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2011-12
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Ph.D. Student Lee Mackey has been awarded a Long-Term Fieldwork Fellowship by the UCLA International Institute. The award will support his project titled, “The Rise of Brazilian Technology Transfer
Foreign Aid and Agroindustrial Development in Bolivia and El Salvador.”
Letter to a Conservative Nation is the title of a new book published by Urban Planning Ph.D. student Adam Dorr. The book explains why selfishness is the organizing principle of the conservative worldview.
The focus of Adam's doctoral research is on the ecological and social sustainability of urban landscapes, with particular emphasis upon urban agriculture and food systems and their potential to benefit environmental justice communities.
Carter Rubin has been named as a 2012-13 David Bohnett Fellow in recognition of his academic preparation, analytical skills and enthusiasm for public service. The Los Angeles Mayor's Fellowship Program was created to train the next generation of public servants in Los Angeles by bringing graduate-level policy research fellows onto the mayor's staff. As a Bohnett Fellow Carter will receive valuable hands-on work experience as well as provide high level research to the Mayor's office. He willl be matched to a senior member of the mayoral staff to
work on project-based work which may include policy research, and/or
design and implementation of a program.
Leah Murphy has received an Ann C. Rosenfield Public Affairs Fellowship. The UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs established this fellowhip program as a high-level internship opportunity for exceptional public policy, social welfare and urban planning graduate students. Fellows are assigned to work for senior executives at government agencies or well-established nonprofit and civic organizations on research, policy advocacy or applied projects tailored to their tracks of study. Leah will work with the Southern California Association of Governments.
Social Justice Student Fellowships, made possible by the generous support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, are given to students for their outstanding research projects (capstone, client, dissertation) that address social justice and racial equity issues. The following Urban Planning Students are among this year's award recipients:
- Will Dominie, MURP '12, “Is Equitable Growth Smarter Growth?”
- Jessica Durrum and Kate Mayerson, MURP '12, “Envisioning an Equitable Future: Rights and Collective Action for Los Angeles’ Street Vendors"
- Susan Nakaoka UP PhD and Yumiko Ota, MURP ’12, "Asserting Claims to Space in a Time of Cultural and Economic Displacement : The Little Tokyo Commmunity Asset Mapping Project”
The Social Justice Initiative advances the argument that a social justice perspective , a lens on the systemmic, institutional and structural conditions that constrain individual and community development , is a necessaryy and underdeveloped analytical tool in public affairs education. Questions of equity and justice ought to be treated as a core element of public affairs pedagogy. Not only does democratic theory require it, but the changing demographic patterns across the globe make it imperative that new cadres of public managers are properly trained and equipped to deal with the realities of program design and management, service delivery, and policy implementation in a diverse, globalized workforce. Social justice includes issues of economic, social, racial or ethnic inequities or disparities, or barriers to equal opportunities or outcomes affecting disadvantaged groups.
Ph.D. student Lee Mackey received an international fieldwork grant from the Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI) for his research on the rise of Brazilian technology, foreign aid and agroindustrial development in Latin America. LDPI seeks to examine the recent wave of global large-scale land acquisitions for food and fuels and is a joint project of the Future Agricultures Consortium at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK; the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa; The Resources, Environments and Livelihoods cluster at the International Institute of Social Studies in the Hague, Netherlands; and the Polson Institute of Global Development of Cornell University.
This follows on a previous LDPI grant that Lee received in 2011 for research on the politics of Brazilian landowning in Bolivian soybean frontiers that he recently presented at the first international academic conference to examine land deals, the International Conference on Global Land Grabbing at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, England.
His current
research project, titled The Green and the Gold: Brazil and the
Regional Production of Ethanol Frontiers in Latin America, examines the
Brazilian biofuels sector as a driver of land-based investments and land
property change in Latin America based on fieldwork conducted in Brazil and
Latin America, the results of which will be presented at the second
International Conference on Global Land Grabbing at Cornell University in the
autumn of 2012.
Urban Planning Ph.D. student Susan Nakaoka has been awarded the George and Sakaye Aratani Graduate Fellowship by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Her research project is entitled "A Critical Race Theory Analysis of Japanese American Community Development: The Importance of Socio-spatial and Intersectional Forces in Honolulu, Los Angeles, and New York."
Congratulations to second year MURP students Shira Bergstein and Katie Lemmon who were awarded scholarships by the Orange County Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS). The scholarships are competitive and based on the applicant's specific transportation involvement and goals, job skills and academic record. The WTS Orange County graduate scholarships were presented at an Awards Gala in December. The top winners may go on to compete nationally for the Leadership Legacy Scholarship (in the amount of $3,000) or the Helene M. Overly Memorial Scholarship (in the amount of $6,000). National awards will be presented on May 10, 2012.
The Women's Transportation Seminar (WTS) is a national organization of transportation professionals with more than 4,000 members who are committed to excellence in the transportation industry. The organization provides a neutral forum for the exchange of information, ideas and experiences; encourages the professional development of its members; and promotes industry recognition of women in the field of transportation.
Lys Mendez is one of four students from the Luskin School who are
participating in the 2011-12 Bohnett Fellows program. Bohnett Fellows
are selected to work with faculty and senior executives in the Mayor's
Office on the real world issues that face the city of Los Angeles. The
program offers a great opportunity for students to gain first-hand
experience
in the highest levels of city government and provides senior executives
in the
Mayor’s office with an outstanding cohort of policy interns. Lys, a second year MURP student, is working with the Mayor's Office of Environment and Sustainability on transportation and climate adaptation issues.
Lys has
worked as a reporter, covering city government and Latino affairs for
the Press Enterprise in Riverside and as a grant writer Most
recently, she worked in the public
information office for the County of Riverside. Her interest in bike
transportation, immigrant communities and economic development led her
back to
school at UCLA's graduate urban planning program. Her undergraduate
degree is in
Latin American Studies from UC Santa Cruz. Mendez enjoys discovering the
city
through its food and is glad to recommend some of LA's best taco trucks.
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Laura Pryor, second-year MURP, has been accepted into the Graduate Evaluation Diversity Internship (GEDI) program of the American Evaluation Association. Pryor, a Southern California native who received her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, was awarded the fellowship through a national competition sponsored by the AEA.
The purpose of the year-long program is to engage graduate students from groups traditionally under-represented in the evaluation field and, through the program, expand and improve upon the evaluation work conducted in racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse settings.
The GEDI program interns each receive a $8,000 stipend and participate in an internship near their home institutions from Oct. 1 to July 1. Fellows also attend a four-day intensive seminar in Washington, D.C., as well the AEA annual conference, a winter seminar and the Evaluation Institute held in Atlanta each June, and participate in other activities related to AEA and its evaluation projects.
In addition to academics Laura excels in running! She won the 35th annual Catalina Island Conservancy Marathon, one of the toughest in America with its hills and trails. She completed the 26-mile, 385-yard course in 3 hours, 51 minutes, 9 seconds
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Second year MURP student Yumiko Ota has been awarded a scholarship from the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP) . This competitive award includes tuition and fees and a monthly stipend.
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An article about the Advanced GIS course taught by Yoh Kawano in Spring 2011 was published in the Summer 2011 issue of the APA Planning & Technology Newsletter. The authors, MURP candidates Erin Coleman, Dao Doan, Sarah Peters and Madeline Wander, talk about the value of the web-based GIS applications course which has provided opportunities for them as students and professionals.
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