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.

Carol ConnorAbout the 2021 Inaugural Carol Connor Equity Advisor Impact Award

The Carol Connor Equity Advisor Impact Award memorializes former equity advisor and Chancellor's Professor of Education Carol McDonald Connor.  Professor Connor joined the UCI School of Education in 2016 and used her deep expertise in programming, researching and teaching about language and literacy development to improve the lives of those underserved. She developed a university-wide Center for Creating Opportunities through Education to focus on economic mobility for disadvantaged youth.  Her accolades for scholarship included being receiving the Richard C. Snow Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association, as well as being named a fellow of the American Educational Research Association and the American Psychological Association.

Professor Connor served as equity advisor in the School of Education from 2017 until 2020.  During that time, she was known for her leadership to engage all members in conversations about practices to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion, collaborating to develop a school-wide equity climate council and identifying opportunities for systematic reviews of evidence and promotion of evidence-based practices to support students and scholars on their pathways to the professoriate.

In this spirit, the Office of Inclusive Excellence is proud to invite nominations from all UCI partners to honor current or past service for mentoring and supporting faculty by equity advisors.  The equity advisor model was originally implemented through support from the National Science Foundation, and later, institutionalized as a foundational approach faculty-peer guidance about best practices for diverse faculty recruitment and retention. UCI celebrates 20 years of having an equity advisor model and strong advocates as equity advisors to promote UCI accountability for diversity progress and positive climate.

UCI students, staff, and faculty are invited annually to review the list of former and current equity advisors with active UCI directory listings and then submit a nomination form during the Call for Nominations to describe the specific ways that a past or current equity advisor has promoted diversity efforts. Please email the Office of Inclusive Excellence with any questions about this process at inclusion@uci.edu.

Mahtab Jafari headshot photo with a black background while wearing a colorful shift and light blue blazerMahtab Jafari

Equity Advisor
Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences

Mahtab Jafari is a professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the director of the UCI Center for Healthspan Sciences at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. She holds joint appointments in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Department of Clinical Pharmacy Practice. She is the author of the award-winning book “The Truth About Dietary Supplements: An Evidence-Based Guide to a Safer Medicine Cabinet” and is both a Master Certified Health Coach and a Nationally Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach. With over 30 years of research experience in basic, translational, and clinical research, Dr. Jafari’s work focuses on improving both lifespan and healthspan through a concept that she introduced as “Healthspan Pharmacology”.

Professor Jafari is deeply committed to teaching and mentoring, actively recruiting underrepresented minority, first-generation, and female students into her lab and clinical research. In her role as President of the UCSF School of Pharmacy Alumni Board (2022-2024), Dr. Jafari enhanced the board’s diversity, creating a new DEI Officer position and collaborating on UCSF’s first DEI alumni survey. She has received multiple teaching and mentoring awards, including two UCI Senate Teaching Awards and the UCI Womxn’s Social Justice Activist Award.