Tom Angell Fellowship Award

Awarded annually at the Office of Inclusive Excellence's Mentoring for Achievement and Excellence event, this fellowship is intended to honor Tom Angell’s contributions as the UCI Graduate Counselor to graduate student wellness and retention. Awards are open to graduate students, faculty, and postdoctoral scholars. Award recipients demonstrate outstanding mentorship by going above and beyond their normal duties to create new opportunities to mentor UCI students.

Daniela Cossio is a fifth-year doctoral student examining the neural structures underlining age-related changes in spatial navigation abilities during midlife. Beyond research, Ms. Cossio is incredibly passionate about mentorship and outreach initiatives that promote and support students from underrepresented backgrounds in STEM. As a first-generation, low-income student, Ms. Cosio understands just how critical mentorship is for students to succeed in academic spaces. She currently co-directs Cientifico Latino’s Graduate Student Engagement and Community program, which provides support for first-year graduate students from historically excluded backgrounds via mentorship, professional development, and community events. She hopes to continue to find ways to support and promote initiatives that increase recruitment and retention of students from historically excluded backgrounds in STEM fields.

Laura E. Enriquez is Associate Professor of Chicano/Latino Studies and Director of the Center for Liberation, Anti-racism, and Belonging (C-LAB) at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on the educational, political, and social experiences of undocumented young adults and members of mixed-status families. Her publications include numerous articles and essays as well as a book, Of Love and Papers: How Immigration Policy Affects Romance and Family.(University of California Press, 2020). As importantly, Dr. Enriquez is Principal Investigator on the Undocumented Student Equity Project, the UC Collaborative to Promote Immigrant and Student Equity, and (Re)Writing Migration Stories; all three are collaborative research initiatives that examine how immigration policies disrupt the educational experiences and wellbeing of undocumented college students and students from mixed-status families. Dr. Enriquez cares deeply about providing students with opportunities to build desired skill sets and preparing them to challenge inequalities. She achieves this by creating research and professional development opportunities for underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students, particularly those who are undocumented or from mixed-status families. She regularly invites undergraduate and graduate students to join her research teams and oversees students’ independent research projects.

To find out more about this fellowship program, please visit the webpage for UCI Graduate Division Internal Fellowships.