Person Category: All Faculty

Edith de Guzman

Edith de Guzman (she/her) is an interdisciplinary researcher, practitioner, educator, curator, and consultant working with diverse audiences to understand and address the impacts of climate change in under-represented communities. She is a Cooperative Extension specialist with the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, where her work investigates best practices for the sustainable transformation of the Los Angeles region and beyond. Her work has included research, demonstration projects, public policy and planning in the areas of water management, climate adaptation, heat mitigation, and urban forestry. She tackles these topics through the lenses of urban planning, public health, behavioral sciences, biophysical sciences, and public policy.

From 2014 to 2020, Edith served as Director of Research at Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization TreePeople, where her projects included: the City of Los Angeles Stormwater Capture Master Plan; facilitating the creation of a Greening Plan with the communities of Inglewood and Lennox; bringing to fruition multiple urban water management demonstration projects; leading an extensive study tour of Australia’s response to its historic Millennium Drought and gleaning lessons for California; and producing the first interactive, high-resolution public map and spatial analysis of Los Angeles County’s urban forest.

Edith co-founded multisectoral partnerships including the Los Angeles Urban Cooling Collaborative and the Los Angeles Urban Forest Equity Collective, aimed at alleviating the public health risks of extreme heat and removing the policy barriers to cooler, greener neighborhoods. Their research has found that one in four lives currently lost to extreme heat could be saved if L.A.’s land cover had additional trees and its built surfaces were more reflective, particularly where low-income communities and communities of color live and work.

More recently, she co-launched ShadeLA with her colleagues at USC Dornsife Public Exchange – a people-powered campaign to make it easier for Angelenos countywide to bring more shade to their neighborhoods and businesses, leveraging the attention and investment that mega-events are bringing to LA.

Edith earned her PhD at the UCLA Institute of the Environment & Sustainability, where she conducted applied, interdisciplinary research on climate adaptation and climate health equity using community-based methods. Edith earned a master’s in urban planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a bachelor’s degree in history and art history, also from UCLA. When not working or studying, she can be found hiking, playing guitar, or creating art exhibitions that explore the human connection to the environment.

Wesley Yin

April 15, 2025/in Public Policy Consumer Finance, Economic Development, Economics, Equity, Health Care, Labor and Employment, Public Finance Wesley Yin All Faculty, Ladder Faculty Faculty /by Mary Braswell

Wesley (“Wes”) Yin is a Professor of Economics at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and the Anderson School of Management. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Faculty Affiliate at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT.

Yin’s research focuses on health care, consumer finance, and economic inequality. His recent work studies competition and market power, and the links between health care financing and consumer financial health and well-being.

His work has been published in leading economics and policy outlets such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, JAMA, Health Affairs, and the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, and has been covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Forbes, The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, Vox, and others.

From 2023-24, Yin served in the Biden Administration as Associate Director for Economic Policy, and Chief Economist, in the Office of Management and Budget. Previously, he served in the Obama Administration as Acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy in the Department of the Treasury, and as Senior Economist in the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

Previously, he was an assistant professor at the University of Chicago and Boston University, and a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy at Harvard University. He received his PhD in economics from Princeton University.

Working Papers

Provider Market Power and Adverse Selection in Health Insurance Markets: Evidence from the California Health Benefits Exchange (with Nicholas Tilipman). Draft available, upon request.

Selected Publications

The Effects of Medical Debt Relief: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments (with Ray Kluender, Neale Mahoney and Francis Wong). The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 140(2): May 2025, 1187–1241. NBER Working Paper version (WP#32315, April 2024).

Pre-registrations: J-PAL Summary. AEA Pre-registration 1 (Collector Debt). AEA Pre-registration 2 (Hospital Debt). Media coverage: New York Times, The Guardian, Forbes, St. Louis Public Radio, Bloomberg, Vox, The Atlantic, Vox Today, Explained (Podcast), Tradeoffs (Podcast)

The Impact of Financial Assistance Programs on Health Care Utilization (with Alyce Adams, Ray Kluender, Neale Mahoney, Jinglin Wang, and Francis Wong). American Economic Review: Insights. 4(3), September 2022: 389-407. Online Appendix.

