Latino Excellence and Achievement Awards Dinner

Diana Herrera

Claire Trevor School of the Arts | Graduate Student Excellence Award 

Diana Herrera is a first-generation Latinx MFA student and daughter of a single immigrant parent. She will receive her MFA in Lighting Design from Claire Trevor School of the Arts in June 2023. During her time at UCI, Diana has designed various productions, including New Slate, The Seagull, Physical Graffiti, Dance Visions, and the upcoming production of Rent. She also has had the honor to dedicate her time working alongside Brown Bag Theatre Company (BBTC). Brown Bag is the only Lantix theatre company at UCI, and Diana served as the company’s lighting designer, lighting mentor, and supervisor to tell the stories of our community. Being able to use the craft of the arts to support the voices of our gente and celebrate our culture is a catalyst and reminder why she continues to pursue the arts and why the arts are incredibly important. After graduating from UCI, Diana hopes to continue presenting the stories and culture of this community while also reaching under-resourced communities as an artist and educator. One thing that keeps her going is her mother’s saying: “Echandole ganas!”

Catalina Medina

Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences | Excellence in Research Award

Catalina Medina is a fourth-year Statistics PhD student and is the first in her family to pursue a graduate degree. She works in Dr. Volodymyr Minin’s lab to expand statistical methods to investigate infectious disease dynamics utilizing viral genomic data. Reported cases data for a disease of interest is commonly used in infectious disease research because it is more accessible, but a key issue is that this data is only representative of those who have access to and get tested for that disease. Alternatively, viral genomic data can provide insights into the whole population of people infected with the disease. Catalina has also worked with UCI public health professor Dr. Daniel Parker on several projects including researching factors related to COVID-19 testing positivity and mortality among Orange County residents. As a student representative for her department and a mentor in the Statistics Department DECADE mentoring program she works to make it easier for students to navigate and succeed in their pursuit of a graduate degree in statistics. Catalina works Professor Mine Dogucu, who helps to educate and prepare Catalina to become a teacher who actively supports accessibility and inclusion in statistics and data science education.

Aaron Ramirez

Henry Samueli School of Engineering | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Aaron Ramirez is the proud son of two Mexican parents. Aaron’s infatuation with science started at a very young age. From the simple curiosity of mixing things like sand, water and oil, grew a participation in science fairs, and eventually matured into an admiration for genetic and protein engineering. Aaron attended UC Riverside where he completed his BS in Chemical and Environmental Engineering. While at UCR he participated in undergraduate research focusing on therapeutic inhibitory antibody engineering for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. He also was actively involved with organizations such as the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science (SACNAS). Aaron works in Dr. Szu-Wen Wang’s lab in UC Irvine’s Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department. As an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, Aaron’s research focuses on vaccine development using a protein nanoparticle scaffold capable of eliciting a targeted adaptive immune response towards antigens of infectious disease. In his time at UCI, Aaron has been active in mentoring and outreach programs such as Fabrication Camp (FABCamp), an event where graduate students lead groups of underrepresented local middle school students and introduce them to engineering disciplines through projects that teach STEM concepts. Aaron has said, “The reason why these events are so special to me is because of the joy and genuine interest I see from the students. To see their fascination in science and learning is truly a sight to be seen.” In addition, Aaron has mentored numerous high school students for science fair projects and currently advises two undergraduate students in the lab. Along his journey, Aaron has been a part of 7 publications and has been a recipient of the Rose Hills Foundation Science & Engineering Fellowship and Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Fellowship.

John Javier Schlenz

Paul Merage School of Business | Leadership Award

John Schlenz is a second-year full-time MBA student at the Paul Merage School of Business. John received his bachelor’s degree in business administration at Cal Poly Pomona. Prior to attending Merage, John worked for BNSF Railway as a Trainmaster and at Los Angeles Metro as a Project Manager for highway construction. At Merage, John has received the Paul Merage Fellowship, Hispanic Scholarship Foundation Scholarship, and the LatinX Initiative Scholarship. John also participates through being a LatinX Initiative mentor, co-president of Challenge 4 Charity, co-president for Strategy and Operations Management Association, and a regular volunteer at Junior Achievement of Orange County where he hopes to promote higher education/financial literacy to underserved communities. After obtaining his MBA degree, John plans to work at Southern California Edison where he hopes to implement a net-zero future for Southern California.

Daniela Alvarez-Vargas

School of Education | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Daniela Alvarez-Vargas was born in Pereira, Colombia and later immigrated to Miami, Florida with her family. She received her bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in statistics at Florida International University. As an undergraduate she received the MARC U* STAR Award which supported her undergraduate research exploring how parent child interactions may contribute to children’s skill development. Her passion for research on children’s development was originally sparked by her experiences in helping to raise her younger siblings and support their development and academic success. She sacrificed her family ties to move from Miami, FL to Irvine, CA to obtain her PhD from the School of Education. Daniela is passionate about conducting strengths-based research to understand the best practices for ensuring children’s mathematical development from preschool to secondary education. Her research has focused on evaluating, designing, and implementing innovative learning opportunities for students who have been historically marginalized in mathematics. Daniela strives to contribute to the democratization of research through community-based participatory research with ethnically minoritized teachers, students, and families. Her dream is to redesign a school system in which children look forward to learning science, technology, engineering, and math, because they see their histories and interests reflected in the content.

Photo by Luis Antonio Vargas.

Kathryn Campo Bowen

School of Humanities | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Kathryn Campo Bowen is a Salvadoran American writer from Miami, Florida, the daughter of a Salvadoran immigrant mother and an Anglo-Californian father. She is currently a second-year MFA candidate in fiction and has dual degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. Her novel-in-progress takes up the contemporary experience of a Salvadoran American family, tracking four characters across two intersecting timelines, in order to interrogate: (1) the potential for emigration to create conditions for cultural erasure, both through assimilatory pressures and overt discriminations, and the implications for subsequent non-emigrating generations; (2) the ways in which structural and civil violence—as well as interpersonal traumas and family secrets—reverberate through ancestral networks; (3) the effects of skin color, class, gender, Spanish-language ability, and national origin on perceptions, formation, and performance of Latinidad and, more specifically, Salvadoran American identity; and (4) the question of who can and should tell the multigenerational family romance, a subgenre often associated with Latine authorship, probing questions of authenticity and appropriation.  A segment of the aforementioned work has appeared in Salt Hill Journal and is titled, “There is a man named Rómulo Prudencio Reyes and the truth is.” A different excerpt from the novel titled, “The best moment of our maldita lives” was selected in March 2022 as a finalist for Story Magazine’s third annual Foundation Prize.

Desiree R. Delgadillo

School of Social Ecology | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Jamie Rae Garcia

Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Jamie Rae Garcia is a first-year student in the Doctor of Nursing Practice/ Family Nurse Practitioner program at the Sue and Bill Gross School of Nursing. She is also a practicing registered nurse in the Boyle Heights, Los Angeles community, specializing in the Acute Oncology/ Medical Surgical Unit since 2009. Jamie received the UCI School of Nursing Diversity Equity and Inclusive Fellowship for Fall 2022 and the Dolores DeSoto Grunigen DNP Endowment award for Winter 2023. Jamie has been a volunteer community organizer with the Los Angeles Community Action Network in Skid Row, Los Angeles, for over a decade. Her community organizing work has focused on exposing the violence of predictive analytics and police surveillance on the Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities and its intersection with displacement and gentrification. During the Covid-19 pandemic Jamie partnered with UCLA/CDU Covid-19 Racism and Equity Task Force to address issues of public health surveillance and community trust. Her current volunteer work has shifted focus to include health and wellness issues. Jamie is presently facilitating sustainability and wellness practices within grassroots community organizations, and she is participating in creating and implementing a survey on food access within Skid Row.

Victoria E. Rodriguez

School of Population and Public Health | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Victoria E. Rodriguez is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Program in Public Health, Department of Health, Society and Behavior. Victoria is a first-generation college student who was born and raised in Los Angeles (El Sereno), California. Her research focuses on cancer disparities, cancer treatment, cancer survivorship, and health outcomes among marginalized populations utilizing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches. Specifically, she is interested in the structural, racialized, and gendered processes that contribute to women’s health outcomes. Victoria’s dissertation focuses on endometrial cancer survival outcomes and survivorship experiences among Latina women in California utilizing a mixed methods approach. Victoria has been awarded the Eugene-Cota Robles Fellowship, the Faculty Mentor Program Fellowship, the Inclusive Excellence Fellowship, and the Public Impact Fellowship in support of her doctoral studies. She is also a recipient of the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research. Victoria has dedicated herself to mentorship and inclusive excellence at UCI, participating in the Diverse Educational Community and Doctoral Experience (DECADE), DECADE PLUS, the Chicano Latino Staff Association, Competitive Edge, and the Association for Women in Science.

Cindy Ventura

School of Law | Leadership Award

Cindy Ventura is the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants and grew up in South East Los Angeles. She graduated cum laude from UC Irvine in 2017 and received her bachelor’s degree in Public Health. During law school, Cindy worked with the Civil Rights Litigation Clinic, where she was committed to representing individuals and groups to vindicate their civil and human rights in state and federal court. She has worked extensively on cases involving police accountability and assisted with litigation involving family separation cases at the border. Her efforts included participating in the LA District Attorney’s review efforts of past officer-involved shootings and being part of the litigation team that fought to have Miranda rights protected before the United States Supreme Court. She has held several leadership positions at UCI Law, including serving as the co-chair for the Latinx Law Student Association, articles editor for the UC Irvine Law Review, and research fellow for the first-year students’ writing course. Cindy looks forward to being a resource and a mentor for aspiring Latinos interested in law school.

