Frances M. Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Award
Former Graduate Division Dean Frances Leslie had a vision years ago to create the DECADE mentor program. Since its inception, over 115 faculty members have served in this role, committing to diversity, equity, and inclusion – and to ensuring an inclusive environment for graduate success.
Beginning in 2019, the Office of Inclusive Excellence solicited nominations from across campus for the DECADE Mentor Excellence Award, and has named this award after the woman whose vision made this all possible: Former Graduate Dean Frances Leslie.
Frances M. Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Awardee: Alessandra Pantano
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a Pantano is a Professor of Teaching and a Diverse Educational Community and Doctoral Experience (DECADE) mentor in the Department of Mathematics at UCI. She also serves as Assistant Vice Chair for Undergraduate Studies and was appointed as an Inclusive Excellence Professor for faculty development in 2021-2022. Her original training in Unitary Representation Theory evolved over the years towards mathematics education. Specifically, she examines and advances active learning and culturally responsive pedagogy, both in the classroom and in after-school settings. Additionally, she has strived to engage students through strong mentoring and the promotion of diversity and inclusion in education at all levels. As a DECADE Mentor, she has developed several initiatives aimed at improving climate within the math graduate program, and supporting the professional development and the wellbeing of graduate students. She holds an M.S. in mathematics from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome, Italy, and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University. She was a visiting scholar at MIT and a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University (H.C. Wang assistant professor). Professor Pantano is a passionate and dedicated instructor. Beyond teaching and research, her efforts have included the creation and development of three outreach programs: the UCI Math Circle, the UCI Math Community Educational Outreach program (Math CEO), and the Math ExpLR program.
Professor Long Bui
The 2021 Frances Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Award recipient is Lonnie Rafael Alcarz, from the Department of Drama in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts. Professor 
Dr. Sora Han, Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society (CLS), the School of Law, and the Department of African American Studies, and the Director of the PhD Program in Culture and Theory in the School of Humanities, is the 2020 recipient of the Frances M. Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Award. Among her many activities, as DECADE Mentor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society, Dr. Han developed programming that impacted students from the undergraduate to graduate level in her department, school, campus, and beyond. For example, in 2015-2016, she received a Graduate Growth Incentive Award to establish a Race and Justice Studies emphasis in CLS as a means of supporting students with these research interests. In 2016-2017, she launched the new emphasis and created a graduate diversity recruitment effort focused on California State University campuses, many of which are Hispanic Serving Institutions. Finally, Dr. Han established a CLS Diversity and Justice speaker series to support junior faculty and doctoral students. The legacy of this transformative work makes Dr. Han highly deserving of this award.
The inaugural awardee of the Frances Leslie DECADE Mentor Excellence Award is Dr. Ann Hironaka, Professor in the Department of Sociology and DECADE Mentor for Sociology since 2011. Dr. Hironaka was nominated by both students and her peers for the extraordinary support she has provided for numerous students as a DECADE Faculty Mentor. Dr. Hironaka has worked tirelessly to institutionalize practices that promote and increase the representation of underrepresented minorities within the academy. Her approach to supporting underrepresented scholars is exhaustive: she provides rich, individualized mentoring to students and junior faculty while serving in leadership positions to develop meaningful institutional interventions.