Personalized Telephone Outreach Increased Health Insurance Take-Up for Hard-to Reach Populations (w/ Rebecca Myerson, Nicholas Tilipman, Andrew Fehrer, Honglin Li, and Isaac Menashe) Health Affairs. 41(1): 129–137, January 2022.

Trends in Medical Debt During the COVID Pandemic (with Raymond Kluender, Benedict Guttman-Kenney, Neale Mahoney, Francis Wong, and Xuyang Xia) JAMA Health Forum 3(5):e221031, May 2022.

The Role of Behavioral Frictions in Health Insurance Marketplace Enrollment and Risk: Evidence from a Field Experiment. (with Richard Domurat and Isaac Menashe) American Economic Review 111(5): 1549–1574 , May 2021. [Online Appendix] Media Coverage: Tradeoffs Podcast

Medical Debt in the United States, 2009-2020 (with Ray Kluender, Neale Mahoney and Francis Wong) Journal of the American Medical Association 326(3), July 2021. Media Coverage: NY Times, Washington Post, Vox, Marketwatch, CBS Evening News, Marketplace. JAMA editorial.

The Market for High-Quality Medicine: Retail Chain Entry and Drug Quality in India. 2019. (with Daniel Bennett) Review of Economics and Statistics 101(1) p.76-90 [Appendix]

Insurers’ Negotiating Leverage and the External Effect of Medicare Part D. 2015. (with Darius Lakdawalla), Review of Economics and Statistics 97:2 p.314-331 (an earlier version appears as NBER working paper no. 16251). Media coverage: New Yorker

Value of Survival Gains in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (with John Penrod, J. Ross Maclean, Darius Lakdawalla and Tomas Philipson) American Journal of Managed Care 2012 Nov;18(11 Suppl):S257-64

R&D Policy, Agency Costs and Innovation in Personalized Medicine. 2009. Journal of Health Economics 28(5): 950-962.

Market Incentives and Pharmaceutical Innovation. 2008. Journal of Health Economics 27(4):1060-1077.

Female Empowerment: Impact of a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines. 2010. (with Nava Ashraf and Dean Karlan) World Development 38(3): 333-344.

The Effect of the Medicare Part D Prescription Benefit on Drug Utilization and Expenditures (with Anirban Basu, James Zhang, Atonu Rabbani, David Meltzer, and Caleb Alexander) Lead article at Annals of Internal Medicine 148(3): 169-177. Annals’ Summary for Patients.

Designing Targeting Schemes with Poverty Maps: Does Disaggregation Help?. 2007. (with Berk Özler, Chris Elbers, Tomoki Fujii, Peter Lanjouw) Journal of Development Economics 83(1).

Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence from a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines. 2006. (with Nava Ashraf and Dean Karlan) Quarterly Journal of Economics 121(2). Winner of TIAA-CREF 2006 Certificate of Excellence.

Deposit Collectors (with Nava Ashraf and Dean Karlan). 2006. Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy 6(2), Article 5.

Ajwang Rading

March 20, 2025/in Public Policy Artificial Intelligence, Economics, Emerging Technologies, Entrepreneurship, National Security All Faculty Faculty /by Ronaldo Avina

Ajwang Rading is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. An entrepreneur-investor, lawyer, and policy advisor, his interdisciplinary research and teaching examine the nexus of emerging technologies (with an emphasis on artificial intelligence), law, public policy, ethics and safety, and the societal and economic implications of innovation.

In addition to his academic appointment, Rading serves as Co-Founder & Partner at Silicon AI Advisory, the leading global law firm and consultancy dedicated exclusively to artificial intelligence matters. He is also the Managing Partner of AMR Ventures, a fund focused on catalyzing American economic prosperity through strategic investments in small and medium businesses, and Partner of Lekadora Group, a real estate holding company.

Previously, as an attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Rading advised large technology companies, startups, and venture capital firms as “outside General Counsel” on emerging technologies, corporate governance, venture financings, mergers & acquisitions, and public markets, as well as national security, regulatory compliance, and strategic crisis management.