Olga Jaime

School of Medicine | Excellence in Research and Health for the Latino Community Award

Emily M. Castro

School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Emily Marie Castro is a PhD student in the Pharmacological Sciences program in the lab of Dr. Shahrdad Lotfipour. Emily’s research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms impacted after drug exposure during adolescence. Throughout her academic journey, she has consistently made serving her community and outreach a priority. She has volunteered as a Spanish speaking tutor at her public library. She has worked at the UC Irvine Student Success Initiatives as a student mentor for underrepresented minority students in STEM majors. Her outreach endeavors include giving lectures and talks in neighboring schools to promote STEM education for under-represented student population. As a graduate student, she serves as a student representative for her school's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity committee. She is passionate about ensuring sustainable practices are in place to enhance the training and educational environment for students from diverse backgrounds.

Heriberto Flores Zuleta

School of Physical Sciences | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Heriberto Flores Zuleta is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the department of Chemistry. Hailing from a line of laborers on both sides of his Puerto Rican and Guatemalan ancestry, he is the first in his family to receive bachelor’s and master’s degrees. At UCI, his research investigates the fundamental energy storage capabilities of low-cost electrodeposited inorganic nanomaterials for use in sodium-ion batteries. He is part of Professor Reginald Penner’s laboratory and is supported by the Nevin Graduate Endowment Fellowship. His research has received the attention of the National Academy of Sciences, which awarded him two honorable mentions for the Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. Before coming to UCI, Heriberto became active in the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and continues his work with that society. He was fully funded to attend the 2018 national SACNAS conference in San Antonio, TX and presented his work at other conferences. His work with SACNAS at UCI reflects his desire to establish a community across all the sciences so that individuals may bring their whole selves and identities into being scientists and uplift those who are first-generation and may not have guidance. Recently Heriberto participated in UCI Graduate Division’s Fellowship Mentor Program, in which he assisted graduate students working on a variety of fellowship applications.

Caroline Martinez

School of Social Sciences | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Lauren Abigail (Abbey) Houchin

Biological Sciences | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Lauren Abigail (Abbey) Houchin is an M.D./Ph.D. student in Dr. Mike Yassa’s lab in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. She is originally from Central Florida and received her B.S. in Biomedical Sciences with a minor in Medical Sociology from the University of Central Florida. Abbey is passionate about using her skills as a future physician-scientist to support the health and well-being of underserved and minoritized communities. Her research centers on using neuroimaging to characterize changes in vascular health in the aging brain and determine how these changes relate to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) risk. As key aims of this work, because of her interest in health equity, Abbey seeks to increase the representation of Hispanic/Latino communities in AD research and examine social and structural factors – such as socioeconomic status, social support/stressors, or food insecurity – alongside her biological findings to better understand how these factors can contribute to brain health and disease. In support of these efforts, Abbey is also pursuing a graduate emphasis in Chicano/Latino Studies.  Outside of the lab, Abbey spends much of her time striving to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, both at UCI and in the broader academic community. During her first two years of medical school, in addition to serving as co-president of the UCI Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA) chapter and mentoring underrepresented high school and pre-medical students, she served on the planning committees for the UCI LMSA/SNMA Conference and the National M.D./Ph.D. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Summit, both of which focused on supporting the success of underrepresented students in medical and physician-scientist career paths.

Maritza Salazar Campo, PhD

Assistant Professor of Organization and Management, Paul Merage School of Business

Maritza Salazar Campo, Ph.D., M.S.W. is an Assistant Professor of Organization and Management at the Paul Merage School of Business. Her research explores the impact of talent and team development interventions to foster organizational effectiveness. Her research has been cited by the National Academies of Science and the National Institutes of Health to support collaborative science and innovation.  She has consulted with the Army Research Office, PwC, the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning and Healthcare Centers to foster improved teamwork and patient outcomes. She also served as the chair of the UCI/OC Healthy Schools Restart group, which helped all children in the region to return to school safely during the COVID pandemic. Most recently, Maritza founded the Latinx Initiative at the Paul Merage School of Business and proudly serves as a member of the UCI-OC Alliance.

Marvin J. Maldonado

Assistant Director of Academic Innovation, Partnerships, Engineering Dept. Office of Access & Inclusion

Marvin Maldonado is a first-generation Latino who immigrated from Guatemala at the age of six and settled into life near Koreatown in Los Angeles and then the San Fernando Valley. (8-1-8!) Being an undocumented student, he was unsure if college was even an option until his permanent residency came through during senior year of high school. He is an Anteater through and through, having earned an electrical engineering degree here at UCI with the support of crucial programs like CODE and CAMP that are focused on underrepresented and minority students. That experience kick-started a career in STEM education where he has worked with students, parents, and educators across the full spectrum of the educational pipeline. He is particularly passionate about encouraging and motivating first-generation and low-income students from Spanish-speaking communities to pursue careers in STEM. Throughout his career, Marvin has relied on his own experiences and engineering background to develop curriculum and implement programs through a diversity and equity lens. Some of his most rewarding work has been with the Math, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program supporting local middle and high schools as well as undergraduates. This led to a unique collaboration called STEM on the Sidelines that includes the Los Angeles Chargers and aerospace company Ducommun, Inc. in which Marvin created a football-themed engineering and computer science challenge for high school students in LA and Orange County. Currently, Marvin serves as the Assistant Director for the Office of Access & Inclusion in the School of Engineering where he oversees retention and support programs for historically underrepresented students in engineering and computer science. He often sees himself in the students he advises and engages with daily and is thankful for the amazing colleagues that give him the platform to give back through these efforts. Marvin met his partner in life as first-year student in the Middle Earth dorms, and they now reside in Santa Ana where they are raising their two amazing children with a third on the way.

John T. Billimek, PhD

Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Academic Affairs, Family Medicine, Health Policy Research Institute

John Billimek, PhD is a psychologist by training, a health services researcher, and the Vice Chair for Academic Affairs for the UC Irvine Department of Family Medicine. He is co-director of the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC) residency track and directs the HELIOS lab (theHELIOSlab.org), an undergraduate mentored health equity research program that has included 93 diverse students since 2017.  With HELIOS, he studies ways trust can be cultivated or undermined between community members and the health care system, and how underdeveloped trust contributes to inequities in health care and health outcomes. He is proud to help community-based organizations as a co-principal Investigator on multiple federal grants with community partners including Latino Health Access, RADIATE Consulting, MPNA GREEN, the OC Asian American and Pacific Islander Alliance, the City of Santa Ana, the Coalition of Orange County Community Health Centers, and others,   With PRIME-LC, he is one of five faculty leads for the campus-wide UC PRIME Pre-Health Pathways Program, supporting the professional development of future professionals from historically excluded communities.  A former rugby player and the son of a community college professor and a registered nurse, “Dr. B” left Texas to find his dream job in Southern California, where he lives with his wife Donna, and two children Wyatt and Riley Rose.

Marlen Kanagui-Muñoz

Psychologist, Faculty and Training Director, Kaiser Permanente, School of Allied Health Sciences

Marlen Kanagui-Muñoz, PhD is a bilingual and bicultural, licensed psychologist. She is a founding faculty member and training director in the Masters of Science in Counseling program (MSC) at the Kaiser Permanente School of Allied Health Sciences in Richmond, CA. Born in Mexico and raised in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Dr. Kanagui-Muñoz is indebted to the incredible sacrifices made by her family so that she may pursue her education at UC Irvine. While at UCI, Dr. Kanagui-Muñoz was part of the Campus Wide Honors Program, a founding member and past-president of the Latinx Student Psychological Association (LSPA), a peer educator at the UCI Counseling Center and a Lauds and Laurels Award recipient. Upon graduation from UCI, Dr. Kanagui-Muñoz pursued a doctorate in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Multicultural Psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia, where her research focused on strength-based therapy approaches for the Latinx population. Dr. Kanagui-Muñoz went on to complete her postdoctoral residency at Kaiser Permanente-Richmond and helped promote culturally competent mental healthcare for Latinx clients within Kaiser Permanente Psychiatry by helping establish the La Clínica program. Dr. Kanagui-Muñoz is a proud mamá, daughter, sister, and partner. She is passionate about teaching, mentorship and scholarship. As a part of the Academic Freedom Train legacy, she is dedicated to raising the next generation of practitioner-scholars to serve the mental health needs of diverse individuals. Dr. Kanagui-Munoz is eternally grateful for the meaningful connections and mentorship she received while at UCI. Zot! Zot!

Heather Lee Echeverria

Claire Trevor School of the Arts | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Heather Lee Echeverria is a first generation Latina and the proud daughter of two Mexican immigrants. She is a MFA Acting Candidate at The Claire Trevor School of the Arts.  She also recently graduated from CTSA’s undergraduate program with Honors in Acting (2020). Throughout her time in the Drama Department, she has participated in many productions including: Plumas Negras, Silent Sky, The Comedy of Errors, When We Were Young and Unafraid, and most recently, Rebecca Oaxaca Lays Down a Bunt.

Although she has dedicated her studies to developing her acting skills, one of the highlights of her time here is her involvement in Brown Bag Theatre Company (BBTC). Brown Bag Theatre Company is UCI’s one and only Latine theater company on campus dedicated to producing, creating and engaging with Latine theater. As a proud member for almost 6 years, Heather has been an actor, a director, a writer, a producer and many other roles in various BBTC productions. She served as the artistic director of the company in her final year as an undergraduate and now proudly serves as the graduate mentor. As a graduate mentor, she is passionate about giving young Latine undergraduate students the guidance they may need to be successful in the UCI Drama environment.

Through her work with BBTC, she has discovered the great need for Latine storytelling in the theater and film. She hopes to continue to amplify the stories of her community throughout the rest of her time at UCI and in her career in the arts. To quote her first ever BBTC production and a BBTC original play, Quebrando El Silencio, “Because the stories of mi gente deserve to be heard.”

