UCLA Luskin students to be profiled on new website.

Kimberly Fuentes

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Kimberly Fuentes, MSW is a recent graduate of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs in Social Welfare. She is currently a first year PhD student in Social Welfare at Luskin where she studies the impacts of criminalization on sex working communities, the ways they resist criminalization, and the role that social work can play in uplifting this resistance. She hopes to utilize participatory action research and art-based methods to identify the alternative systems of community care that are used to mitigate and resist the forces of the police state and theorize the state from the vantage point of sex workers. She serves on the board of directors at the Sex Worker Outreach Project – Los Angeles (SWOP-LA) where she leads a nationwide support group for current and former sex workers and provides direct support to street-based workers through a harm reduction framework. Kimberly is a student affiliate of the California Center for Population Research (CCPR) and a recipient of the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship. She is currently a research assistant at the UCLA Hub for Health Intervention, Policy and Practice where she works on research studies exploring the effect of criminalization on violence and victimization of sex workers.

Kimberly earned her Master of Social Welfare in Social and Economic Justice with a certificate in Global Health and Social Services. During her time in the MSW program, Kimberly received the Graduate Opportunity Fellowship (GOFP) and served as a Luskin Leadership Fellow at the Office of Child Protection (OCP). Her completed research capstone, “Revolutionizing Community Under the Red Umbrella: Intersectional Inquiry with Sex Workers on Protective Factors in Los Angeles, CA”, received awards from the Center for the Study of Women’s Black Feminism Initiative, UCLA Lewis Center for Policy Research, Franklin D. Gilliam Jr. Social Justice Award, and a departmental award for outstanding research.

She is a proud first-generation student whose family immigrated from Oaxaca, Mexico. Prior to UCLA, she earned a B.A. in Environmental Studies and Geography with a minor in Math and Science education from UC Santa Barbara.

 

Andres F. Ramirez

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Andrés F. Ramirez is a writer, curator and cultural producer, working in the realm of architecture  urban planning and design. He is the co-founder of PLANE–SITE, an agency devoted to the production and dissemination of original content for architecture and the built environment. Andrés also works as an independent consultant in architecture and urban planning projects, with an emphasis on social processes and public space. 

Andrés is Director of the non-profit research platform Aerial Futures, an organization devoted to cultural exchange surrounding the architecture of flight. He was the curator of Garden City Mega City, Urban Ecosystems of WOHA, at the Museum of the City of Mexico (2017); curator of the first contribution of the Seychelles to the XV Venice Architecture Biennale (2016) Between Two Waters, Searching for Expression in the Seychelles, and co- curator for Medellín, Topography of Knowledge at the Aedes Architecture Forum (2015).

Sarah Soakai

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Malo e lelei (Hello, in Tongan). Aloha (Hello, in Hawaiian). I originally hail from the Ko’olauloa Mountains and North Shores of Oahu, Hawai’i with ancestral ties to the South Pacific Islands of Tonga. I look at Community Development and Social Policy as it relates to communities on and in the margins. Current research efforts examine third sector community-based faith-based organizations and institutions and their role in social service delivery during and post COVID times. In particular, churches are central anchor institutions among Pacific Islander communities in diaspora. Research and planning with these indigenous communities means looking at their association and relationship with their faith-based organization and institution. Previous research efforts had looked at the effects of city ordinance policies concerning people experiencing homelessness that prohibit lying (sleeping) and sitting on public sidewalks, parks, beaches, and other public spaces. Third sector nonprofit community-based organizations are at the forefront of homelessness issues. And the work continues with improving trauma-informed care and alignment with state services to minimize bureaucracy and duplication.

In addition to research, I currently TA for the Urban Planning department and the Public Affairs Undergraduate program. Before my tenure as a doctoral student, I oversaw the Speech and Debate program, taught tenth grade English, eleventh and twelfth grade AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) college prep, and also did some college and career counseling at a Title 1 public high school for several years.

Given the current moment, I look forward to meeting you via email and/or Zoom, and hope to meet up soon in person.

