UCLA Luskin Adds Six New ‘Outstanding’ Faculty Public Policy, Social Welfare and Urban Planning announce the appointment of two new scholars in each department

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By George Foulsham

In the biggest expansion since its inception, the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs has announced the addition of six new faculty for the 2016-17 academic year. The new hires bring to 100 the number of professors, assistant professors, lecturers and instructors at the Luskin School.

“We are thrilled to welcome six new faculty to the UCLA Luskin family,” Interim Dean Lois M. Takahashi said. “These six outstanding scholars will bring to Luskin a wealth of expertise and knowledge that will be shared with our current — and future — students for years to come. This is a very exciting time to be a part of one of the best public affairs schools in the country. These new faculty members will help us continue the pursuit of our mission at Luskin: advancing solutions to society’s most pressing problems.”

The six new faculty members, by department:

Public Policy

Darin Christensen, a new assistant professor of Public Policy, will receive his Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University this year. His research interests, with support from the World Bank and other funders, span comparative politics, the political economy of conflict and development, foreign investment, and political accountability, with regional interest in sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghana, Kenya, and Sierra Leone. He received his bachelor’s degree in political science and German from Duke University, and his master’s degree in economics from Stanford. Christensen’s teaching focus at Luskin is expected to be comparative political institutions, the political economy of development and advanced data analysis.

Zachary C. Steinert-Threlkeld, a new assistant professor of Public Policy, will receive his Ph.D. in political science from UC San Diego this year. He also has a master’s degree in political science from UC San Diego and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and economics from Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests are in international politics; exploiting in particular vast social media data to study subnational conflict; the mobilization of mass protest such as the Arab Spring and Ukraine’s Euromaidan protests, as well as elite behavior and state repression in authoritarian regimes. At Luskin, his teaching focus will be on subnational conflict, statistics and advanced data analysis of various kinds, including the analysis of “big data.”

Social Welfare

Leyla Karimli, a new assistant professor of social welfare, received her Ph.D. in social welfare from Columbia University’s School of Social Work in 2013 and is completing postdoctoral training at New York University School of Social Work’s Institute for Poverty, Policy and Research. Dr. Karimli has 13 years of international research and practice experience focusing on poverty and social exclusion including post-masters practice experience with international development agencies in the former Soviet Union and Sub-Saharan Africa. Her research interests include a multidimensional and systems-oriented analysis of poverty and social exclusion that complements the Department of Social Welfare and Luskin School’s commitment to understanding the complex nature of social and economic inequalities and addressing the needs of vulnerable and diverse populations.

Laura Wray-Lake, a new assistant professor in social welfare, received her Ph.D. from Penn State University’s highly regarded Human Development and Family Studies program. Dr. Wray-Lake is a lifespan developmental scientist from the University of Rochester where she has been an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology. Dr. Wray-Lake utilizes a “civic engagement” framework to examine the social and income inequalities facing vulnerable children and families and how and why individuals can become re-engaged in society. Dr. Wray-Lake has a strong commitment to teaching and mentoring. Her courses on community engagement incorporate her social justice approach to teaching and as such, will support our commitment to diversity and social justice.

Urban Planning

Kian Goh, a new assistant professor of urban planning, received her Master of Architecture from Yale University and her Ph.D. in Urban and Environmental Planning from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. She is currently an assistant professor of Urban Landscape at Northeastern University. Dr. Goh’s research investigates the relationships between urban ecological design, spatial politics, and social mobilization in the context of climate change and global urbanization. Her work has centered on sites in New York, Jakarta and Rotterdam.  She also has ongoing projects on queer space and the sociopolitics of smart cities. In addition to her scholarly work, Goh is a licensed architect and co-founder of SUPER-INTERESTING!, a multidisciplinary architecture and strategic consulting practice located in Brooklyn.

Michael Manville, a new assistant professor of urban planning, is returning to UCLA Luskin after receiving his MA and Ph.D. in urban planning from UCLA Luskin.  Dr. Manville is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. His research examines the willingness of people and communities to finance different government services, and the tendency of local governments to hide the costs of transportation in the property market. Dr. Manville is particularly interested in how land use restrictions intended to fight traffic congestion can influence the supply and price of housing.