Tiffany Batarseh

School of Biological Sciences | Excellence in Research Award

Tiffany Batarseh is a 6th year Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Brandon Gaut’s lab in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. As a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and, most recently, UC President’s Dissertation Year Fellow, she studies bacterial evolution using both experimental and bioinformatic techniques. Through experimental techniques, Tiffany studied the genetic basis and effects of evolutionary rescue. This work was published in Genome Biology and Evolution. and was subsequently selected by the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution for the 2021 Best Graduate Student Paper Award. Tiffany has also leveraged and expanded on a large-scale evolution experiment previously conducted in the Gaut lab by performing a second phase of evolution that seeks to investigate the effects of evolutionary history on future adaptive potential. Additionally, Tiffany is interested in the genomic evolution of bacteria in response to host-pathogen interactions and studies this through comparative genomics. The hope is that these approaches will identify both the genomic changes that underlie pathogen adaptation and candidate gene targets for pest management. Prior to her graduate studies, Tiffany attended El Camino Community College before transferring to UC Irvine where she received her B.S. in Biological Sciences. As an undergraduate, Tiffany conducted research as an NIH MARC scholar studying antibiotic resistant bacteria from environmental sources and was awarded for her research presentations at the 2015 ABRCMS and 2016 AAAS national conferences. As a low-income, first generation college student born to two immigrant parents, Tiffany was aware of and disappointed by the discrepancy and inequity in access to education from an early age. Toward that end, Tiffany is committed to giving back and serving the community at each step of her career. She has worked with the Minority Sciences Program at UCI and has mentored 6 undergraduate students, each with their own independent research project in her lab. Additionally, Tiffany served as a founding member of the Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion working group, which is now a recognized council in the EEB department. After receiving her Ph.D., Tiffany will join Dr. Britt Koskella’s lab at UC Berkeley as a postdoctoral researcher with the goals of becoming a faculty member with her own research group at a R1 university.

Maria Teresa Carmier

Paul Merage School of Business | Leadership Award

Maria Teresa Carmier is the daughter of Teresa Villalobos and Walter Carmier Jr and mother to Nathan Rey and Evan Rey. She is an a/r/tographist (artist-educator-researcher) who received her BA in Fine Arts from Mount Saint Mary's University-Los Angeles. She was awarded a W.M. Keck Foundation research appointment to perform research on Feminist zine Artists in Los Angeles and New York. This work inspired her to facilitate children's zine workshops at local elementary schools. Noticing an art access gap in her communities, she co-founded and led The Saturday School project, an experiential informal art school situated in South Central Los Angeles. There she provided students and community members with art lessons and media use experimentation for free.

After retiring the project, she then applied and was accepted to the Paul Merage School of Business to pursue a specialty master's program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The summer before entering graduate school, Maria Teresa was selected for two group shows at Palos Verde Art Center in Palos Verde, California, and Super Chief Gallery in New York City. She recently founded Unii (pronounced OO-knee) Learning Labs, a multicultural and multilingual parent company creating products that empower language exploration and mastery through creativity and play. She is also a research assistant for Dr. Tonya Williams-Bradford, exploring wealth in Black in Brown communities. She is the VP of Marketing and Events for the Merage Black Management Association and The President of the Association of Latino Professionals for America UCI chapter. She also runs a small business with her mother supporting other women-centered small brands with their business development expansion projects. A force to be reckoned with, Maria Teresa Carmier is on a mission to create magic to propel the world forward.

Melina Pinales

School of Education | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Melina Pinales is the child of Mexican immigrants and a Ph.D. Candidate in the School of Education at UCI specializing in Educational Policy and Social Context. Utilizing both quantitative and mixed methodologies, her research interests are geared towards evaluating programs and discovering best practices in the education of children from diverse ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds to address policy reform, specifically in early childhood and K-3 educational settings. She has an ongoing collaboration with the Santa Ana Unified School District where she assists in evaluating the implementation and effectiveness of different educational programs aimed at improving the academic performance of Latino and Spanish-speaking students. She is a Gates Millennium Scholar, has been awarded the prestigious Eugene-Cota Robles Fellowship in support of her doctoral studies, and is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Karen Leonor Lopez

The Henry Samueli School of Engineering | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Karen Leonor Lopez is a first-generation Latina and a second-year PhD student in the department of Biomedical Engineering. She is the first in her family to apply and be accepted into a Ph.D. program, and the first woman in her family to study engineering. As an undergraduate at San Jose State University, she received the NSF-funded California State University Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) award as well as the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) award, which financially supported her research. She also had active roles in programs such as the Jay Pinson STEM Program and CommUniverCity which focused their efforts in educating underrepresented students in the local San Jose schools.

In her first year as a graduate student, she took an active role in the BME Diversity and Inclusion Task Force with the goal of improving the mental health of her fellow graduate students during COVID. During her second year, she was appointed Treasurer of the Graduate Association of Biomedical Engineering Students (GABES). As treasurer, she helped plan, advertise, and host multiple community- building events for the graduate students in the BME Department. Additionally, with the funding and support from GABES and the BME Department she created and managed the BME PrePair Mentorship Program. This was a quarter-long program designed to match current students with incoming graduate students with the purpose of creating a sense of community and improving interdepartmental connections. Apart from her academic extracurriculars, she has also volunteered in community outreach events such as IUSD’s Ask-A-Scientist Night, the IUSD Career Conference, and as a Judge in the 41st Annual IUSD Science Fair. Her goals for the remainder of the time at UCI include rebuilding the sense of community in the BME Department post COVID and continuing her research at the Digman Lab.

Dan Bustillo

School of Humanities | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Dan Bustillo (they/them; elle/elles) is a scholar, workshop facilitator, penpal, and friend. Their research focuses on trans Latinx activists’ strategic mis/use of media to challenge a variety of borders (carceral, national, and digital borders of belonging). Bustillo is also part of artist collectives, community projects, and queer and trans youth mentorship programs.

Richard Martinez

Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Science | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Richard Martinez is a 4th year graduate student in Informatics. He works in the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Lab under professor Kurt Squire and Constance Steinkuhler’s guidance. Richard studies and builds immersive experiences for youth with mobile and wearable systems. His current focus is on AR enabled eyewear and understanding designs and interactions that youth value through participatory design. He aims to continue dissertation work with youth at Homeboy Industries and include non-traditional perspectives into the design of emerging technologies. Richard hopes to give back to Latin communities through technology and technology design. He believes that technology has the potential to democratize opportunity for those who have typically been left on the margins. He bases these ideals on what he has learned directly from his community mentors and Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries.

Jessica Santiago

School of Law | Leadership Award

Jessica Michelle Santiago is the daughter of Mexican immigrants. As the first in her family to navigate the educational system in the United States, she is proud to be an example for her two younger siblings and a mentor to pre-law and law school students. Jessica attended UC Irvine where she graduated cum laude and received her bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Criminology, Law, and Society. Through the UCI Law Immigrant Rights Clinic and Small Business & Startup Clinic, Jessica has secured the release of individuals in immigration detention, filed asylum and u-visa applications, and has represented minority entrepreneurs in forming their businesses. Jessica has held several leadership positions at UCI Law, including serving as the Co-Chair for the Latinx Law Student Association and the First Generation Professionals, Associate Editor for the UCI Law Review, Vice-Chair with the Mexican American Bar Association, and is a member of the Young Lawyers Committee with the Latina Lawyers Bar Association.

Cindy Yañez

School of Physical Sciences | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Cindy Yañez is a third year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth System Science (ESS). She graduated from UC Riverside with a BS in Physics in 2019. Her academic career in the earth system science field began when she analyzed how climate change would impact her hometown, the Coachella Valley in California, which has a predominantly Latino population. Cindy’s first publication reported that increasing temperatures in the already extreme desert climate would have a devastating effect on the local economy, specifically the tourism industry. Her recent work aims to map fine scale spatial patterns of fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions in order to support decarbonization efforts. She works to communicate climate change research to those most at risk and enjoys engaging community scientists in her research. She is the current graduate student representative of her department and plans inclusive social and academic events to support ESS graduate students. Her research is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program and by the UC Lab Fees Research Program.

Omar Pérez Figueroa

School of Social Ecology | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Omar Pérez Figueroa is a Doctoral Candidate and a Ford Dissertation Fellow in the Urban Planning and Public Policy Program at UCI. Omar graduated cum laude in 2010 with a Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. One year after completing his undergraduate studies, he obtained the Truman Foundation scholarship that he used to complete a master's degree in Water, Interdisciplinary Analysis, and Sustainable Management from the University of Barcelona. He has worked with diverse communities and l international governments, both local and international, and with private corporations. His research interests focus on understanding how community-based movements and marginalized communities address environmental inequalities, focusing on water issues. Additionally, he has presented his research to diverse audiences, including government officials, politicians, United Nations officials, and K-12 students. His most recent project focuses on community aqueducts in Puerto Rico and how they understand water governance problems and resilience in the face of disasters and extreme weather events. The National Academy of Sciences funds this project. Finally, Omar is committed to increasing representation in academia of graduate Latino/Latina/Latinx students, especially from the Caribbean.

Estéfani Marín

School of Social Sciences | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Estéfani Marín is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences. Her work centers on how Latino/a/x and Asian American families generate and transmit educational resources. Estéfani’s research amplifies how siblings who are often overlooked in research but are present in day-to-day life provide support in the transition to young adulthood. Her work has been funded by UC MEXUS and the Social Science Research Council. Estéfani’sexperiences as the eldest of nine, daughter of Mexican immigrants, and first-generation college students inform her research agenda and service. One way she supports the academic trajectories of diverse students is through mentoring. From 2018-2020, she was a mentor for UCI’s Educational Community and Doctoral Experience Program (DECADE). In this work, she was committed to sharing unsaid information out loud and demystifying the "hidden curriculum" of graduate school. From 2019-2021, she mentored 30 low-income and first-gen UCI students through DECADE's undergraduate student program. She worked with students weekly both on a group and one-on-one basis to enhance their time management, studying, and networking skills. She is currently serving as a mentor for UCI’s Chicano Latino Staff Association Mentorship Program. Through her research and service, she seeks to support the educational trajectories of historically marginalized students.

