About Us

The UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs has a global network of more than 9,000 graduate and undergraduate alumni living and working in more than 40 countries. UCLA Luskin’s Office of Student Affairs and Alumni Relations seeks to engage all Luskin alums in a meaningful way that facilitates a lifelong connection with each other and the School and encourages support and guidance for future generations of Luskin students and fellow alums.

Upcoming Events

Throughout the academic year, we have various opportunities for alums to connect and reconnect with Luskin.

Luskin Alumni Regional Receptions 

We typically have four regional alumni receptions across the United States; previous host cities include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York and Sacaramento.

The Luskin Alumni Regional Reception in Los Angeles will be held on Thursday, March 16th, 2023, at the Bonaventure Brewing Co., from 6-7:30 pm. Registration for the event closes on March 9th, 2023.

The San Francisco Luskin Alumni Reception is scheduled for April 6th, 2023.

The Washington D.C. Luskin Alumni Recpetion is scheduled for May 4th, 2023.

The Sacramento Luskin Alumni Reception is scheduled for June 1st, 2023.

Alumni Panels

Each quarter we encourage our alums to participate in a wide range of panel discussions and share their professional experiences with current students.  

Our next alumni panel entitled Demystifying Social Work Lincensure is Friday, May 19th from 12-1:15 pm.

Cafecito con Luskin 

Fall 2022, we inaugurated Cafecito con Luskin, a monthly networking event for UCLA Luskin School Public Affairs Alumni living in the Los Angeles area. Cafecitos are scheduled in different coffee shops across Los Angeles to reach as many alums as possible. Please join us if you are in town; all alums, faculty, staff, and current students are welcome, and your cafecito is on us. ¡Nos vemos en el Cafecito! 

Our next Cafecito con Luskin will be Thursday, July 13th at Alcove (1929 Hillhurst Ave, Los Angeles) from 9:30-11 am.

Luskin Aperitivo

Winter 2023, we launched our Luskin Aperitivo, a quarterly networking pre-dinner happy hour that will take place across different venues in the greater Los Angeles area. Our next Aperitivo is scheduled for Thursday, August 25th at Horse Thief  BBQ (324 S Hill Street) in Downtown Los Angeles from 5-7pm.

For more information and to RSVP for our events please remember to visit our events calendar.   

Network

Connect with hundreds of UCLA Luskin alumni and students in four easy steps by updating the education section in your personal LinkedIn profile:

  1. In the Education section of your profile, add “UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs” as your school (not UCLA, the undergraduate college)
  2. Add your “Dates Attended”
  3. Add your “Degree”
  4. Click “Save,” and your profile will automatically connect to UCLA Luskin alumni & student profiles via the UCLA Luskin Office of Student Affairs and Alumni LinkedIn university page so you can network with fellow Luskin-ites!

Post career promotions, and job opportunities, learn about other group members, and keep up-to-date on all things Luskin.

Connect on Social Media

Follow us on your favorite social media channel for the most up-to-date news about fellow alumni, students and faculty, and the latest events and programs on campus and beyond. Have something to share? Tag us at @UCLALuskin

Contact

Connect with UCLA Luskin Alumni Relations & Update your Contact Information

Interested in speaking on a panel, serving on a committee, or helping with recruitment? Have you moved or changed jobs? Please take a moment to update your contact information and tell us how you’d like to get involved. We would love to hear from you!

To update us with your professional milestone, your day-to-day victories, as well as your ideas. Please contact:

Dr. Karina Mascorro
Director of Alumni Engagement
kmascorro@luskin.ucla.edu

Luskin Job Board

Career Resources for Alumni

Graduate Student Alumni

Luskin Graduate Student Alumni are invited to continue using CareerHub to access the Public Affairs job board. If you do not yet have access to this system, don’t hesitate to contact careerservices@luskin.ucla.edu with your name, email, Luskin program, and graduation date to request account activation. We also invite you to connect with our Luskin School of Public Affairs LinkedIn Page to connect with fellow alumni, current students, and employers. As a Luskin Alum, you have lifetime access to these resources.

Recent Luskin graduate alumni have continued access to Luskin Career Services for three months after their last academic term. Recent Luskin graduate Alumni may also attend the next career fair after graduation. For example, if you graduate in June 2023, you can access Luskin career counseling appointments and workshops through September, and you may attend the Fall Internship and Career Fair.

Lastly, in your first year as an alum, you have one year of free access to UCLA’s campus-wide “Handshake for Alumni.” After your first year, a six months subscription is available. Please see the UCLA Career Center Alumni Page for more information.

Undergraduate Student Alumni

We also invite you to connect with our Luskin School of Public Affairs LinkedIn Page to connect with fellow alumni, current students, and employers. As a Luskin Alum, you have lifetime access to these resources.