Livier Gutiérrez

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Prior to entering the doctoral program at the University of California, Los Angeles, Livier worked on applied research and direct-service work to make community violence prevention services more responsive to girls. She served as the director of programs at Alliance for Girls, the nation’s largest alliance of girl-serving organizations, as the director of violence prevention at Enlace Chicago, a community-based organization serving La Villita (a.k.a., Chicago’s Little Village community); and a researcher at the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a national applied research non-profit and policy organization.  

Livier earned her master’s degree in social work with a concentration in violence prevention from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration and bachelor’s degree in sociology and social welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. Livier’s undergraduate research explored the ideology, structure, and recruitment strategies of The Minutemen, a militant xenophobic organization (a.k.a., a gang). As a master’s student, Livier’s thesis was an applied research project that explored girls’ involvement and association with youth-led street organizations (a.k.a., gangs) and resulted in a violence-prevention program for girls. Through community work, Livier has seen how school, family, and other systems take key aspects of a girls’ identity—like race, immigration status, sexual orientation, and gender identity—to impose social and economic constraints on them. Despite the constraints placed on them, Livier has also seen how girls use their power to make systems safer for themselves and others. Livier is interested in leveraging mixed methods, with a focus on action research, and theory to highlight the experiences and stories of girls, especially their ability to change their ecology and improve safety for themselves and others. In doing so, Livier hopes to advance social work’s violence prevention theory, methods, and practice.  

Samuel Speroni

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Sam Speroni is a doctoral student in the UCLA Department of Urban Planning and a researcher with the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.  He completed his master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning, also at UCLA, in June 2020.  Sam is advised by Dr. Evelyn Blumenberg and Dr. Brian D. Taylor.

Sam’s primary research interest lies at the intersection of transportation, education, and new mobility, where he looks for ways to improve equitable access to educational opportunities for vulnerable and disadvantaged student populations.  His research extends to many other aspects of travel behavior and transportation systems, all with an emphasis on equity.  Sam’s recent applied planning research project analyzing high school students’ ridehail trips to school for HopSkipDrive (full report | policy brief) received the national Neville A. Parker Award for outstanding master’s capstone in transportation policy and planning from the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC).

Sam is a Future Leaders Development fellow of the Eno Center for Transportation in Washington, D.C., and in 2020 he was named the Pacific Southwest Region University Transportation Center (PSR UTC) outstanding student of the year.  He is also the recipient of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Graduate Fellowship (2019 and 2020) and the Intelligent Transportation Systems California / California Transportation Foundation joint graduate scholarship (2020).

Prior to UCLA, Sam was a high school English teacher and school administrator in Charlotte, North Carolina, through Teach for America.  Originally from New England, Sam grew up in Massachusetts and earned his bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies with honors from Brown University in 2011, where he was also captain of the varsity swimming & diving team.

Madeline Wander

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Madeline Wander is a UCLA Urban Planning PhD candidate and a graduate student researcher at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. Her research examines transportation disparities and justice amidst the changing geography of low-income communities of color, particularly in suburbs. Madeline holds a BA in Urban and Environmental Policy from Occidental College and a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA. Madeline sits on the Board of Directors of the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment.

Prior to pursuing her PhD, she was a Senior Data Analyst at the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (now USC Equity Research Institute) where she worked with community-based organizations, foundations, and government agencies on research around equitable urban planning, social-movement building, and environmental justice. Prior to that, she was involved in a variety of organizing efforts, including the affordable housing coalition Housing LA and Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign in Colorado.

Madeline is co-author of several publications, including: Housing Affordability and Commute Distance (Urban Geography); Carbon trading, co-pollutants, and environmental equity: Evidence from California’s cap-and-trade program (PLoS Medicine); The Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Health of Everyone: The Relationship Between Social Inequality and Environmental Quality (Annual Review of Public Health).

Madeline lives in northeast Los Angeles with her partner Ben and their children Hannah and Noah.

