Carol Connor Equity Advisor Impact Award

The Carol Connor Faculty Mentor Award pays tribute to former equity advisor and Chancellor's Professor of Education Carol McDonald Connor from the UCI School of Education. The award recognizes former and current equity advisors in pioneering, innovative and evidence-based peer mentoring and consultations to advance diversity, equity and inclusion at UCI.

Nina Bandelj

Nina Bandelj

Associate Vice Provost, Academic Personnel
Chancellor's Professor, Sociology

Nina Bandelj is Chancellor’s Professor, Department of Sociology, and Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Development at UCI. Bandelj’s research on how social relations, culture, power, and emotions influence economic processes, including investment and debt, inequality, globalization, postsocialist transformations, and ideas about economy, has been published in many articles and six books, most recently, Money Talks: Explaning How Money Really Works. Bandelj is past Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, and the European University Institute. She is an honorary member of the Sociological Research Association, and a recipient of the UCI Distinguished Mid-Career Award for Service and the Dynamic Womxn Award for Academic Achievement. Bandelj serves as one of the editors of Socio-Economic Review, Treasurer of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, and Vice President of the American Sociological Association.


UCI Professor Aimee EdingerAimee Edinger

Equity Advisor
Chancellor's Fellow
Professor, Developmental and Cell Biology

Aimee Edinger is a Professor of Developmental and Cell Biology and Chancellor’s Fellow in the UC Irvine School of Biological Sciences. She is the Associate Director of the UCI Cancer Research Institute and co-Director of the NCI T32 Training Grant that supports interdisciplinary cancer research training at UCI. Edinger lab research in leukemia, prostate, and breast cancer models has been funded by governmental agencies, private foundations, and intramural sources. Dr. Edinger is an inventor on seven patents and co-founded a start-up company, Siege Pharmaceuticals. Professor Edinger has taught several of UCI’s undergraduate and graduate core courses and is actively engaged in the development of an Honors curriculum focused on critical analysis of primary research data and intellectual risk-taking. Dr. Edinger’s efforts to support UCI’s teaching mission have been recognized by the 2021 De Gallow UCI Professor of the Year award, a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, and a Golden Apple teaching award from the School of Biological Sciences. Dr. Edinger has served as the Equity Advisor for the School since 2016.