Carbon Upcycling: Turning CO2 into a New, Sustainable CO2NCRETE Interdisciplinary research team at UCLA discovers a game-changing technology to capture and repurpose carbon dioxide

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By George Foulsham

Imagine a world with little or no concrete. Would that even be possible? After all, concrete is everywhere — on our roads, our driveways, in our homes, bridges and buildings. For the past 200 years, it’s been the very foundation of much of our planet.

But the production of cement, which when mixed with water forms the binding agent in concrete, is also one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, about 5 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from concrete.

An even larger source of CO2 emissions is flue gas emitted from smokestacks at power plants around the world. Carbon emissions from those plants are the largest source of harmful global greenhouse gas in the world.

A team of interdisciplinary researchers at UCLA has been working on a unique solution that may help eliminate these sources of greenhouse gases. Their plan would be to create a closed-loop process: capturing carbon from power plant smokestacks and using it to create a new building material — CO2NCRETE — that would be fabricated using 3D printers. That’s “upcycling.”

“What this technology does is take something that we have viewed as a nuisance — carbon dioxide that’s emitted from smokestacks — and turn it into something valuable,” said J.R. DeShazo, professor of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.

“I decided to get involved in this project because it could be a game-changer for climate policy,” DeShazo said. “This technology tackles global climate change, which is one of the biggest challenges that society faces now and will face over the next century.”

DeShazo has provided the public policy and economic guidance for this research. The scientific contributions have been led by Gaurav Sant, associate professor and Henry Samueli Fellow in Civil and Environmental Engineering; Richard Kaner, distinguished professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Materials Science and Engineering; Laurent Pilon, professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Bioengineering; and Matthieu Bauchy, assistant professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering.

This isn’t the first attempt to capture carbon emissions from power plants. It’s been done before, but the challenge has been what to do with the CO2 once it’s captured.

“We hope to not only capture more gas,” DeShazo said, “but we’re going to take that gas and, instead of storing it, which is the current approach, we’re going to try to use it to create a new kind of building material that will replace cement.”

“The approach we are trying to propose is you look at carbon dioxide as a resource — a resource you can reutilize,” Sant said. “While cement production results in carbon dioxide, just as the production of coal or the production of natural gas does, if we can reutilize CO2 to make a building material which would be a new kind of cement, that’s an opportunity.”

The researchers are excited about the possibility of reducing greenhouse gas in the U.S., especially in regions where coal-fired power plants are abundant. “But even more so is the promise to reduce the emissions in China and India,” DeShazo said. “China is currently the largest greenhouse gas producer in the world, and India will soon be No. 2, surpassing us.”

deshazo-gaurav

J.R. DeShazo, left, and Gaurav Sant. Photo by Roberto Gudino

Thus far, the new construction material has been produced only at a lab scale, using 3D printers to shape it into tiny cones. “We have proof of concept that we can do this,” DeShazo said. “But we need to begin the process of increasing the volume of material and then think about how to pilot it commercially. It’s one thing to prove these technologies in the laboratory. It’s another to take them out into the field and see how they work under real-world conditions.”

“We can demonstrate a process where we take lime and combine it with carbon dioxide to produce a cement-like material,” Sant said. “The big challenge we foresee with this is we’re not just trying to develop a building material. We’re trying to develop a process solution, an integrated technology which goes right from CO2 to a finished product.

“3D printing has been done for some time in the biomedical world,” Sant said, “but when you do it in a biomedical setting, you’re interested in resolution. You’re interested in precision. In construction, all of these things are important but not at the same scale. There is a scale challenge, because rather than print something that’s 5 centimeters long, we want to be able to print a beam that’s 5 meters long. The size scalability is a really important part.”

Another challenge is convincing stakeholders that a cosmic shift like the researchers are proposing is beneficial — not just for the planet, but for them, too.

“This technology could change the economic incentives associated with these power plants in their operations and turn the smokestack flue gas into a resource countries can use, to build up their cities, extend their road systems,” DeShazo said. “It takes what was a problem and turns it into a benefit in products and services that are going to be very much needed and valued in places like India and China.”

DeShazo cited the interdisciplinary team of researchers as a reason for the success of the project. “What UCLA offers is a brilliant set of engineers, material scientists and economists who have been working on pieces of this problem for 10, 20, 30 years,” he said. “And we’re able to bring that team together to focus on each stage.”

According to Sant, UCLA is the perfect place to tackle sustainability challenges.

“As one of the leading universities in the world, we see ourselves as having a blue-sky approach,” Sant said. “We see ourselves wanting to develop technologies that might be considered fanciful at one point but become reality very quickly. So we see ourselves looking at a blue sky and saying, well then, let’s come up with ideas which will change the world.”