Jennifer Yonan

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – School of Medicine | Excellence in Research and Health for the Latino Community Award

Jennifer Yonan is a Ph.D. candidate in the lab of Dr. Oswald Steward in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology. Her dissertation research aims to understand how alterations to neuronal growth and morphology can influence circuit connectivity and function in the adult brain. Her work has important implications for neurological disorders like epilepsy. Jennifer’s work has been funded by an NIH T32 Epilepsy Training grant and an NIH R01 Diversity Supplemental grant. As a graduate student, Jennifer enthusiastically mentors undergraduates from the Minority Science Programs’ Bridges to Baccalaureate at UCI. As a first generation American of Mexican and Assyrian parents and the first of her family to pursue an advanced degree, she finds joy in passing on the same support, encouragement, and guidance that she has received over the years. Additionally, Jennifer is on UCI’s Brews and Brains leadership team, a science communication group that aims to bring the exciting research of our University’s trainees to the greater Orange County community. Jennifer’s long-term goals are to eventually transition to independence as a researcher in the Neuroscience field and continue her efforts to increase diversity in science.

Jorge Montes

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Jorge Montes received his bachelor’s degree in history at UCLA. Prior to returning to school to pursue his master’s degree in nursing, Montes was in the education world. During the previous eight years Montes was a high school world history teacher in South Los Angeles and loved it very much. His greatest pleasure as a teacher came from working directly with, serving, and advocating for his community. Ultimately, Montes decided to pursue nursing because it was his childhood passion. What Montes loves very much is that he will continue to work with and serve the community, albeit in a different field. He realizes that his passions lie in advocating for and bridging greater access to resources for our most vulnerable populations and he very much looks forward to doing that in his capacity as a nurse. After obtaining his MSN degree Montes plans on working at the bedside before returning to school with the ultimate goal of becoming an advanced practice registered nurse. Along the way Montes also developed an interest in mental health and nursing education and he looks forward to seeing where these interests take him.

Martin Amezcua

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Martin Amezcua is a current PhD Candidate in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the David Mobley Lab. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry from California State University Fullerton, where he synthesized and studied novel small molecules as potential counter measures against Botulinum Neurotoxin A. As an undergraduate he was part of STEM², aimed to increase retention of underrepresented students in STEM fields. During this time, he also served as a tutor, supplementary instructor, and peer mentor for students in STEM courses that historically had high drop/failure rates and research. His research interests are in drug discovery and in understanding mechanisms of action of pathogenic organisms. His research work includes protein-ligand modeling and testing and studying computational tools for predicting binding thermodynamics of host-guest systems to help improve their accuracy for computer aided drug design.

Connie Valencia

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – Program in Public Health | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Connie Valencia, is a 4th year PhD candidate in the Program in Public Health, department of Population Health and Disease Prevention, under the mentorship of Dr. Brittany Morey. Connie is a first-generation Latina, daughter of Mexican Immigrants, wife and mother of two. She was born and raised in Boyle Heights, a predominantly low income, immigrant community. Connie obtained her Masters in Public Health from Cal State Fullerton and Bachelors of Science from UCLA. Currently Connie is working on a mixed methods study focused on understanding barriers and facilitators of civic engagement among residents in Boyle Heights. With the support of the Campus Community Research Incubator Grant, Connie is working with LegacyLA, a local non-profit organization in Boyle Heights. Her goal is to increase community capacity for environmental justice through the collaboration of Legacy LA. Through this process, she can support LegacyLA in empowering local residents that can assist them to gain skills to inform local elected officials of the need to improve air quality. Finally, Connie has dedicated her efforts in supporting students through the Public Health Diverse Educational Community and Doctoral Experience (DECADE) program and Health and Justice Advocate (HJA) student group.

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Verónica Ahumada Newhart, PhD

Assistant Professor Health Informatics and Human-Robot Interaction, Department of Pediatrics - School of Medicine, UC Davis

Dr. Verónica Ahumada Newhart is an assistant professor of Health Informatics and Human-Robot Interaction in the School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, Davis. She is the director of the Technology and Social Connectedness (TASC) lab housed in UC Davis Health’s Center for Health and Technology. Her work is focused on the use of social robots and interactive technologies for improved health and developmental outcomes. Ahumada Newhart is the principal investigator of a $1 million dollar National Science Foundation, National Robotics Initiative grant, Robot-Mediated Learning: Exploring School-Deployed Collaborative Robots for Homebound Children, to create better telerobots for children who are restricted to their homes due to medical conditions or disabilities. She is also co-PI on a $1.2 million University of California, Multicampus Research Projects and Initiatives project, Robot-facilitated Health Equity in Post-Pandemic California and Beyond, to create telemanipulation robots for healthcare worker safety and social inclusion of individuals who are at high risk of infection. Ahumada Newhart's transdisciplinary research encompasses strong collaborations between medicine, health informatics, robotics, developmental and behavioral pediatrics, computer science/engineering, and learning sciences

Pamela Pimentel, RN

Advocate for Community Health

Pamela Pimentel is a registered nurse with 45 years of experience working in and for the community of Orange County.  Pamela began her nursing career in January 1977 choosing to work at an inner city, disproportionate share hospital that predominately served the low-income Latino population.  She entered nursing because of a strong and abiding passion for empowering women to understand their bodies and to self- manage their well-being and that of their families.  For 23 years, Pamela worked within various areas of maternal child nursing, nursing administration and out-patient women’s prenatal care centers for low-income Latino families, located in the heart of Orange County.

Eventually, Pamela brought her deep passion for the health and well-being of low-income and vulnerable mothers, their children and families to the non-profit world.  On March 1, 2000, she became the Chief Executive Officer of MOMS Orange County, a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 to improve the health and birth outcomes of low-income mothers and babies in Orange County.  She developed and implemented a prenatal and post-partum home visitation program utilizing a unique paraprofessional model of care.  Under her stewardship, MOMS Orange County grew from a budget of $650,000, a staff of 9 and serving 250 families to a $5,500,000 budget, a staff of 55 and serving 3,500 families annually.

During her tenure at MOMS Orange County, Pamela worked with Dr. Yuqing Guo from the UCI Sue and Bill Grossman School of Nursing on several nursing research projects focused on maternal mental health and early relational attachment.  This on-going partnership led to the publication of several articles in peer reviewed journals and to Pamela’s current involvement with UCI Institute for Clinical Translation Science.  After 20 years at the helm of MOMS Orange County, Pamela retired in February 2020.  Pamela’s commitment to the empowerment of those who are disenfranchised, overlooked and often not heard remains steadfast.  In her role as a consultant to the UCI ICTS, she serves as a community liaison consistently bringing a strong sense of the community’s needs to the table.  Additionally, Pamela consults in regards to community building with UCLA and Vanderbilt.

In 2004, Pamela was honored by the National Latina Business Women’s’ League as “Executive of the Year”.  That same year, March of Dimes honored her with the “Excellence in Nursing Leadership”.  From 2004 to 2006, Pamela was President of the Orange County Chapter of Mexican American Women’s Association.  In 2009, Pamela was recognized by Senator Lou Correa as one of five “Women Making a Difference” and was also featured by OC Metro Magazine in “20 Women to Watch”.  Pamela continued to receive many accolades in the ensuing years but at the end of her full time career, she received two awards she is exceptionally proud of, the 2019 Non Profit Foundation of Orange “Excellence in Leadership Award” and her Congressional Record read on the floor of the US House of Representatives on February 11, 2020 by Member of Congress, the Honorable Lou Correa recognizing her outstanding achievements in women’s and children’s health.

Pamela is very proud of her heritage and often says she was “raised bi-culturally before it was a thing”.  In 1950, as a junior in high school, her father left his hometown in Zamora, in the state of Michoacán, Mexico to complete his education in the United States.  Her parents were high school sweethearts and married their 2nd year of college.  Pamela’s mother was raised in San Diego and she grew to love all aspects of Mexican culture, the food, the music, and the people.  The family joke was that Pamela’s mother “converted to Mexican” and “was more Mexican that her dad”.  When her parents married in 1955, their marriage was considered interracial and they experienced prejudice.  They overcame all obstacles and recently celebrated 67 years of marriage!  From her parents, Pamela learned to stand up for her beliefs and to stand against injustice.  She carried those values into her adult life and she considers her parents her heroes.

Joanna Hernandez

Assistant Director of the Student Success Initiatives Office
Program Director of the Transfer Student Center
Co-Chair of the UCI Chican@/Latin@ Staff Association

Joanna Hernandez grew up as a first-generation Latina & former foster youth student. Over her past 10 years in higher education, she has focused explicitly on advocating for first-generation & low-income students' needs as a practiced counselor and seasoned program developer. She is passionate about the future of higher education and ensuring it is a safe & inclusive environment for all student communities. Joanna currently serves as the Chican@/Latin@ Staff Association Co-chair and is pursuing her doctorate in Educational Leadership at Cal State Long Beach. Joanna completed her master's in Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan and her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Latin American & Iberian Studies from UC Santa Barbara. She currently serves as the Assistant Director at the Student Success Initiatives Office and Program Director for the Transfer Student Center, providing leadership to programs that support foster youth, student parents, undocumented students, transfer success programs, community partnerships, as well as first-generation and low-income students. Prior to this appointment, she served as the TRIO project director at UC Irvine and worked as an EOP counselor at UC Santa Barbara. Joanna is a dog & cat mom, hiking enthusiast, urban art lover, and music appreciator.

