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UCLA Luskin Graduate Students Named 2023-24 Bohnett Fellows

Three UCLA Luskin graduate students have been selected to participate in the prestigious Bohnett Fellowship Program for the 2023-24 academic year. The program, sponsored by the David Bohnett Foundation, provides UCLA Luskin students the opportunity to work in the L.A. Mayor’s Office while completing their graduate studies at UCLA. This year’s fellows — representing all three of the School’s graduate programs — are: India Woods, who is pursuing a joint public policy and social welfare degree, posted to the Mayor’s Office of Public Safety; urban planning student Jose Alvarez, who will be at the Mayor’s Office of Infrastructure (previously public works); and public policy student Nelowfar Ahmadi, who will work at the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. “Every year we have three new Bohnett Mayoral Fellows with fresh ideas and innovative approaches who bring their Luskin training and passion for problem solving to City Hall,” said Michael Fleming, executive director of the David Bohnett Foundation. The Bohnett Fellows will travel to Washington, D.C., to attend the United States Conference of Mayor’s annual winter meeting to learn from and network with city leaders across the nation. They also have the opportunity to meet with Bohnett Fellows and staff from the University of Michigan and New York University. “The Bohnett Fellowship, well into its second decade, strengthens UCLA Luskin’s reputation as an exceptional school of public affairs, and it has become a model for fellowship programs that generate future public service leaders,” said Kevin Medina MPP/MSW ’16, director of the UCLA Luskin Office of Student Affairs and Alumni Relations. Since its inception, more than 50 UCLA Luskin students have completed the yearlong fellowship.


 

Bau Awarded Sloan Research Fellowship

Assistant Professor of Public Policy Natalie Bau has received a 2022 Sloan Research Fellowship, one of the most competitive and prestigious awards available to early-career researchers. Bau, who has a joint appointment in the department of economics, is one of eight young UCLA professors to receive the fellowships, making UCLA No. 1 among U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities in the number of new fellows. Bau studies a variety of topics in development and education economics, with an emphasis on the industrial organization of educational markets. Her research has looked at how cultural traditions affect economic decision-making, how interpersonal skills facilitate intergenerational investment, whether government policy can change culture, and the effects of human capital investment in countries with child labor. Bau is affiliated with the Center for Economic and Policy Research and is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. This year, 118 scientists and scholars received a Sloan Research Fellowship. “Today’s Sloan Research Fellows represent the scientific leaders of tomorrow,” said Adam Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “As formidable young scholars, they are already shaping the research agenda within their respective fields — and their trailblazing won’t end here.” — Stuart Wolpert

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Panofsky Named to Class of 2020 Carnegie Fellows

Associate Professor of Public Policy Aaron Panofsky has been named a 2020 Carnegie Fellow, the Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced. Panofsky, who also holds appointments in sociology and society and genetics at UCLA, is among a class of 27 fellows nationwide — 14 from public institutions — to be honored. Panofsky was selected from among more than 300 nominations submitted to the philanthropic foundation established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911. The Carnegie Fellows program, now in its sixth year, provides a $200,000 stipend designed to allow recipients to devote up to two years to significant research and writing. The award will support Panofsky’s work on a forthcoming book titled, “Unjust Malaise: Race in the Fog of Genetics.” Panofsky’s main research interest is in the sociology of science and knowledge with a special focus on genetics. His first book, “Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics,” published in 2014, analyzed the causes and consequences of controversy in the rapidly growing field. In his new book, Panofsky will demonstrate that, as the public and scholars have appealed to the science of genetics to define race and explain racial inequalities in health, behavior and social success, the results have been confusing and ambiguous. “Ambiguity is baked into the science itself, not just its public interpretations,” Panofsky said. His research explores genetic domains such as racial definition, behavioral research, ancestry and identity, and population health.

Minority Fellowship Recipients Advocate in D.C.

As awardees of the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) master’s Minority Fellowship Program (MFP), UCLA Luskin MSW candidates Michelé Jones, Desiree Lopez and Jennifer Grijalva traveled this past March to Washington, D.C., where they gained valuable experience in policy and advocacy. The program aims to reduce health disparities and improve behavioral health care outcomes for racially and ethnically diverse populations by increasing the number of culturally competent master’s-level behavioral health professionals serving racial/ethnic minority populations. Recipients of the one-year fellowship receive specialized training, a monetary stipend and other professional development support. “The MFP program has provided me with professional development and access to mental health practitioners of color, which have been invaluable to my second year of social work education,” explained recipient Desiree Lopez. The 41 fellows gathered in Alexandria, Virginia, for the annual spring training and spent a morning on Capitol Hill, where they educated Congressional staff members about the importance of the MFP program. Grijalva described the spring conference as “a space filled with MSW students of color who were passionate about social justice issues around the country,” an experience that was “inspirational and empowering.” Jones was excited to use her skills as an advocate and gain a better understanding of policy during the training. “I was able to discuss the importance of having more mental health professionals of color in the field with members of the Senate in my own district. I left the training in D.C. extremely empowered and more prepared to begin my career,” she said.