The Color of Wealth in Los Angeles Luskin researchers among co-authors in new study revealing nuanced story of race and wealth in L.A.

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By Melany De La Cruz-Viesca and Erin Fogg

A new report examining wealth inequality across racial and ethnic groups in Los Angeles shows substantial disparity with Japanese, Asian Indians, Chinese and whites ranking among the top, while blacks, Mexicans, other Latinos, Koreans and Vietnamese rank far behind.

“The Color of Wealth in Los Angeles” is the first report to compile detailed data on assets and debts among people of different races, ethnicities and countries of origin residing in the Los Angeles area. Researchers from UCLA, Duke University and The New School, with support from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, analyzed data on assets and debts. Assets included savings and checking accounts, stocks, retirement accounts, houses and vehicles, while debts, included credit card debt, student loans, medical debt, mortgages and vehicle debt.

Three of the co-authors of the report have ties to the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Melany De La Cruz-Viesca, the lead author of the report, is a 2002 graduate of the Luskin School’s Department of Urban Planning, and is assistant director of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA. Other co-authors include Paul Ong, professor of Urban Planning, Social Welfare and Asian American studies; and Zhenxiang Chen, a Public Policy graduate student. Also contributing were C. Aujean Lee, a doctoral student in Urban Planning, and Chhandara Pech, a MURP alum and currently a staff member at UCLA’s Center for Neighborhood Knowledge.

“Data that truly reflect the diverse and emerging patterns of wealth inequality across specific ethnic and racial groups has been hard to come by,” said William “Sandy” Darity, co-author and director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke. “The patterns we were able to document may well be the first in-depth study of wealth, ethnicity and race in Los Angeles, especially for Mexicans and particular Asian national origin groups.”

Although much of the inequality discourse has focused on income, wealth is a better indicator of economic well-being and metric for understanding economic inequality. The accumulation of wealth is more likely to ensure financial security and opportunity for American families in the future, the authors said.

The report provides estimates for U.S.-born blacks, blacks who are recent immigrants from Africa, Mexicans, other Latinos, Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and non-Hispanic whites in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Statistical Area (Los Angeles and Orange counties) using new data from the National Asset Scorecard and Communities of Color survey.

Racial and ethnic differences in wealth show the extreme vulnerability of some nonwhite households in Los Angeles. The authors estimate that the typical U.S.-born black or Mexican family, for example, has just 1 percent of the wealth of a typical white family in Los Angeles — or one cent for every dollar of wealth held by the average white family in the metro area. Koreans hold 7 cents and Vietnamese possess 17 cents for every dollar of wealth owned by comparable white families.

The median value of liquid assets — those assets that quickly can be converted to cash — for Mexicans and other Latinos is striking, zero dollars and only $7, respectively, while the median value of liquid assets for white households is $110,000. This not only implies financial hardship in the long term, but it also makes families particularly vulnerable to short-term financial disruption, the report states.

White households in Los Angeles have an estimated median net worth of $355,000. By comparison, Mexicans and U.S.-born blacks are estimated to have a median net worth of $3,500 and $4,000, respectively.

Additionally, among nonwhite groups, Japanese ($592,000), Asian Indian ($460,000), Chinese ($408,200) and Filipino ($243,000) households had estimated median wealth values far in excess of blacks who recently emigrated from Africa ($72,000), other Latinos ($42,500), Koreans ($23,400) and Vietnamese ($61,500).

“The socioeconomic status of immigrants prior to entering the U.S. plays an important role in influencing the wealth position of particular groups,” said De La Cruz-Viesca. “This report not only reveals a nuanced story of racial wealth differences in L.A., perhaps more importantly, it also explores the local nature of asset markets and what factors influence the wealth status of communities of color.”

The majority of immigrants who came to the United States after the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act are highly educated, possess higher levels of wealth than the average American, and are highly skilled professionals who are more likely to hold jobs that pay more. One exception is Vietnamese immigrants, many of whom came to the United States as refugees generally with limited financial resources. The National Asset Scorecard and Communities of Color survey findings are consistent with this general pattern.

The NASCC survey findings reveal staggering disparities that should serve to urge lawmakers to identify and pursue policies that can help narrow racial wealth differences, the authors said. In particular, there’s a need to develop policies that address structural discrimination in asset and credit markets and the inherited inequalities associated with vast differences in parental wealth.