Gustavo Carlo, PhD

Professor in the School of Education
Director of the Cultural Resiliency and Learning Center

Gustavo Carlo is Professor in the School of Education and Director of the Cultural Resiliency and Learning Center at the University of California, Irvine. Before arriving to UCI, Dr. Carlo was the Millsap Endowed Professor of Diversity and Multicultural Studies in Human Development and Family Science at the University of Missouri. His primary research interest focuses on understanding positive social development and health in culturally diverse children and adolescents across the world. However, many of his projects focus on U.S. ethnic/racial minority groups, including Latino/a youth and families.

He has published seven books and over 200 chapters and research papers in distinguished journals. His work has been funded by various agencies including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. For his research contributions, he received recognition as an elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association, elected Fellow of the American Psychological Society, and an Outstanding Research Award in Positive Psychology from the American Psychological Association and the Templeton Foundation. His book, Prosocial Development: A multidimensional approach (Oxford University Press; co-edited with Laura Padilla-Walker), earned the Book Award by the Moral Education and Development SIG of the American Education Research Association. Dr. Carlo also received the Outstanding Senior Mentor Award from the Society for Research in Adolescence in 2018.

Currently, he is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Behavioral Development and the Developmental Psychology journal and serves on other journal editorial boards. He also currently serves as a member of the Governing Council of the Society for Research in Child Development. His latest book is the upcoming American Psychological Association’s Handbook of Adolescent and Young Adulthood Development. His most recent research focuses on understanding care-based helping behaviors towards ingroup/outgroup persons and how such actions can address social inequities.

Vladimir Minin, PhD

Professor of Statistics, Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

Vladimir Minin is Professor of Statistics in the School of Information and Computer Sciences and Associate Director of the UCI Infectious Disease Science Initiative. His research interests revolve around developing statistically rigorous solutions to problems that arise in biological sciences. These solutions often involve formulating stochastic models that can describe complex dynamics of biological systems and devising computationally efficient algorithms to fit these models to data. Minin is currently most active in infectious disease epidemiology, working on Bayesian estimation of disease transmission model parameters. His other research interests include phylogenetics, population genetics, computational immunology, and systems biology.

Carlos Feliciano

Founding Member, UCI-OC Alliance
Special Agent, Office of Inspection General, Department of Homeland Security

Carlos Feliciano has always been passionate about public service. While at UC Irvine, he co-founded the Lobby Core Program, was elected as Board Chair for the UC Student Association, and was elected President of the Associated Students of UCI. In these roles, Carlos collaborated with his peers and university leadership to support the UC's expansion of financial aid and helped food service and maintenance staff at UCI become recognized as university employees.

Upon graduation, Carlos was hired as a Program Analyst and then promoted to Special Agent for the Office of Inspection General (OIG) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The mission of the OIG is "To provide independent oversight and promote excellence, integrity, and accountability within DHS."

Carlos has continued his service to UCI as a founding member of the UCI Orange County Alliance for a Latin Thriving University and former Chair of the UCI Young Alumni Council (YAC). He helped YAC and the UCI Alumni Association launch the Anteater Network, an online mentorship platform for students, alumni, and the greater UCI community. Carlos is an honorary member of UC Irvine Campus Wide Honors Program and a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity whose motto is, “The Great Joy of Serving Others."

Jesús Enrique López Vargas

Claire Trevor School of the Arts | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Jesús Enrique López Vargas is a Master of Fine Arts candidate for the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, Drama Department, where he has exercised and strengthened his work as an arts administrator & developer, artistic director, production stage manager, storytelling & behavioral theorist and as a community leader.

Jesús has worked and studied throughout his life in both the United States and his native country of México. While at UCI he has been honored as one of the six campus-wide Chancellor's Club Fellows, as a Public Impact Fellow, an Inclusive Excellence Ambassador Fellow, and has received multiple other awards, fellowships and scholarships that have supported his research in the development of new stories and formats that seek to heighten the representation of native voices from Latin America. For the past 6 years, he has been working closely with MOON Collective & KB Theatre Company to produce culture-conscious works that challenge the public while providing training opportunities in safe spaces for young BIPOC practitioners of the performing arts. Their latest program- which was one of the first in the nation to react and adapt to the challenges of COVID-19 - took place in the summer of 2020, titled Re-Creating the Stage. Jesús has also written, directed, developed and produced various performance-based shows, short-films and video works, all which share the same goal of challenging and innovating the creative process, the consumerist aesthetics of art and the presentational dynamics of storytelling. While at UCI, Jesús has also proudly led, mentored and produced with Brown Bag Theater Company (BBTC), an affinity-culture group that aims to highlight Latinx's stories and experiences through community engagement & performance. Jesús dedicates this award to every member and supporter of Brown Bag, for being some of the bravest leaders of our communities.

Elena Dominguez

School of Biological Sciences | Excellence in Research Award

Elena Dominguez is a 4th year PhD candidate in the lab of Dr. Stark. As a NIH T32 Predoctoral Fellow, she studies the structural characteristics of the brain using MRI, with the hopes of uncovering biomarkers of successful aging in the elderly population. She is a co-founder of Black in Neuro, an international organization dedicated to Black excellence in neuro-related careers, and currently serves as the Neurobiology and Behavior student rep for UCI's Inclusive Excellence Task Force and Diverse Educational Community and Doctoral Experience (DECADE). As a first-generation afro-Latina, she learned very quickly how easy it was to be discouraged by the lack of representation in STEM. As a result, she began to lead science outreach events with organizations such as Girls Inc. and local middle schools to serve as a mentor for the next generation of BIPOC scientists and bridge the disparities that many students of color face. In order to reach the population that her research benefits most, she has served as the Older Adults Events co-chair for the Center for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, and has organized & led community talks in local libraries and nursing homes.

Florencio Portocarrero

Paul Merage School of Business | Leadership Award

Florencio is a Ph.D. student in Organization and Management and a Eugene Cota-Robles Fellow. His research agenda examines issues related to the interface between businesses and society, and to emotions in work-life. He is a published scholar currently working on several field, archival, and meta-analytic research projects that examine the effects of employee participation in socially responsible initiatives on a diverse set of outcomes. These consequences include employees' well-being and adaptive behaviors at work, and organizations' impact on local communities and the environment. His research has won prestigious accolades such as the Best Paper Award at the 2019 Annual Conference of the International Association for Business and Society. Florencio is committed to increasing Latinx representation in the business academic world. To this end, along with other management scholars and the support of the PhD Project (a non-profit dedicated to increasing the diversity of business school faculty), Florencio created "La Familia –– Latinx Scholars in Management," a national community of like-minded scholars united in intellect and their Latinx identity.

Yenda Prado

School of Education | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Yenda Prado is a Community Research Fellow and Ph.D. candidate in the School of Education. Her work centers on the ways that communities and schools can use digital technologies to support children's inclusion, promote interdependent collaboration, and amplify student voice. Yenda's research forms the basis of her first-authored book, Voices on the Margins: Inclusive Education at the Intersection of Language, Literacy, and Technology, to be published by MIT Press. Yenda's experiences as a migrant, language learner, and special education student turned scholar, inform her approach to equity and inclusion in her scholarship, teaching, and service. This year, with funding from the Office of Inclusive Excellence, Yenda co-designed the Community Education Fellows program, partnering with schools in under-served communities across Orange County to place undergraduate students with families in need of support with their children's remote learning during the COVID crisis. She is a founding member of the UC Office of the President Family Engagement Taskforce and a Peer Mentor in the School of Education's Diverse Education Community and Doctoral Experience program. Prior to UCI, Yenda earned a B.A. in Psychology from Stanford University and an Ed.M. from Harvard University. She has been interviewed and featured in the Wall Street Journal and Science News.

Nina Butkovich

The Henry Samueli School of Engineering | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Nina Butkovich is a third-year PhD student in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCI. Born to an immigrant mother and raised in a busy household with two brothers and two sisters, she learned the value of family and cultural appreciation from an early age. Growing up in a predominantly white, suburban, Midwestern neighborhood, Nina was very excited to attend the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). For the first time, she could connect to other people of color on a common basis. However, discrepancy in economic status, healthcare, and opportunities for Hispanics and other people of color were still an obvious problem. During her undergraduate studies, she acted as RA for the FSRI program, where underrepresented students were given the opportunity to conduct scientific research and get support from the Caltech Center for Inclusion and Diversity. She continues her appreciation by participating in DECADE at UCI. Her goal of improving healthcare for all, and her personal battle with thyroid cancer, helped inspire her to conduct health- and cancer-related PhD research.  By developing an anti-cancer protein nanoparticle vaccine, she is honored to contribute to the field of medicine.

Carlos Colmenares Gil

School of Humanities | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Carlos Colmenares Gil was born in Venezuela and did his BA in Psychology in Caracas at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. He also has an MA in Philosophy and Critical Theory from Kingston University in London and is currently in the 5th year of the Comparative Literature program at UCI. He is writing his dissertation on literature and cinema that suggest socio-political formations which contest and exist in the margins of the logic of the Nation-State in Brazil and Venezuela. And his general research interests are Latin American thought and its intersections with continental philosophy, anthropology, and psychoanalysis. He has also published a collection of poems titled dos mil nueve (2011), and a short story collection: Versiones de Martha (2016).

Adriana Meza Soria

Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Science | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Adriana Meza Soria is a 4th year graduate student in Software Engineering. She works in the Software Design and Collaboration Laboratory (SDCL) under professor André van der Hoek's guidance. Adriana studies and builds tools for software developers, with her current focus on creating smart tools that preserve important moments in design discussions from one meeting to a next one. Adriana is a UC Mexus fellow, has received the Miguel Velez fellowship twice, and recently became the first recipient of the Rosalva Gallardo Valencia Graduate Award. She feels that giving back to the Latin community is a fundamental aspect of her personal and professional growth. This belief motivated her to volunteer for the Mexican Graduate Research Education Program (MGREP). Through her contributions to this program, she seeks to support fellow Mexicans to come to UCI to further their education.