Rading’s public service includes a U.S. Congressional campaign (CA-16, 2022) and work as a legislative aide to U.S. Senator Cory Booker and then-U.S.-Congressman (now-U.S.-Senator) Adam Schiff. At the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, Rading researched and documented over 4,000 lynchings throughout the American South and helped establish the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

Today, Rading serves on the boards of LifeMoves and Human Rights Watch (Silicon Valley committee), and is a Humanity in Action Senior Fellow and Perplexity AI Fellow. He writes -1 to 1, a newsletter on building businesses from scratch, followed by over 35,000 people across Silicon Valley and California. He is regularly invited to speak at events such as SXSW and SF Tech Week, and has guest-lectured at institutions such as Stanford Graduate School of Business, UC Berkeley School of Law, and the University of Lucerne in Switzerland.

Rading holds a J.D. from UCLA School of Law, where he served as Articles Editor of the UCLA Law Review, and a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA.

Personal website: www.ajwangrading.com
Connect with him on Linkedin

David Cohen

February 26, 2025/in Global Public Affairs, Social Welfare Coercive mental health care, Controlled substances, Data justice, Deprescribing, Harm reduction, History of ideas, Medicalization, Mental health, Psychopharmacology, Psychotropic medications David Cohen All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Mary Braswell

David Cohen studies psychoactive drugs across shifting boundaries of medical, recreational, and illicit uses, showing how socio-cultural factors, not just drug properties, shape legal status and therapeutic promises. He also evaluates claims about biological determinist views and biological treatments of distress and misbehavior. He explores how schools of thought in mental health impact notions of ethical care, informed consent, and harm reduction. His research on public data about involuntary psychiatric detentions reveals governments’ weak accountability for coercive care. Cohen has authored or co-authored over 120 articles and chapters. His last co-authored book was Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs (2015). He has received awards for writing, research, teaching, mentoring, and advocacy.

As a mental health practitioner, Cohen focused on helping people withdraw from psychiatric drugs and advocated for person-centered, individualized reduction. He developed guidelines for therapists and people navigating these substances’ shift from medical tools to cultural/consumer products. He also created CriticalThinkRx, a curriculum shown to reduce psychotropic prescriptions for foster children. Cohen has advised governments, research agencies, courts, media, and community groups on reducing harms of psychotropic drug use.

Cohen taught at University of Montreal (1988-2000) where he directed the Health and Prevention Research Group (1993-1994) focused on the nascent social determinants of health paradigm, and at Florida International University (2000-20013) where he directed the PhD program and served as Interim Director of the School of Social Work. In 2012, he held the Fulbright-Tocqueville Distinguished Chair at University of Poitiers, France. At UCLA Luskin, Cohen held the Marjorie Crump Chair in Social Welfare (2013-2018), served as Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development (2018-2023) and is currently Associate Dean.

Selected recent publications

Discontinuing Psychiatric Medications from Participants in Randomized Controlled Trials: A systematic Review (2019)

Incidences of Involuntary Psychiatric Detentions in 25 U.S. States (2020)

Withdrawal Effects Confounding: Another Sign of Needed Paradigm Shift in Psychopharmacology Research (2020)

Minjee Kim

August 12, 2024/in Real Estate Development, Urban Planning Equitable Development, Land Use Regulation, Public Private Development, Real Estate Development, Urban Public Finance, Zoning All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Ervin Huang

Minjee Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Urban Planning department at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research is situated at the intersection of real estate development and urban planning. She writes about land use regulation, large-scale real estate developments, exactions, negotiated developments, and urban public finance. Her goal as a planning scholar is to identify the ways in which planners and policymakers can foster equitable real estate developments.

Her solo-authored works have appeared in high impact planning journals such as the Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Literature, and Urban Studies. She has been recognized both nationally and internationally as an emerging expert in US land use regulation and zoning. She served as the U.S. expert on Lincoln Institute’s joint effort with the OECD to promote land-based public finance. She also has been engendering a close working relationship with real estate industry professionals. She served as the chair of the DEI committee for ULI North Florida and is the sole author of the report, Creating Diverse and Inclusive Communities, published by the ULI Terwilliger Center for Housing. Equipped with an understanding of the economics, processes, and politics of real estate development, she sees herself as bridging the real estate and planning fields.