“The wealth disparities uncovered in this report are enormous, likewise it will take bold initiatives to address them,” said co-author Darrick Hamilton, associate professor of economics and urban policy and director of the Ph.D. program in policy at The New School. “‘Baby Bonds’ provide an example of a bold policy proposal that addresses the racial wealth gap, which locks in inequality at birth.”

Hamilton said that these government-provided trusts would take into account a person’s family wealth at birth. “The accounts would be used to seed a down payment on an asset like a home or a new business, so that everyone would have an opportunity to attain the economic security and wealth building mechanism of an asset that will appreciate over their lifetime.”

Are Workfare Programs In India Effective? Public Policy professor Manisha Shah evaluates the impact of antipoverty programs

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By Stan Paul 

Manisha Shah’s work in development economics has taken her around the world, from Mexico and Ecuador to India and Indonesia.

Her work seeks to evaluate the impact of seemingly well-intentioned efforts such as antipoverty programs as well as their unintended consequences, using primary data collection and applied microeconomics as a tool. At home at the Luskin School, she is the Applied Policy Project coordinator for the Department of Public Policy’s Master of Public Policy (MPP) students. In addition, she teaches graduate courses in microeconomics as well as a course on international development.

In a recent working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), where she is a faculty research associate, Shah and her co-author, Bryce Steinberg, have evaluated the effect of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). In “Workfare and Human Capital Investment: Evidence From India,” the authors posit that the NREGS workfare program, which requires beneficiaries to work on local public works projects in order to receive benefits, “could increase the opportunity cost of schooling, lowering human capital investment even as incomes increase due to increased labor demand.”

The research shows that this government program, one of the largest in the world, actually lowers both school enrollment and math scores for students ages 13 to 16. For boys in India, the antipoverty program has them substituting work for school, while adolescent girls are substituting into unpaid domestic work at home (since their mothers are now more likely to be working outside the home). Put in human terms, this means, according to Shah, that the program in India “may have caused anywhere from 650,000 to 2.5 million adolescents to leave school prematurely.”

Interestingly, the additional income from the workfare program may benefit the very young children in the household — the 2- to 4-year-olds. The authors find that human capital outcomes improve for the very youngest children as a result of NREGS.

Overall, the workfare program may serve as a disincentive for adolescents to invest in education. This is important to policy makers, who may be considering workfare as a means of poverty alleviation, says Shah. “If we believe education is important for economic growth, and that workfare programs raise prevailing wages and cause older students to substitute toward work and away from school, lump sum grants or conditional cash transfers might be other policy options to consider.”

“The takeaway from these results is that social programs have price effects, and that these price effects can have very real consequences,” Shah’s report concludes. “Ultimately it is important to maximize their potential to alleviate poverty and improve the lives of the poor.”

Other areas Shah has examined include child health and development. Recent work has involved evaluating impacts of improved sanitation on child health outcomes in rural Indonesia. She also has written on the economics of sex markets to learn how more effective policies and programs can be deployed to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections.

Where will her research take her next?

Shah says her next destination is Tanzania in East Africa to study intervention programs for adolescent girls. Programs to help girls stay in school and avoid risky sex and its harmful consequences are proving unsuccessful. Shah wants to know what’s going on and why this is happening, looking to the data to provide answers.

Manisha Shah is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. She also is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Faculty Affiliate at UC Berkeley’s Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) and a Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

Hilda Solis Named 2016 Commencement Speaker Former Secretary of Labor and current L.A. County Supervisor to deliver address at Luskin ceremony on June 10

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By George Foulsham

Hilda L. Solis, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and current First District Supervisor for Los Angeles County, has been named the 2016 Commencement speaker for the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Solis, who served as Labor Secretary from 2009 to 2013 under President Obama, will speak during the Luskin ceremony at 9 a.m. on June 10 at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus.

“Supervisor Solis is both an advocate and a legislator who works to address the needs of the Los Angeles community,” Luskin Interim Dean Lois Takahashi said. “She is a champion of issues that we care about here at UCLA Luskin: access to affordable health care, environmental protections and workers’ rights.

“Supervisor Solis can speak to the opportunities and challenges our graduates will face in the job market,” Takahashi added. “As an experienced public servant at all levels of government, and as the first Latina to hold a cabinet-level position, Supervisor Solis has a unique perspective on the contributions our graduates can make.”