Erik Jimenez Rodriguez

School of Law | Leadership Award

Erik migrated to the United States from Mexico when he was six. He channels the adversity that he and his family has faced as undocumented immigrants into his advocacy. As a member of the UCI Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, Erik helped secure the release of individuals in immigration detention facing COVID-19 risk. Last summer, Erik interned at Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai LLP, where he continued to secure the release of incarcerated individuals detained at LA County Jail, who also faced COVID-19 risk. Most recently, Erik returned as an advanced clinic student to take the lead in a complex asylum case and drafted the client's legal brief in support of her asylum claim. Erik is interested in pursuing a career in which he represents vulnerable populations in civil rights, employment, and immigration issues.

Francisco Javier Mercado

School of Physical Sciences | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Francisco Javier Mercado received a B.S. in Physics at California State Polytechnic University Pomona and his M.S. in Physics at UCI. As a Ph.D. Candidate in the department of Physics & Astronomy Francisco studies how galaxies form and evolve using state of the art numerical, cosmological simulations. Aside from his main projects, Francisco is advising two undergraduate students from Cal State Fullerton and San Francisco State University in a research project with a goal of understanding the gas content of dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way's neighborhood. Outside of research Francisco serves as the Co-Chair of the Leadership Team for the UCI Physics and Astronomy Community Excellence Program as well as the Physics graduate student representative for the UCI DECADE program. After Completing his Ph.D. Francisco intends to pursue a career as a faculty member at a teaching institution where he hopes to start a research group of his own.

Yasmin Barrientos Kofman

School of Social Ecology | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Yasmin Barrientos Kofman is a 5^th year PhD candidate with a concentration in Health Psychology and Quantitative Methods. She utilizes biological/clinical, community, and national level data to examine how gender-based violence and the social context in which it occurs contributes to chronic morbidity, particularly in low-income and women of color who are disproportionately affected. Among her several ongoing projects, she is currently collaborating with a local emergency shelter to investigate the link between risk and protective factors, including those that can be targeted at a policy level, and maternal-infant health outcomes in violence-exposed, unhoused women. Yasmin has served as the campus student ambassador for the UC Health, Gender, and Empowerment Center of Expertise to help develop, implement, and lead organizing plans across UC campuses to address women's health and campus-based sexual assault and dating violence. Most recently, she was awarded the Young Scholar Award from the American Psychosomatic Society.

Maricela Bañuelos

School of Social Sciences | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Maricela Bañuelos is a first year Sociology PhD student in UCI's School of Social Sciences who is also pursuing a graduate emphasis in Chicano/ Latino Studies. She graduated from UCSB in 2016 with summa cum laude and with distinction in her sociology major. She then went on to earn her master's in Educational Policy and Social Context from UCI's School of Education (SoE) in 2020. Her research interests include educational equity, access and persistence in higher education, Latin/a/x/o in higher education, and social mobility. She is particularly interested in studying ways of making higher education institutions more accessible, inclusive, and beneficial to first-generation college students, underrepresented students of color, and low-income students. Throughout Maricela's undergraduate and graduate studies, she has strived to break down barriers for historically marginalized students in higher education. As an undergraduate, she was an officer for an organization called La Escuelita [The Little School], a non-profit organization, whose primary objective is to promote higher education for low-income students of color in K-12. As a graduate student, she became part of SoE's Higher Education Outreach Team, which is a committee within the Diverse Educational Community and Doctoral Experience (DECADE). Maricela and her colleagues developed and facilitated workshops for undergraduates and high school students related to college access, research involvement, and professional development.

Francisco Gutierrez Carranza

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – School of Medicine | Excellence in Research and Health for the Latino Community Award

Francisco Gutierrez Carranza is a PhD candidate in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. His thesis work is supervised by Professor Klemens Hertel and his research aims to elucidate the underlying mechanisms that drive gene expression. Specifically, Francisco studies mRNA stability and the pre-mRNA architectural features that dictate splice site usage. He has received the prestigious NSF Bridges to Doctorate award and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. One of Francisco's passions is giving back to the community. He served as the campus coordinator for grad division's DECADE executive council and as the school of medicine's DECADE representative. His goal in these roles was to help create a more inclusive and supportive environment for the whole graduate community. He has spent his time mentoring local high school students through UCI's Cancer Research Institute summer fellowship program and undergraduates through UCI's Minority Science Program. Francisco plans to continue his research career by pursuing a postdoctoral position. Francisco's life goal is continue mentoring and promoting the sciences to underrepresented minorities.

Sarah Rodrigues

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Sarah Rodrigues is a third year Nursing Science PhD student in the UCI Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing who is also pursuing a Graduate Feminist Emphasis through the UCI Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Sarah is a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurse, and her research interests include family-centered and trauma-informed care, embodied knowledge and narrative methodologies.

Sarah graduated from UC Davis with a BS in Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, and from UC Irvine with a BS in Nursing. She currently serves as a UCI Inclusive Excellence Ambassador and peer mentor to incoming graduate students who are first-generation and/or from a minority-serving institution and as a peer mentor for the Competitive Edge Summer Research Program to support entering graduate students from diverse backgrounds. Prior to attending graduate school, Sarah served in the AmeriCorps as a community health educator and mentor to at-risk youth.

Sarah immigrated to the United States at age 7 with her parents and brother. She lives in San Juan Capistrano with her teenage son, parents and yellow lab, Darwin.

Diana Carreño

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Diana Carreño is a current PhD student in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in the lab of Dr. Shahrdad Lotfipour.  Her research project focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of adolescent drug addiction. She has received the UCI Office of Inclusive Excellence Ambassador Summer Fellowship. In addition to research, she mentors undergraduates in STEM to help them achieve their career and personal goals. She has worked closely with the UCI Dream Center as a Co-lead Scholar-in-Residence to provide professional development to undocumented undergraduate and graduate students. Further, she is a Leadership Coach for Diverse Educational Community and Doctoral Experience: Partnering in Leadership for Undergraduate Students (DECADE PLUS) Program by mentoring Chancellor's Excellence Scholars.

Emilia Fields

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – Program in Public Health | Graduate Student Excellence Award

Emilia Fields is a 2^nd year PhD student in the College of Health Sciences' Program in Public Health. The granddaughter of Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants, Emilia is passionate about improving health disparities as they relate to infectious diseases in the Latinx community. Her research interests lie in better understanding vaccination behaviors and the vaccine decision making process for the Influenza, HPV, and COVID-19 vaccines. Her research interests originate from her academic background in microbiology and her previous global health work in the city of Maclovio Rojas located in Mexico. She is interested in intervention design, mixed methods approaches, and health communication strategies as ways to address health disparities. Her current work is focused on investigating COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Orange County Latinx parents and adolescents.

José Mayorga, MD

Assistant Clinical Professor of Family Medicine, Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences - School of Medicine

Chief Medical Officer, Federal Qualified Health Centers (Santa Ana and Anaheim), UCI Health

Dr. José Mayorga is a Board-Certified Family Physician leader with extensive professional experience in the for-profit and non-profit sectors.  He has dedicated his Family Medicine and administration career to providing high-quality care to the medically underserved. In July 2018, he joined the UCI Health, Department of Family Medicine and is an Assistant Clinical Professor.  He leads the UCI Health Family Health Centers (the oldest FQHC in Orange County) as their CEO & CMO, he is excited to return to the clinic where his passion for underserved medicine began as a student 23 years earlier. In 2020, the UCI FQHC cared for 24,000 patients who are predominantly Latinx and monolingual Spanish. Ninety-nine percent of the patients lived below 200 percent of Federal Poverty Level. Of those served, 32 percent were children.  Dr. Mayorga believes the safety-net network of care is the best kept secret in healthcare and is committed to making community health centers the medical home of choice. He lectures on population health and social determinants of health.  During the COVID19 Pandemic, Dr. Mayorga has been leading care innovation to ensure the underserved communities have access to care.  He has served as a COVID19 medical expert in English and Spanish media outlets and townhalls in Orange County.  He looks forward to teaching the future doctors of this country and hopes to empower them to become leaders in primary care and advocates for health justice.

Burt Álvaro Slusher, MS

Director of Recruitment and Admissions for Specialty Masters Programs, Paul Merage School of Business

Burt Álvaro Slusher is the Director of Recruitment and Admissions at UC Irvine's Merage School of Business Specialty Masters Programs. In his role, Burt manages the development and implementation of annual recruiting goals and provides strategic oversight for the admissions process in consultation with the Assistant Dean of Specialty Masters Programs and Academic Directors. Prior to joining the Specialty Masters Program team, Burt served as the Director of Recruitment and Admissions for the Master of Professional Accountancy program where he also was the Admissions Committee Chair. With nearly two decades of higher education and business school experience with undergraduate and graduate students, Burt has worked closely with Merage students, alumni, corporate outreach, and marketing to recruit and develop globally talented students that value inclusion and will serve as future business leaders in our community.

Born in East Los Angeles, Burt was the first in his family to go to college. His involvement with the Latinx community includes being Treasurer and Co-Chair of the Chicano/Latino Staff Association, serving as an advisor for the Association of Latino Professionals for America, being an active member of the First Generation Staff Association, and currently working on the Merage School Latinx Initiative.

Burt holds a Master of Science degree in Counseling with an emphasis in Student Development in Higher Education from Cal State Long Beach, a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Social Behavior from UC Irvine with a minor in Management, and is certified as a Master Career Development Professional.

Burt currently lives in Irvine with his wife and two daughters. He is an avid basketball fan and enjoys weightlifting and yoga on his free time.

Leo R. Chavez, PhD

Distinguished Professor and Chair of Anthropology, School of Social Sciences

Leo R. Chavez is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Anthropology. He maintains strong relationships with the Department Chicano/Latino Studies and the School of Medicine PRIME-LC Program. Dr. Chavez received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University. His research has focused on various aspects of the migration experience: families, work, immigration status, access to health care, cancer and Latinas, and media representations.