Minjee received a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning and Master’s in City Planning from MIT. During her time in Boston, she worked in the cities of Cambridge and Boston’s planning departments to obtain hands-on planning experience. She was previously an Assistant Professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the Florida State University from 2019 to 2024.

Selected Publications:

Kim, M., Garcia, I., Goetz, E., Hanlon, B., Monkkonen, P., Pendall, R., Pfeiffer, D., Reece, J., & Whittemore, A. (2025). Bring Zoning Back into the Planning Curricula. Journal of the American Planning Association.

Kim, M. (2025). From exchange value to social value of real estate development: A Planner’s perspective. Planning Theory.

Kim, M., & Lee, H. (2024). Upzoning and gentrification: Heterogeneous impacts of neighbourhood-level upzoning in New York City. Urban Studies.

Kim, M., Malizia, E., Nelson, M., Wolf-Powers, L., Ganning, J., & Schrock, G. (2024). Real Estate Development and Economic Development Planning Education: Pragmatic Turn or Trojan Horse? Journal of Planning Education and Research.

Kim, M., & Lee, H. (2023). Can U.S. Planned Communities Become Diverse? The case of industry-leading master-planned communities in five metro areas. Journal of Urban Affairs.

Kim, M. (2023). The Case for Mass Upzoning. Housing Policy Debate.

Kim, M. (2023). Infrastructure investments and land value capture: Variations and uncertainties at the frontiers of urban expansion. Town Planning Review.

Kim, M. (2023). Taking Stock of What We Know About Large-Scale Urban Development Projects: A Review of Existing Theoretical Frameworks and Case Studies. Journal of Planning Literature.

Kim, M., & Chapin, T. (2022). Who Benefits from Enterprise Zones? Equity implications gleaned from policy design and implementation regulations. Cities.

Kim, M., & Zhou, T. (2021). Does Restricting the Entry of Formula Businesses Help Mom-and-pop Stores? The case of American towns with unique community character. Economic Development Quarterly.

Kim, M. (2021). How Do Tax-based Revitalization Policies Affect Urban Property Development? Evidence from Bronzeville, Chicago. Urban Studies.

Kim, M. (2020). Negotiation or Schedule-based? Examining the strengths and weaknesses of the public benefit exaction strategies of Boston and Seattle. Journal of the American Planning Association.

Kim, M. (2020). Upzoning and Value Capture: How U.S. local governments use land use regulation power to create and capture value from real estate developments. Land Use Policy.

Poco D. Kernsmith

July 9, 2024/in Social Welfare Criminal/Legal Systems, School Culture and Climate, Sexual and Gender Identity and Expression, Violence Prevention, Youth Violence Perpetration All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Oliver Ike

Dr. Poco D. Kernsmith is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Social Welfare. Dr. Kernsmith has integrated practice and research experience in the development and implementation of several federally funded research and intervention projects, focusing on the etiology and prevention of perpetration of violence by youth among peers, in families, and in intimate relationships. These projects include a longitudinal study on the modifiable protective factors to prevent intimate partner and sexual violence perpetration, and the development and evaluation of school-based violence prevention programs in university and middle school settings. Dr. Kernsmith is currently studying how school policies can help create inclusive, trauma-informed environments to prevent and respond to violence or threats of violence in middle and high schools.

Dr. Kernsmith’s research has been funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Justice, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and the Michigan State Policy Center. Dr. Kernsmith’s additional research areas include inclusive and comprehensive sexual health education, water justice, collective trauma, and community-based strategies to prevent hate-motivated violence and domestic terrorism. Dr. Kernsmith has also volunteered with the American Civil Liberties Union to support efforts related to reform of the criminal legal system.

Dr. Kernsmith has primarily taught classes in research methods at the BSW, MSW, and PhD levels, as well as courses related to violence prevention and intervention. As the PhD program director at two universities, Dr. Kernsmith engaged in efforts to assess structural barriers to student success and engaged in systems change to promote equity and inclusion in the academic system. Dr. Kernsmith is engaged in ongoing research to assess disparities in mentorship of doctoral students.