Solis was sworn in as Los Angeles County Supervisor on Dec. 1, 2014. Prior to serving as Secretary of Labor, Solis represented the 32nd Congressional District in California, a position she held from 2001 to 2009.

A nationally recognized leader on the environment, Solis became the first woman to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2000 for her pioneering work on environmental justice issues. Her California environmental justice legislation, enacted in 1999, was the first of its kind in the nation to become law.

A native of Los Angeles County, Solis grew up in La Puente, Calif. She was born in 1957 to Juana and Raul Solis, who met in citizenship classes in California. Her mother, a native of Nicaragua, worked on an assembly line while her father, a Mexican immigrant, worked as a steward for the Teamsters union.

As the third of seven children, Solis served as a role model for her younger siblings by becoming the first person in her family to attend college, at Cal Poly Pomona.

“He always reminded us that it was important to stand up for your rights, and regardless of who you are and where you come from, to hold your head up high with dignity and respect,” Solis said of her father during a 2001 interview with California Journal.

Solis was also the first Latina elected to the California State Senate, in 1994. While serving as a state senator, she helped push through legislation to increase the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.75 an hour.

“We are looking forward to hearing from one of L.A.’s leading public servants,” Takahashi said.

A Road Map for Advancing Women in Tech New report by Luskin Center provides strategies for reducing inequality in the tech sector

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By George Foulsham

The importance of quality mentorships is one of eight key recommendations in a new Luskin Center for Innovation report about strategies for increasing diversity and retaining women in high-tech careers.

The Luskin Center report, “What Are We Missing? Rethinking Public, Private and Nonprofit Strategies to Advance Women in Technology,” is a compilation of feedback from those who attended the April 2015 Women in Tech conference at UCLA and a review of salient literature. The Luskin Center is part of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

The conference brought together 250 influential leaders in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. With a focus on systemic change, the conference strategically explored ways to reduce inequality in the tech sector in three main categories: personal, private, and public. The conference was sponsored in part by Google and Cisco.

“The most important feedback we received from the people who attended —accomplished men and women at all levels of private tech companies, government agencies, nonprofits, startups, academia — was the importance of mentorship,” said Rebecca Sadwick, co-author of the report, one of the conference organizers and a former project manager at the Luskin Center. “The importance of informal mentorship to career advancement didn’t occur to me before we began. Or how these mentorships tend not to cross gender lines. But the importance of understanding this and actively seeking resources to advance men and women’s careers equitably is vital.”

According to the study, technology is one of the fastest growing and most profitable fields. Yet, in the U.S., women and minorities continue to be underrepresented at every stage of the tech pipeline. Despite recent efforts by prominent companies to address the gender and diversity gaps, women’s representation in both technical and executive leadership roles has not greatly improved.

“We are entering into a digital era which will require millions of new tech-related positions to be filled,” the report states. “To the detriment of the American workforce and economy, we currently lack the talent to fill such positions. Educating, recruiting, hiring and retaining women and minorities in STEM professions would not only increase company’s profitability but it would alleviate the societal and economic repercussions of disenfranchising half of the workforce.”

“We have this push to educate computer science to all students,” said Sarah Godoy, lead researcher on the Digital Technology Initiative at the Luskin Center. “It’s wonderful, but if women get into the marketplace, and they’re going in looking for a career, and if they work for a company that doesn’t value them, then they’re not going to succeed. They’re dropping off.

“There needs to be more strategies from both the private and public sectors to really affect change comprehensively,” Godoy added.

Eight overarching themes emerged from the literature review and crowd-sourced knowledge from UCLA’s conference. These themes served to guide the report:

  1. Using data to assess diversity
  2. Providing female entrepreneurs with access to funding models that reduce bias
  3. Focusing on the hiring process to reduce subconscious biases
  4. Standardizing performance reviews
  5. Increasing quality mentorship
  6. Expanding public-private partnerships
  7. Building upon mandate-driven public policies
  8. Commitment to diversity at all levels of leadership

The report outlines strategies for startup and small companies, medium and large companies, resource providers, the public sector, and academia and the education pipeline.

“We knew going into the conference that public policy strategies were limited and fragmented, but the research that followed really underscored just how limited public strategies are,” Sadwick said. “With few exceptions, strategies to advance women and diversity in the tech sector remain fragmented by state and local municipalities.