In addition to scores of academic articles, he is the author of Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society (1^st edition 1992; 3^rd Edition, Wadsworth/Cengage Learning 2013); Covering Immigration:  Popular Images and the Politics of the Nation (University of California Press 2001); The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation (Stanford University Press, 1^st edition 2008; 2^nd edition 2013); and Anchor Babies and the Challenge of Birthright Citizenship (Stanford University Press, 2017). His current research examines the effects of political rhetoric, especially anti-Latino and anti-immigrant rhetoric, on emotions and psychological well-being.

Dr. Chavez has received a number of awards over his career. In 1992 he received UCI Lauds and Laurels Award for Distinguished Teacher. He received the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology in 1993, the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists' Book Award for The Latino Threat in 2009, and the Society for the Anthropology of North America's award for Distinguished Achievement in the Critical Study of North America in 2009. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2018. The Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists (ALLA) gave him the Distinguished Career Award for 2019. The Society for Applied Anthropology gave him the Bronislaw Malinowski Award, 2021, for distinguished lifetime contributions. He is currently President-Elect of the Association of Latina and Latino Anthropologists, the American Anthropological Association.

Regina Ragan, Ph.D.

Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Henry Samueli School of Engineering

Against the odds, Prof. Ragan is an internationally recognized scholar. As a low-income, GED recipient attending community college, she quit an office job at a trucking company to commit to full-time study at UCLA, where, by chance, she soon discovered her love of quantum mechanics. She unexpectedly went on to obtain a PhD at Caltech and become one of the few Xicana faculty in engineering. Her research involves chemical-assembly for devising new routes for manufacturing devices requiring nanoscale elements. She focuses on addressing critical societal needs, including design of low-cost, rapid diagnostic devices.

Prof. Ragan is Associate Director of the Institute for Design and Manufacturing Innovation, Education Director of the Center for Complex and Active Materials, a NSF MRSEC, and holds the Stacey Nichols Endowed Chair for Diversity in Engineering Education. She has created programs linking underrepresented undergraduates with graduate students, faculty and industry professionals, and mentored female and URM faculty across the disciplines in Engineering resulting in an increased number of junior faculty receiving national awards. During her tenure as the School of Engineering Faculty Equity Advisor, she effectively worked with departmental search committees to more than double the number of women faculty and triple the number of URM faculty in Engineering.

Héctor Tobar, MFA

UCI Alumni and Associate Professor of English and Chicano/Latino Studies, School of Humanities and School of Social Sciences

Héctor Tobar is the Los Angeles-born author of five books, including the novels The Tattooed Soldier, The Barbarian Nurseries, and The Last Great Road Bum. His non-fiction Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of Thirty-Three Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle that Set Them Free, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize: it was also a New York Times bestseller and adapted into the film The 33. The Barbarian Nurseries was a New York Times Notable Book and won the California Book Award Gold Medal for fiction. Tobar's fiction has also appeared in Zyzzyva and in Best American Short Stories 2016. He earned his MFA in Fiction from the University of California, Irvine, and has taught writing at Pomona College and the University of Oregon. Currently, he is an associate professor of Chicano/Latino Studies and English at UC Irvine. His other books include the nonfiction Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States, and the novel The Tattooed Soldier. His books have been translated into fifteen languages, including French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and Mandarin. As a journalist, he was a foreign correspondent with the Los Angeles Times in Buenos Aires and Mexico City, and a part of the reporting team that earned a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Tobar has also been an op-ed writer for the New York Times and a contributor to The New Yorker, Smithsonian and National Geographic. In 2020, he received a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University. He is the son of Guatemalan immigrants.

Luis Moreno-Napoles

Claire Trevor School of the Arts

Born in Mexico and misplaced in Long Beach, California, Luis Moreno-Napoles curves time and space to make the overwhelming capitalist pressure recede enough for him to catch his breath. A small but charged resistance carried out. His practice often unravels into an unruly sort of rambling, the kind where he incoherently speaks out loud to himself as he desperately searches for a way to keep the decaying fragments of indeterminable forms from slipping through his fingers. There is no romancing his approach; it's just what happens. His ideal welcome mat would read, "If you want some then come and get some" (Fred Moten). The lingering low hum he carries in his chest are the lyrics to la Llorona, "Yo soy como el chile verde. Picante pero sabroso."

Evelyn Valdez-Ward

School of Biological Sciences

Evelyn Valdez-Ward is a fourth year, formerly undocumented, PhD candidate and Ford fellow studying the effects of drought on plants and soil microbes. As a Research + Practice Collaboratory Fellow, she studies marginalized scientists and their use of science communication for social justice. Evelyn was named one of 2020's Grist 50 Fixers, a list of emerging leaders across the U.S. who are working on solutions to the biggest challenges. She has published articles in Science and Scientific American, was an invited speaker at the 2018 March for Science rally, named a 2018 UCS Science Defender, voted best of Story Collider 2018 in LA, awarded UCI's Dynamic Womxn's Award for Outstanding Social Justice Activist and the Svetlana Bershadsky Graduate Community Award for her advocacy for undocumented scientists.

Diana Ramos, M.D.

Paul Merage School of Business

Dr. Diana Ramos is a well-recognized national public health expert, board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist and adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor at the Keck USC School of Medicine. She is a Public Health Medical Officer for the California Department of Public Health, Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health, where she is California's women's health expert. Dr. Ramos serves as the incoming chair of the California American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology executive committee and other women's health committees providing leadership and guidance throughout the U.S. Dr. Ramos is currently completing her Executive MBA at the Paul Merage School of Business and through her MBA she is bringing healthcare, public health and business to gamify health. She is developing Teen MindGames, a game played by teens that screens for depression. She has recently won the UCI Entrepreneur Class Shark Tank competition and has been selected as a participant for the UCI Wayfinder Incubator Programs.

Mariela Rivas

School of Education

Mariela Rivas is a doctoral candidate at the UCI School of Education. Her service accomplishments include serving in previous LEAD committees, showing leadership within the School of Education, and taking part as a Scholar in Residence at the UCI Dream Center, mentoring undocumented undergraduates. Her research projects consider and investigate the effect of educational interventions on underrepresented minorities in higher education. She has published papers that look at the relationship between college students' study habits and achievement. Her dissertation work studies the effect of an intervention created to improve study skills in face-to-face and online courses.

Edgar Ramos Muñoz

The Henry Samueli School of Engineering

Edgar Ramos Muñoz worked under the guidance of Prof. Faryar Jabbari at UCI. His dissertation research was focused on developing smart-charging strategies for large numbers of electric vehicles via optimization methods. By using "octopus chargers" (stations with multiple cables), the protocols he developed were able to manage the demand load for a workplace parking structure, while reducing the number of installed charging stations. As a graduate student, Edgar mentored students by giving free tutoring sessions, guiding undergraduate research projects, and assisting students with graduate school applications. He has also organized various information sessions for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. In the future, Edgar plans to pursue a career in academia to continue his research in the advancement of transportation technology and mentor students.

Martha Torres Méndez 

School of Humanities

Martha Torres Méndez' dissertation rearticulates an important topic in contemporary Mexican literature, specifically literature that focuses on the northern desert areas of the country: that of violence. Instead of focusing directly on narco-violence, as has much of recent scholarship on the subject, Martha focuses on slow violence, a move that enables her to broaden the existing discussions to encompass questions that relate to daily structures of oppression as well as ecocriticism. This is an original and important turn that Martha anchors in a richly diverse array of primary sources, including canonical authors and little known visual artists and filmmakers.

Neftali Watkinson Medina

Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Science

Neftali Watkinson Medina is advised by Professor Alex Nicolau. As a Fulbright-Garcia Robles Fellow and recipient of the UC Mexus Scholarship, ICS Innovation Fellowship, and the Miguel Velez Fellowship for Latin American students, Neftali's research is at the conjunction of artificial intelligence and art. He focuses on compiler optimization and pedagogical research in computer science. Currently, he is working on predicting illnesses with the use of deep learning. Neftali was part of the first team from UCI to present a project at the Venice Biennale in 2019. As a graduate student, Neftali has worked with non-profit organizations for humanitarian aid and the arts. He also volunteered to teach English to children in at-risk communities and help fellow Mexicans come to UCI to further their education.

Viridiana Chabolla

School of Law

Viridiana Chabolla immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was two years old. She grew up in East Los Angeles as part of a large family headed by strong, hard-working women. She graduated from Pomona College in 2013 and went on to work at Public Counsel's Opportunity Under Law Project, working with students and families throughout Los Angeles for education equity. As a formerly undocumented person and daughter of immigrants, Viridiana is passionate about immigrant rights, working families, and access to education. During law school, she has worked with the Immigrant Rights Clinic and is committed to pushing for comprehensive immigration reform and due process for immigrants. Her efforts include participation in litigation pending (https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/our-futures-are-being-tossed-coin) before the United States Supreme Court challenging the current administration's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. On her off time, she enjoys "bad" TV and spending time with her cat, Kiko.

Katy Rodríguez Wimberly

School of Physical Sciences

Katy Rodríguez Wimberly, a PhD candidate and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the UCI Physics & Astronomy Department, studies galaxy evolution using optical telescopes and cosmological simulations. Katy has contributed to multiple published works, including a first-authored paper confirming the ancient history of the smallest known galaxies. She has presented her work at numerous conferences and as an invited seminar speaker. Additionally, Katy is on the Board of Directors for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific working to extend astronomy outreach and science communication opportunities to young, diverse astronomers. At UCI, Katy co-created and leads a "near-peer" mentoring organization (https://uci-pace.github.io) in its second year, in which two programs focus on normalizing a holistic approach to success for first year graduate students, and strengthen the community through trained mentors.