Sicong (Summer) Sun

July 1, 2024/in Social Welfare Financial Capability and Asset Building, Health Disparities, Immigration, Mental health, Poverty, QuantCrit, Quantitative Analysis, Race and Ethnicity All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Oliver Ike

Sicong “Summer” Sun is an Assistant Professor of Social Welfare at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. They hold a Ph.D. in Social Work and a Master of Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining UCLA, Dr. Sun was a faculty member at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare.

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

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

Selected publications:

Sun, S., Huang, J., & Sherraden, M. (2025). The Long-Term Impacts of Child Development Accounts on Parental Educational Expectations and College Preparation. Social Service Review.

Sun, S., & Sinha, G. R. (2025). Financial Capability Profile of US Pandemic Stimulus Payment Non-Recipients: Implications for Financial Inclusion and Universal Basic Income. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For full list of publications please visit their page at:

Google scholar: ‪Sicong (Summer) Sun – ‪Google Scholar

Research Gate: Sicong Sun (researchgate.net)

Corey J. Matthews

June 28, 2024/in Public Policy Change Management, Leadership, Nonprofit Organizations, Social Change, Strategic Planning All Faculty Faculty /by Ronaldo Avina

Corey Matthews has been appointed Chief Strategy Officer at Liberty Hill Foundation. He is a social impact leader with more than 15 years of experience advancing cross-sector strategies to improve economic mobility, public health, and education outcomes for communities most impacted by systemic inequities.

Most recently, Corey served as Vice President of Global Philanthropy at JPMorganChase, where he led a multi-million-dollar grant portfolio in Los Angeles and helped advance regional strategies focused on economic inclusion, affordable housing, and workforce development. His work centered on building partnerships across philanthropy, government, community-based organizations, and the private sector to drive coordinated impact.

Previously, Corey was Chief Operating Officer of Community Coalition, a longstanding community-based institution in South Los Angeles. As a member of the executive team, he helped execute a robust policy agenda, oversee organizational operations, and lead organization-wide strategic planning. Earlier in his career, he worked across government, nonprofit, and research settings focused on systems change and poverty reduction.

Corey brings a deep commitment to aligning vision with execution and to strengthening institutions to meet the needs of community. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Master of Arts in Urban Education from the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.

Bianca D.M. Wilson

February 14, 2024/in Social Welfare LGBTQ+ youth in systems Bianca Wilson All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Oliver Ike

Bianca D.M. Wilson, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Welfare at the Luskin School of Public Affairs and an affiliate faculty member of the California Center for Population Research at UCLA. Her research explores the relationships between culture, oppression, and health. Dr. Wilson examines LGBTQ economic instabilities and involvement with systems of care and criminalization, with a focus on the ways racialization, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression play a role in creating disproportionality and disparities.

Notably, she was the lead investigator on the first study to establish population estimates of how many LGBTQ youth are in foster care and has led similar work in juvenile criminalization. Similarly, she has led the largest qualitative study of the life and needs of LGBTQ people experiencing economic insecurity. Acknowledging the impact of this work, she was awarded the Distinguished Contribution to Public Policy Award by the American Psychological Association Division 44 (Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity). Underlying her substantive works on LGBTQ, health, system involvement and economic security is her attention to sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression (SOGIE) data collection and data policy. She has conducted SOGIE measurement research among youth and adults and continues to work with local, state and federal government efforts on increasing and improving LGBTQ inclusive data collection. She served on the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Consensus Panel on the Measurement of Sex, Gender and Sexual Orientation- a report commissioned by the National Institutes of Health in the interest of informing data policy and practices in federal data collection. She is currently serving as a scientific committee member of NASEM’s Assessment of NIH Research on Women’s Health consensus study.

She was previously a Senior Scholar of Public Policy at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law, and before that an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach. Dr. Wilson earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Community and Prevention Research program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) with a minor in Statistics, Methods, and Measurement, and received postdoctoral training at the UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies and the UCSF Lesbian Health and Research Center through an Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ) postdoctoral fellowship.