“Companies themselves still play the most direct role in addressing the diversity gap,” Sadwick added. “Companies that make it a priority at all levels of leadership to counter systemic inequalities that limit their talent pool have remarkable success.”

Lessons learned from the companies that get it right can be the guideposts for everybody, according to the study.

“By observing the strategies that have been effective in other companies and countries,” Sadwick said, “and measuring the impact of the tactics tried throughout an organization, they are more likely to implement tactics that directly impact their company’s ability to attract and retain top talent of all backgrounds.”

The full report can be found at http://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/content/what-are-we-missing-rethinking-strategies-advance-women-technology

A Voice from the ‘Eye of the Storm’ U.S., Hungarian diplomatic counterparts meet, share global perspectives at Luskin School

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By Stan Paul

If there is one thing that Hungary’s Ambassador to the United States would like Americans to know about her country, it’s “that we are friends of America.”

Ambassador Réka Szemerkényi met with her American counterpart, U.S. Ambassador to Hungary Coleen Bell, Feb. 26, 2016, at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs to share perspectives on the two countries’ ongoing relationship in light of recent events in Europe and the Middle East. The event was presented by the UCLA Luskin Senior Fellows Leadership Program and the U.S. Department of State, represented by Melissa Martinez, U.S. State Department Diplomat in Residence and Luskin Senior Fellow.

While perhaps better known in popular memory in this country from the Cold War era, Hungary — a member of the European Union (EU) and NATO — currently finds itself not only physically but politically at the center of a turbulent Europe, from the Syrian refugee crisis to relations with an emboldened Russia in the Crimea region of Ukraine and elsewhere.

“Hungary is in the eye of the storm,” said Szemerkényi, who said she was brought up on Radio Free Europe, behind the pre-1990s Iron Curtain era. “If it is better understood, it can just help.” She pointed out that, while Hungary’s second-largest trading partner after the European Union is the United States, the country derives 80 percent of its energy needs through Russia.

Both ambassadors agreed that despite tensions and a “complex” situation, peace and stability in the region is in the best interests of both countries, longtime partners in trade with a long tradition of cooperation. And, like Szemerkényi, Ambassador Bell, who was appointed by President Obama in 2014, has witnessed the refugee crisis on the ground in central Europe.

“The situation became untenable,” said Bell describing the hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring over the borders of Hungary and EU countries. She said that the media “got some of this right and some of it very wrong,” referring to the Syrian refugees. Szemerkényi said that the situation was much more “nuanced” than the media story that was coming out of the region. Putting the surge of refugees into the EU into perspective, she said that the many thousands of refugees (not all from Syria) would be the equivalent of millions entering the United States in a 12-month period.

And, while the Hungarian government set up refugee centers, Szemerkényi said that refugees did not necessarily want to stay in Hungary but move on to bordering countries such as Austria, which she described as unprepared for the influx, or Germany, where refugees believe there are more opportunities.

“The entire length of the border was used as a permanent border crossing,” said Szemerkényi, while discussing a controversial fence across the border and the challenge — or impossibility — of conducting registration of hundreds of thousands of people, none of whom had passports. “There is no way to distinguish between refugees and migrants” coming from places such as Kosovo to Pakistan, she added, making passport-free travel — critically important to trade in the EU — problematic for Hungary’s commitments to its own national security.

Despite tensions brought about by the situation in Europe, Bell said that the two countries will continue to have a strong relationship while “we try to figure out how to express our concerns.”

Szemerkényi said that in addition to expressing the long-term friendship of the two countries, she would also like to dispel any misconceptions about Americans in her country.

“You are important — we need you as allies.”

Decoding the Apple v. U.S. battle Public Policy professor John Villasenor breaks down the background, key points and possible consequences of the iPhone legal dispute

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By George Foulsham

During his discussion of the much-publicized iPhone standoff between Apple and the U.S. government, UCLA Luskin Public Policy professor John Villasenor said his main goal was to present the facts of the controversial case, and not to focus on his personal opinion. But, at the end of the discussion, after walking the audience through the background, technology and possible consequences of the legal battle, he did disclose what he thinks the outcome might be.

“I can’t imagine that the government is going to force a team of Apple engineers to drop everything and create a bunch of new code,” Villasenor, a professor of public policy, electrical engineering and management, said. “I have a hard time seeing it’s going to go that way.

“I might be wrong,” he added. “At the end of the day, if Apple refuses, there may be sanctions. They could fine Apple. They could hold them in contempt of court. You could jail the responsible person. It’s just hard to see that would happen to Apple.”