Gus Wendel

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Gus Wendel began the Ph.D program in Urban Planning in the fall of 2020. His research is broadly concerned with the intersection of race, gender and sexuality, urban design and governance, and neighborhood change. In his concurrent role as the Assistant Director of cityLAB-UCLA, Gus oversees several design-research projects examining the links between housing insecurity, long-distance commuting, and public space access and use. Gus also manages the multi-year Mellon Foundation award to the Urban Humanities Initiative, where he also co-produces the Digital Salon and is involved in teaching and research. Prior to UCLA, Gus worked for the Oregon Secretary of State and advocated for LGBTQ rights in the state of Oregon. Gus has a Master in Urban and Regional Planning from the Luskin School of Public Affairs and a BA in International Relations and Italian Studies from Brown University.

Pamela Stephens

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Pamela Stephens is a doctoral student in Urban Planning and a Graduate Student Researcher with the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. Her doctoral studies and research examine how urban planning practices produce Black space and the ways that Black communities build power within and across these spaces. She is particularly interested in how this plays out in Los Angeles, where the Black population is both declining and becoming more dispersed throughout the region and beyond.

Pamela continues to contribute research to forward the organizing and advocacy efforts, building off her work prior to pursuing her doctoral studies. While her research has spanned a myriad of topics, it generally focuses on the intersections of space and racial and economic inequality. Pamela holds a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA and a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

AnMarie Mendoza

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AnMarie Mendoza was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley and identifies with both the original people (Gabrieleno-Tongva) and the distinctive working-class communities of the area. AnMarie is a proud first-generation transfer student from Citrus Community college who has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a Masters in American Indian Studies from UCLA. Generations of her family have witnessed, endured, and contributed to the molding of Los Angeles (Occupied Tongva territory) and it is for this reason she continues her academic study in Urban Planning at UCLA. Her scholarship focuses on the barriers and opportunities that local Native Nations and indigenous people face in participating in proposed water projects in Los Angeles.

She has a passion for political organizing and is Indigenous Waters Program Director for Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, an indigenous led grass roots organization based in Los Angeles. As program director, she works with Native Nations, universities, environmental organizations, institutions and agencies to protect fresh and saltwater and coastal areas significant to Native Nations and Indigenous Peoples to build the capacity of current and future tribal leaders to advocate effectively on behalf of their people for the protection of water.

AnMarie is cocreator and director of the “Aqueduct Between Us,”  a five-part social justice multimedia radical oral history documentary that aims to educate the people of Los Angeles about the Indigenous communities (Tongva –Gabrieleno and the Owens Valley Paiute/ Shoshone) who have been greatly impacted by their land and water use.  Topics covered in the documentary include: an introduction of each tribal community, their lifestyle precontract and post-contact, shared colonial struggles, contemporary environmental injustice issues, and conservation/wealth disparities in Los Angeles. Documentary can be accessed below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LldnSjDoMag  https://www.instagram.com/theaqueductbetweenus/

AnMarie is presently the Sawyer Seminar Fellow on Sanctuary Spaces for the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy

Hilary Malson

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Hilary Malson is a planning and geography scholar whose research focuses on grassroots planning histories, Black life, housing justice, migration and displacement, suburban studies, and community building. For her dissertation, she is researching the ongoing displacement and dispersal of Black Angelenos to the Inland Empire, the Antelope Valley, and the High Desert, and is analyzing how placemaking and community development might be reframed through a regional-scale, diasporic lens. Since 2017, she has stewarded and supported numerous initiatives of the Housing Justice in Unequal Cities (HJUC) research coordination network, an NSF-funded program of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. In keeping with her commitment to public scholarship, she co-edited and coordinated the publication of numerous HJUC open access publications, including Housing Justice in Unequal Cities and the Methodologies for Housing Justice Resource Guide (English / Español).

Hilary holds more than a decade of experience working in public history (Smithsonian, National Trust, Monument Lab), community development (Mt. Airy CDC), and community organizing in D.C. and Los Angeles. She earned a BA from Haverford College in the Growth and Structure of Cities program at Bryn Mawr College, and studied geography at the London School of Economics, where she earned a MSc in Urbanization and Development (Distinction). She is presently a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, an editorial board member of Critical Planning Journal, and an advisory board member of the Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action. Additionally, she has worked as a Teaching Associate in the Public Affairs (undergrad) and Urban Planning (graduate) programs, and is an affiliate of the Southern California Library, the UCLA Black Feminism Initiative, and the UCLA Urban Sociology Working Group.

Recent publications: