Environmental & Social Justice

Melissa Cronin and Erika Zavaleta led an effort at UC Santa Cruz to compile a toolkit of resources for academic departments to use in addressing issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Regan Patterson has been recruited as one of three inaugural professors in UCLA Samueli's Mentor Professor Program. The program is a new initiative "designed to hire faculty with a demonstrated record of, or who show exceptional promise for, mentorship of students from underrepresented and underserved populations."

Dr. Regan Patterson discusses her research and advocacy for transportation reparations and justice. "You're starting to see this explicit link being made between state-sanctioned violence and transportation equity."

The paper seeks to help scientists structure their lab-group meetings so that they are more inclusive, more productive and, ultimately, lead to better science.

Lourdes Vera is the winner of the 2021 Robert Boguslaw Award for her lead role in the publication “When Data Justice and Environmental Justice Meet: Formulating a Response to Extractive Logic Through Environmental Data Justice” published in 2019 in Information, Communication & Society. Vera is a 2019 Switzer Fellow, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Northeastern University, and a member of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI).

Idalmis Vaquero will defend the environmental and housing rights of Black and Latinx families impacted by industrial lead contamination in East and Southeast Los Angeles.

Kartikeya Singh reflects that the Biden administration's first 100 days in office indicate "it has every intention to reestablish a social contract between the people and their government. If implemented well, this renewed social contract, with an emphasis on climate action and environmental justice, would be the best guarantor of U.S. national security."

Switzer fellow Lauren Richter co-edited a special issue of Environmental Sociology on "Race and the Environment" with Raoul Lievanos, Elisabeth Wilder, Jennifer Carrera, and Michael Mascarenhas.

Camila Bustos is part of an expert group from Harvard, Yale, and the University Network for Human Rights calling on Biden administration to revise immigration and climate policy to afford protections to those fleeing devastating climate change impacts in Central America.