Villasenor’s talk, held at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, attracted students and scholars who, like the rest of the country, are fascinated by the many twists and turns the case has taken.

“This is a perfect example of why so much of what we do at UCLA crosses these boundaries — technology, policy, law and business — and how it intersects in this way that quite literally is dominating the headlines,” Villasenor said.

The latest development occurred Thursday when Apple filed court papers claiming that a federal judge had overstepped her authority and violated the company’s rights by ordering the company to help unlock a terrorist’s phone. “The ground is moving underneath us as we sit here,” Villasenor said of the rapidly unfolding legal war.

On Feb. 16, a federal magistrate issued an order compelling Apple to assist the government in bypassing the security features of an iPhone 5c used by one of the shooters in the December 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack. Apple opposes the order, arguing that the government’s demand to “build a backdoor into our products … would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect.”

Villasenor, who’s also a visiting professor of law at UCLA, covered the key points in the dispute, including an overview of the government invoking the All Writs Act of 1789 as a justification for compelling Apple to provide access to the phone. “What other document happened in 1789 that we like?” he asked. “Anything else come to mind? Like the Bill of Rights?”

Speaking of the government’s use of the All Writs Act, Villasenor said that “as far as I know, this is the first time the government has ever ordered someone to write code.”

He explained that one of the ways to access the information in the phone is through the use of a “brute force attack” — entering passcodes until you get the right one. “The problem is that iPhones have security features designed to thwart those attacks,” he said. So if someone tries to enter passcodes 10 times, and they’re unsuccessful, the phone can erase a file system key, making it impossible to decrypt data on the phone.

However, if the government had access to a phone containing the software it is trying to compel Apple to create, a brute force attack might not take long to unlock all of the data.

“If you have a four-digit passcode, it will only take you about 15 minutes to go through all of those combinations, actually probably less,” Villasenor said.  “After 7 or 8 minutes, you could probably get in. A six-digit passcode could be found in about a day.”

But since iPhones running recent versions of iOS also allow longer passcodes, including alpha-numeric combinations, the challenge could be daunting. “The numbers quickly explode,” he said. For a six-digit alpha-numeric code, Villasenor said it would take “five and a half years to calculate all combinations …  according to Apple.”

The next steps in the dispute include additional court filings, a March 22 hearing in a Los Angeles federal courtroom, followed by a decision by a magistrate, inevitable appeals in district and circuit courts, and maybe an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Among the consequences of the case, according to Villasenor, are what other, potentially oppressive governments might do if Apple were to lose the case and be forced to provide what the U.S. wants, and the inevitability that we all will wind up with more secure phones in the future.

“This is a compelling test case,” Villasenor said. “This case is going to be incredibly important.”

IPP Bridges Studies to Global Career International Practice Pathways (IPP) offers internships to students across the globe.

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By Adeney Zo

Since 2011, the International Practice Pathways (IPP) program has offered a global component to Luskin students’ education prior to the inception of Global Public Affairs. This summer, IPP once again sent a group of students to internship placements around the world, offering them the unique opportunity to see their education come to life on the international scale.

The global journey begins with Shafaq Choudry MURP ’16, who interned in the mayor’s office in Panama City, Panama. Having grown up in Venezuela and worked extensively with Latino communities as a planner, Choudry was immediately drawn to a placement opportunity in Latin America. “The IPP summer program in Panama presented a tremendous opportunity to work at a recently established Department of Urban Planning under the mayor’s office on transportation and land use projects,” she explained.

Her areas of academic interest include sustainable transportation and equitable development, so the opportunity to work in a rapidly developing city was invaluable.

“Panama City has undergone rapid growth and development over the years, and with new leadership in place, the Department of Planning is investing in strategies and tools for inclusive and equitable growth,” said Choudry.

Despite the practical experience she gained, Choudry was most inspired by the people she encountered during her time abroad.

“I met extraordinary, young and talented individuals that are passionate about transforming their city for the better,” said Choudry. “Their open and eager-for-change attitude allowed me to integrate with the team and generate ideas for the future together.”

Choudry will continue her travels this year with a comprehensive thesis project in Mexico City, an endeavor she hopes will lead to a career in Latin America. “Toward the end of my 10-week fellowship in Panama, I received the affirmation I needed in order to pursue international planning work in Latin America as a consultant,” she said.