Deyanira Nevárez Martínez

School of Social Ecology

Deyanira Nevárez Martínez, a PhD candidate in the Urban Planning and Public Policy Department at UCI, conducts research on housing justice, housing precarity, colonias and the role of the state in domestic informal settlements. Her publications include the co-authored article "Los Olvidados/The Forgotten: Reconceptualizing Colonias as Viable Communities," Progress in Planning (2019). Her work is interdisciplinary and has been published in criminology and public health journals. She is the 2019 recipient of the Gilbert G. González Graduate Student Paper Prize in Chicano Latino Studies at UCI. She serves as a Senior Policy Fellow for the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative at UCLA and is a two-term graduate student representative to the University of California Faculty Senate Coordinating Committee on Graduate Affairs.

Martha Morales Hernández

School of Social Sciences

Martha Morales Hernández' research agenda aims to identify ways to better support and promote the educational success and wellbeing of undocumented college students. She has five co-authored peer-reviewed journal articles. All make critical theoretical contributions about the specific ways that immigration status functions as a source of social inequality. She has also co-authored four research briefs that outline how universities can mediate the consequences of illegality. She has worked closely with the UCI Dream Center to use her research findings to inform program development, including the creation of a Scholar-in-Residence program to provide professional development to undocumented undergraduate and graduate students. As the Center's graduate student fellow, she led the recruitment of 36 on campus fellowship sites, securing $133,200 from campus partners to fund professional development opportunities for undergraduate students without work authorization. She actively mentors undocumented students, drawing on her own experiences as a pedagogical tool to inform and encourage students. She received a 2020 Ford pre-doctoral fellowship.

Brenda Gutiérrez

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – School of Medicine

Brenda Gutiérrez is a passionate MD/PhD student who is committed to improving health disparities for the Latinx community. Her dynamic research has uncovered critical interactions between brain cells and blood vessels that could be harnessed to lessen disability after stroke. Brenda is dedicated to increasing underrepresented minority groups in science. She is active in the Program for Medical Education in the Latino Community (PRIME-LC), introducing students to exciting science careers. She is also a role model in an after-school science program with Girls Inc., helping to prepare girls for future careers. She attends the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students and successfully recruits students to pursue science. Her goal is to continue to be a mentor for minority students at all stages of their careers.

Norma Hernández-Ramírez

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing

Norma Hernández-Ramírez is a DNP-FNP student who is an ER nurse working with underserved populations. She graduated from San Francisco State University with a BS degree in Physiology, and from the University of San Francisco with a MS in Nursing in the Clinical Nurse Leader program. During her time in graduate school, she organized medical missions locally and abroad. She hopes to decrease health disparities and create change in healthcare, particularly in Latino communities, by obtaining her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree with a Family Nurse Practitioner concentration at UCI. She was recently interviewed by Univision about Covid-19 and her role as an ER nurse.

Anjélica Cárdenas

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Anjélica Cárdenas is a current PhD student in the Pharmacological Sciences program in the lab of Dr. Shahrdad Lotfipour. In the Lotfipour Lab, Anjélica has independently initiated a research project assessing molecular mechanisms mediating drug addiction, which has translated into two publications in Translational Psychiatry (impact factor: 5.182) and Psychopharmacology (impact factor: 3.424). She has also received prestigious NIH and Ford Foundation Fellowships. In addition to research, Anjélica is the President of the UCI Chapter of SACNAS, and she has mentored undergraduate students in the Campuswide Honors Collegium, UROP, and the Minority Sciences Program. Anjélica's career goals include increasing ethnic and racial diversity within the student population, thereby enhancing the educational benefits of diversity, and ultimately increasing the number of professors with diverse backgrounds.

Samantha García

Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences – Program in Public Health

Samantha García's research identifies and models social determinants of Mexican American women's vaccine hesitancy in adopting HPV vaccination that effectively prevents cervical cancer and disproportionately burdens Mexican American women. She works with UCI's Family Health Center that serves a low income predominantly Hispanic/Latino population to collect data through interviews and surveys. A Mexican American woman herself, she was born and raised in southern California and is pursuing a doctoral degree to advance the science around Latino health disparities. Her research advances health disparity and communication science around understanding and informing public health approaches and use of communication strategies to more effectively reach Latina women to increase preventive health. This research will inform public health intervention strategies to attenuate gaps in preventive health among Mexican American women.

Lonnie Alcaraz

Professor of Drama, Claire Trevor School of the Arts

Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz is a Professor at UCI, where he is the head of the lighting design program. He is also a professional lighting designer. He has designed at various regional theatres, such as The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portland Center Stage, South Coast Repertory, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Laguna Playhouse, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Pasadena Playhouse, The Great River Shakespeare Festival where he is the Resident Lighting Designer, Utah Shakespearean Festival, Syracuse Stage, Arizona Theatre Company and East West Players. Lonnie has built much of his career designing Latinx theatre. He has had a long time relationship with Culture Clash (a Latinx Theatre Group) and has designed their productions of The Birds at both South Coast Repertory and Berkeley Repertory; Culture Clash in AmeriCCa at South Coast Repertory and San Diego Repertory; and their national touring show, Radio Mambo. He has also designed Latinx Productions such as Mojada, Oedipus El Rey, La Posada Magica and American Mariachi. In 2011 he helped form Brown Bag Theatre Company (https://brownbagtheatre.wixsite.com/brownbagtheatre), a Latinx theatre company at UCI giving voice to Latinx students at UCI. BBTC has produced more than 9 full productions, numerous Variety shows and smaller original productions. They have also toured to local high schools for the past 5 years. He is particularly proud of this group and is honored to mentor them in their work. Lonnie is an Associate Artist with critically acclaimed Cornerstone Theater Company which has given him the opportunity to create site-specific lighting designs throughout California. In addition to his theatrical experience, Lonnie designed for Universal Studios Islands of Adventure for Universal Studios, Japan. He is a member of the United Scenic Artist /IATSE – Local 829.

Kimberly Ayala

Director, Undergraduate/ Undeclared Advising Program

I was the first in my immediate and extended family to attend college. My high school counselor discouraged me from applying to colleges by saying, "People like you (Mexican-Americans) don't go to college." I applied anyway and once here at UCI, I was afraid he might have been right. My first quarter, fall courses were challenging, and I felt alone and overwhelmed. It just took one connection to the Early Academic Outreach Office, during the first quarter of my freshman year and I made friendships and mentors and not only succeeded but thrived!

As a Psychology major here at UCI, I was an active member of the UCI community. For most of my four years, I worked as a student coordinator for the Early Academic Outreach Program assisting low-income and first generation high school, and junior high students learn about the opportunities available to them in college. In addition, I was a Peer Academic Advisor in the School of Social Sciences, an Administrative Intern working in the Dean of Students Office, a member of the University Center Board, worked as an after school counselor for elementary school students, and was the co-chair of the Chicano-Latino Graduation. I kept myself very busy and did not let my grades suffer. I learned the criticality of time management and always making sure that all of my supervisors thought they were my number one priority.

As Director of the UCI Undergraduate/Undeclared Advising Program, my primary responsibility is to ensure that all U/U students' academic counseling needs are met. In addition, I ensure advisors can answer all student questions, monitor student progress, develop interactive ways to assist students in their transition to UCI and mentor and coach students in developing their leadership skills. I've been on campus for decades, and I love assisting our U/U students transition to UCI and giving students strategies for academic success, personal success, developing their academic and career goals, and seeing them grow as Anteaters.

Belinda Campos, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Chicano/Latino Studies, School of Social Sciences

Belinda Campos is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chicano/Latino Studies and an affiliate of the School of Medicine PRIME-LC Program and the Department of Psychological Science. Dr. Campos received her Ph.D. in Social-Personality Psychology from UC Berkeley. After completing her Ph.D., Dr. Campos held postdoctoral positions at UCLA in the Department of Psychology and at the Center for the Everyday Lives of Families in the Department of Anthropology.

Relationships can bring happiness and protect health. What is less understood is how people arrive at high quality relationships that bring happiness and protect health. Dr. Campos' research examines the role of culture in shaping relationship experience and health. She is particularly interested in U.S. Latino culture, which places a special emphasis on close family relationships and expressing positive emotion. The findings of her work show that cultures that emphasize prioritizing others before the self (e.g., Latino and East Asian) can be beneficial for relationships and protective of health. Dr. Campos' work seeks to better understand U.S. Latino social experiences and health outcomes in ways that bring attention to (a) sources of resilience and (b) a better understanding of how to reduce risk and disparities in health outcomes.

Dr. Campos publishes in highly regarded peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Emotion, Journal of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Journal of Family Psychology, and Hispanic Journal of the Behavioral Sciences. Her work has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health, and UC Mexus. Her teaching and mentoring have been recognized with awards for outstanding mentorship and excellence in fostering undergraduate research.

Ricardo Hernández, M.P.A.

UCI Alumni

Ricardo Hernández graduated from UCI with B.A.s in Political Science and Spanish Literature. Ricardo was born and was, with the exception of a couple of years when he lived abroad as a child, raised in Los Angeles, CA. He grew up in an economically and culturally diverse community, which helped to shape his formative years.

While attending UCI as an undergraduate in 1996 he co-founded the first Latino Greek Letter organization, Sigma Lambda Beta International Fraternity, opening the doors for other Latino Greek Letter organizations to be part of the UCI community.

After graduation, Ricardo worked in several non-profit organizations in the Los Angeles County and Orange County area focusing on community organizing and advocating for different social issues in disadvantaged areas. Ricardo then went on to the University of Washington where he earned a Master of Public Administration.

Currently he works in the philanthropic field as a Director for Casey Family Programs, a national foundation focused on improving the child welfare system at the local, state, and federal level. Ricardo oversees activities for the foundation in Los Angeles County, Santa Clara County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and Puerto Rico.

Ricardo currently lives in the West LA area with his wife, son, and daughter. He is an avid traveler and soccer enthusiast.