Susan Lares-Nakaoka

July 1, 2023/in Social Welfare Asian American Communities, Community Development, Critical Race Theory, Nonprofits/Nongovernmental Organizations, Race and Ethnicity, Social Movements All Faculty, Senate / Practicum / Adjunct Faculty Faculty /by Oliver Ike

Dr. Susan Lares-Nakaoka is the Director of Practicum Education in the Department of Social Welfare in the Luskin School of Public Affairs. As a third generation Japanese American/Chicana, her family’s World War II incarceration informs her teaching, scholarship and commitment to racial justice. She credits her UCLA undergraduate internship in a gang diversion program at Nickerson Gardens in Watts for sparking her career in social work.

Dr. Lares-Nakaoka’s research and writing focuses on the intersection of race and community development, critical race pedagogy and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. She is lead author on a forthcoming book, “Critical Race Theory in Social Work,” and editor of an upcoming special issue of the Journal of Community Practice on race and social justice entitled, “Necessary Interventions: “Racing” Community Practice.”

As a critical race scholar, Dr. Lares-Nakaoka is co-founder and co-director of the Critical Race Scholars in Social Work (CRSSW) collective. CRSSW, a network of over 300 individuals, advances race scholarship in social work through a schedule of regular events and a bi-annual conference focusing on applying critical race theory within social work research, writing, education and practice.

Dr. Lares-Nakaoka spent over 12 years providing social services and program development for low-income residents across the country, including positions with the Housing Authority, City of Los Angeles, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and Venice Community Housing. Her experiences as Director of Practicum Education at CSU Dominguez Hills, the first MSW program with a critical race theory perspective, was foundational to her approach to social work pedagogy. Prior to coming to UCLA, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii, CSU Sacramento and CSU Long Beach.

Academic mentors/advisors

Dr. Melvin Oliver, Yuji Ichioka, Dr. Harry H.L. Kitano, Dr. Mitchell T. Maki, Dr. Daniel Solorzano, and Dr. Lois Takahashi. Special gratitude goes to her beloved doctoral advisor, Dr. Leobardo Estrada.

Selected Community-based Research Projects

Photovoice project on the impacts of transit-oriented development in Little Tokyo

Case Studies of community development organizations: Little Tokyo Service Center (Los Angeles), Chinatown Community Development Center (San Francisco) , InterIm Community Development Association (Seattle) and Hoʻokuaʻāina (Kailua, HI)

Oral histories of Japanese American women activists, descendants of the Sacramento River Delta, and World War II Nisei Cadet Nurses.

Recent Publications

Nakaoka, S., Aldana, A. and Ortiz, L. (2023). “Dismantling Whiteness in Ways of Knowing.” In Social Work, White Supremacy, and Racial Justice. Oxford University Press.

Aldana, A., Nakaoka, S., Vazquez, N. and Ortiz, L. (2023). “Fifteen Years of Critical Race Theory in Social Work Education: What We’ve Learned.” In Social Work, White Supremacy, and Racial Justice. Oxford University Press.

Ortiz, L. and Nakaoka, S. (2023). Critical Race Theory in Social Work. Social Work Encyclopedia. Oxford Research Encyclopedias.

Maglalang, D.D., Sangalang, C.C., Mitchell, F.M., Lechuga-Peña, S., & Nakaoka, S.J. (2021). “The Movement for Ethnic Studies: A Tool of Resistance and Self-Determination for Social Work Education.” Journal of Social Work Education.

Nakaoka, S., Ka‘opua, L., and Ono, M. (2019). “He Ala Kuikui Lima Kanaka: The Journey Towards Indigenizing a School of Social Work.” Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis, Research, Polity, and Practice. 7 (1).

Agres, B., Dillard, A., Enos, K., Kakesako, B., Kekauoha, B., Nakaoka, S. and Umemoto, K. (2019). “Sustaining University-Community Partnerships in Indigenous Communities: Five Lessons from Papakōlea.” AAPI Nexus. 16 (1&2).

Nakaoka, S., Ortiz, L. and Garcia, Betty. (2019). “Intentionally Weaving Critical Race Theory in an MSW Program at a Hispanic Serving Institution.” Urban Social Work.

Edith de Guzman

Wesley Yin

Working Papers

Selected Publications

Other Publications and Policy Articles

Ajwang Rading

Minjee Kim

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