Like Choudry, Katie Merrill MSW ’16 had deep personal ties to her placement — Europe — having lived and worked in Germany before coming to Luskin. Motivated by this combination of personal and academic interest, Merrill chose to intern at the UN Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.

“I have always been interested in the UN and the grand scale of global humanitarian work,” said Merrill. “I was particularly attracted to the idea of working at UNHCR in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis.”

Merrill was given the freedom to design and run a study on staff alcohol abuse across the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Many UNHCR staff members work in dangerous areas under highly stressful conditions, leading to a widespread alcohol abuse problem, Merrill explained. “I was shocked and fascinated by what I heard on a daily basis, and I felt a profound responsibility to do them justice,” she said.

“This experience showed me just how intimate research can, in fact, be,” she continued. “I spent hours on the phone with staff members speaking about very jarring personal experiences. It was so powerful to feel that my synthesis and communication of their messages may very well lead to real and important policy changes in the organization, and it was an honor to be at the heart of something so big.”

Merrill and her coworkers interviewed more than 100 staff members over the course of her study, and her findings will be incorporated into a final report to UNHCR.

Away from city life, Jason Karpman MURP ’16 applied his studies in urbanization and environmental impact to the rainforests of Chiang Mai, Thailand. When considering where to apply for his IPP placement, Karpman had his sights set on the research organization World Agroforestry Centre. Between their global office locations, Thailand had the most abundant forest area, covering approximately 37% of the country. “I was drawn to the ecology of the place,” explained Karpman.

IPP offers students the chance to engage in real-life applications of their studies, and this aspect of the program resonated deeply with Karpman. While the majority of his time was spent conducting literature review and research at Chiang Mai University, Karpman was most inspired by field visits to the rainforest itself. He recalled the breathtaking moment when he entered a tropical rainforest for the first time:

“It’s one of those awe-inspiring experiences, and I was humbled by how spectacular [the rainforest] is, how productive it is,” said Karpman. “There was green as far as the eye can see. It solidified that these places provide important environmental services for our planet.”

To future students considering IPP, Karpman recommends the program as the ideal window between the first and second year to reassess the direction of one’s studies.

“[I realized] how to maximize my last year in this program to get the skills and content education I need,” he said. “I can’t overemphasize how important the value of the program is — it’s a moment to pause in your education, reassess things and then get back in the program.”

 

 

Susanna Hecht on Climate Change Professor Susan Hecht works to achieve the UC system`s goal of carbon neutrality by 2025

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By Stan Paul 

For Urban Planning professor Susanna Hecht, the future of life on this planet as we know it is a matter of degrees — a scant few at that.

Hecht is part of a group of 50 University of California scholars and scientists addressing the 10-campus Carbon Neutrality Initiative proposed by UC President Janet Napolitano in 2013. Under this initiative, the University of California aspires to become carbon neutral by 2025. Recent California legislation also calls for a marked increase in the amount of renewable resources providing electricity in California by 2030.

Hecht and her UC colleagues, led by Veerabhadran Ramanathan (renowned climate scientist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography), are among those who want to “bend the curve,” or the “hockey stick” graph as Hecht refers to it, on the rise in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases. A mere two-degree change in average temperature will portend future disaster from drought to sea-level rise, and changing weather patterns that most of the globe is not prepared for, according to experts representing a wide range of disciplines.

Hecht said, “We are already in the middle of this…and a lot of records are being broken on a weekly basis.”

The group of UC scholars, from fields as diverse as ethics and environmental justice to climate science and religion, met in October at the University of California’s Summit on Pathways to Carbon and Climate Neutrality: California and the World, led by California Governor Jerry Brown. The purpose of the meeting was to focus on solutions that could guide the state but also to provide solutions that could be used worldwide. UC research and recommendations were also part of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris.

In addition to carbon (which has a long life in the atmosphere), Hecht points out the many other factors that contribute to temperature rise, such as methane and HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) released into the environment, as well as the “heat island” effect our built environment, roads and urban centers create.

As a “carbon sink,” the tropical rainforest absorbs millions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere, and Hecht points out that deforestation of the Amazon has dropped significantly in the last decade. This has had an impact, but the rainforest can’t do it alone, especially when deforestation continues in other parts of the world such as Indonesia.

Change will require not only scientific innovation but also social innovation that focuses on our relationship with forests, said the co-editor of “The Social Lives of Forests: Present and Future of Woodland Resurgence.”