edge research. And the undergraduate staff, who came together this summer to ensure the major was launched without a hitch, was out in force to answer questions and offer encouragement.

Undergraduate Affairs Chair Meredith Phillips fields questions from students interested in UCLA Luskin’s new public affairs major at an open house during the first week of school. Photo by Les Dunseith

View more photos from the Undergraduate Open House.