Recent UCLA undergraduate alumni have continued access to all UCLA Career Center services for three months after their Luskin academic term. Additionally, in your first year as an alum, you have one year of free access to UCLA’s campus-wide “Handshake for Alumni.” After your first year, a six months subscription is available. Please see the UCLA Career Center Alumni Page for more information.

Mentorship & Recruitment

Mentorship through UCLA ONE

Register for UCLA One to:

Connect: Find Bruins you know or meet Bruins you should know in a trusted UCLA environment.Give back: Introduce, employ and offer to mentor current students and recent grads.Expand: Leverage your Bruin network to further your knowledge and career aspirations.Re-connect with old classmates: UCLA ONE allows you to find and re-connect with old classmates and expand your professional network.Build Community: This is your community, where Bruins help Bruins. Leverage the collective power of the vast alumni network and cultivate a culture of helping and giving back.

Please join the Luskin School of Public Affairs Group once you register.

Recruitment

Recruit UCLA Luskin Graduate Students

Post Jobs and Internships on the Luskin Job Board

Our career management system is called CareerHub. Please register here to post jobs, fellowships, and internship opportunities. If you have questions regarding CareerHub or posting, please email us.

Attend our Fall and/or Spring Career Fairs!

Employers from all areas of public policy, social welfare, and urban planning at the public, private, nonprofit, and government levels who will have job and internship opportunities available are invited. Please log into CareerHub to register.

Host an Employer Information Session

If you want to promote your organization, job opportunities and meet qualified and department-specific students, please contact Kevin Medina, at kmedina@luskin.ucla.edu.  You are welcome to present in person or by Zoom.

Forward us one-time postings.

Please forward job postings to be featured in our weekly newsletter here: Jobs@luskin.ucla.edu

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News

Two men at podium

UCLA Public Policy Community Celebrates Exceptional Alumni and Students Reception highlights the 'incredible, influential, important, world-transforming things our alumni are doing'

Reception highlights the ‘incredible, influential, important, world-transforming things our alumni are doing.’

Gerry Laviña, Paying It Forward and Passing the Torch ‘You cannot do this work alone,’ says longtime field education faculty leader as he prepares to retire after four decades at UCLA

‘You cannot do this work alone,’ says longtime field education faculty leader as he prepares to retire after four decades at UCLA.

Spotlight

UCLA Luskin Alumni of the Year

Alumni of the Year awards honor members of the alumni community who have been impactful through community service, public service, University service and/or professional achievement. By recognizing alumni, the award hopes to inspire leaders and change agents who advance solutions to society’s most-pressing problems.

Ahmanise Sanati MSW ’10 received the 2022 Joseph A. Nunn Alumna of the Year Award during a spring 2022 reception in her honor on the UCLA campus that was the first gathering related to this award since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sanati is mental health clinical supervisor with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services  at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles. She also serves as California Region H director for the National Association of Social Workers.

A story celebrating her efforts to provide reading material to the men incarcerated at Twin Towers was detailed in a profile story on the UCLA Luskin and UCLA Newsroom websites.

“Asking them what kind of books they like sparks their interest, because it might be one of the only interactions they have with another person who has taken an interest in them,” Sanati said. “They love reading for just the same reasons any one of us love reading,” she said. “This is a time when a book can really save a life.”

Sanati has worked at the Twin Towers for 11 years, during which time she’s brought in books and articles for the people who are incarcerated there. But in 2020, as COVID-19 tore through prisons and jails in the United States, including Twin Towers, the already dehumanizing environment of jail got much worse, Sanati said. In response, she started a “passion project,” expanding her book exchange into a catalogued system with 16 mobile bookshelves that would be dispersed throughout the jail.

Read the full story and view photos of the award ceremony.

The MPP Alumus of the Year for 2019 is Nelson Esparza MPP ’15, an economics instructor at Fresno City College who won a grass-roots bid for Fresno’s city council. His latest win follows a successful campaign in 2016 for a spot on the Fresno County Board of Education in which he unseated a longtime incumbent.

“I attribute my success to the variety of different variables, but my experience at the Luskin School was just invaluable,” said Esparza, who served out his school board term until he took the oath of office for his new role . “It wasn’t just the nitty-gritty of the public policy that we got into in the classroom. It was the leadership aspects that I was able to engage in with my peers inside and outside of the classroom and through the different supplemental programs that Luskin offered.”

Esparza said in a 2018 interview that he was excited about the opportunity to impact public policy in Fresno. He cited independent study with Luskin Public Policy Professor Mark A. Peterson and “instrumental” advice from Michael Dukakis, visiting professor of public policy and the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, as elements contributing to his win.

“And now we have a majority Democrat city council and a majority Latino city council, which is a lot more reflective of what our city looks like,” said Esparza, who has already started assembling his team and policy agenda. “We’re doing the best we possibly can to minimize the learning curve.”