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Photo credit: Courtesy of Ellen Sletten

Professor’s invention is a kid-friendly introduction to the chemistry of light

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Ellen Sletten’s Photonbooth gives L.A. students a picture-perfect lesson in fluorescence

Image of students in the Photonbooth

Students from El Marino Language School in Culver City, California, in the Photonbooth. The exhibit has inspired hundreds of budding scientists to recognize that there is more to the world than what their eyes typically see. Photo credit: Courtesy of Ellen Sletten

 

By Jonathan Riggs

If you know how to look, our world can be wildly colorful. Under an ultraviolet light, once-familiar objects can take on dreamlike brilliance: Think neon green scorpions, hot pink flying squirrels and electric blue diamond rings.

Known as fluorescence, this ability of certain molecules to absorb light in one colored wavelength and emit it in another is a phenomenon many scientists, including UCLA professor Ellen Sletten, are still exploring.

And a few years ago, Sletten devised a clever way to make her research into fluorescence more accessible to non-scientists: the Photonbooth. A clever twist on the traditional photo booth that’s a staple of carnivals, arcades and parties, Photonbooth — the pun in its name a reference to the fundamental particle of light — has inspired hundreds of budding scientists to recognize that there is more to the world than what our eyes typically see, and that key scientific principles underpin everyone’s daily existence.

“It’s very clear right now, with the pandemic, that misinformation about science is dangerous for us all,” says Sletten, a chemical biologist. “Younger generations especially need us to focus on accurate, responsible scientific communication. Besides, everyone loves a photo booth, right?”

Image of Ellen Sletten

Ellen Sletten. Photo credit: Penny Jennings/UCLA

The concept evolved out of an attraction from her 2015 wedding reception. To echo her engagement ring, which her fiancé chose for its fluorescence (caused by a defect in the diamond’s lattice structure), Sletten envisioned black lights installed in a standard photo booth with fluorescent props for guests to pose with. Her party-phobic father, an engineer, jumped at the chance to pay tribute to his daughter’s life work and to help turn her plans into a reality.The Photonbooth was born.

“It was such a huge hit, even with the non-scientists,” Sletten says. “I realized it was very synergistic with many of my lab’s research goals and could be a perfect avenue for science outreach.”

When Sletten discussed the booth with members of her UCLA research team, her then-graduate student Rachael Day — now a biochemistry professor at Drury University in Missouri — was so inspired that she took it upon herself to build a version of the booth, and they immediately began using it at local parties and educational events, including Exploring Your Universe, UCLA’s annual hands-on science fair.

A typical Photonbooth presentation begins with a quick science lesson demonstrating the fluorescent properties of common household items such as tonic water or detergent, followed by a discussion of the biomedical uses of fluorescence. Attendees next create their own glowsticks, enter the booth with whimsical props they choose and pose for photos, first under normal light and then, to best show off their fluorescent items, under a black light.

“A lot of science — especially chemistry, where everything is nanoscale or smaller — can be difficult to comprehend,” Sletten says. “I really like using fluorescence because it’s so easy for kids to see. I also love how we can take something kids are familiar with, like a highlighter, and then help them realize there is this whole other side to it if they are curious enough to look and question.”

Image of a family in the Photonbooth at Exploring Your Universe

An adult and two children in the Photonbooth at UCLA’s Exploring Your Universe science festival. Photo credit: Courtesy of Ellen Sletten

Science education outreach is especially important to Sletten because it highlights the human connection that she says is so crucial to scientific progress. As she looks back on her lab’s first five years, she cites her relationship with her students and their growth among her most important accomplishments.

“My students are amazing, and I try hard to be an effective mentor who gets to know each of them well,” Sletten says. “In many ways, starting a lab is like starting a small company. You go through all the challenges and problem-solving together, which makes for strong bonds. It has been incredibly rewarding to be a part of my students’ journeys to becoming excellent scientists and communicators.”

At the same time, Sletten has attracted attention for the lab’s impressive progress toward developing diagnostic and therapeutic technologies. In 2020, she earned the Young Chemical Biologist Award from the International Chemical Biology Society, and in 2021, she received a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for her work on deep tissue imaging.

Sletten says the experience of children delighting in the Photonbooth experience mirrors the optimism she and her team share for the future of their own research.

“When I think about the videos of molecules flowing within mice which our lab has been able to produce with previously unattainable speeds, colors and resolutions, I can relate to how those kids feel stepping in the Photonbooth,” Sletten says. “The opportunity to see something new, the feeling of discovery and fun — I hope it inspires those kids to become science-savvy citizens or even future scientists.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more of Our Stories at the College, click here.

Image of Rev. James Lawson speaking to interns in the Dream Summer program, a fellowship opportunity for student immigrants and their allies.UCLA Labor Center

A perfect tribute: UCLA names labor center building in honor of Rev. James Lawson Jr.

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By Madeline Adamo

Civil and labor rights icon and 20-year labor studies faculty member to be linked with UCLA in perpetuity
Image of Rev. James Lawson speaking to interns in the Dream Summer program, a fellowship opportunity for student immigrants and their allies.

Rev. James Lawson loves speaking to the next generation of activists and leaders. Here he speaks to interns in the Dream Summer program, a fellowship opportunity for student immigrants and their allies. Photo credit: UCLA Labor Center

The Rev. James Lawson Jr. has always understood the importance of preparation. While a college student in the 1940s with a passion for civil rights, he took inventory of what was going on in a Cold War-era United States and decided he needed to get involved. And given the government’s reaction to demonstrations, he better get prepared to go to jail. He read books about people, like Gandhi, who had been imprisoned for being conscientious objectors to what they viewed as immoral government policies.

When the Korean War erupted in 1950, Lawson stood by his pacifist beliefs and refused to join the U.S. military. He was sentenced to federal prison for violating the country’s draft laws.

The preparation for prison had paid off. Thanks to his reading, Lawson emerged after serving 13 months of a three-year sentence even more dedicated to the philosophy of nonviolence — the work, he says, God commissioned him to do.

During the ensuing decades Lawson would become one of the key leaders of the national civil rights and labor rights movements and a very close friend of Martin Luther King Jr. The two were staunch proponents of the power of nonviolent civil disobedience and believed deeply in how strength of will and dedication to a cause prepared one to endure extreme opposition.

But for a man who helped shape the course of history, nothing could have prepared him, in mind and heart, for the honor of being the namesake of the UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center.

“I am extremely grateful beyond any kind of words,” said Lawson, who with King and other advocates for justice, canonized the intersection between labor and civil rights, strengthening the movement for both through the practice of nonviolence. For Lawson, the worker justice center and labor studies program — through which he has taught his annual UCLA class on nonviolence and social movements for the last 20 years — symbolizes the labor movement’s potential to inspire social and economic change

“I hope that it will become a symbol of the powers of life that are in each of us,” Lawson said, “and how we can cultivate those powers and enable ourselves and our community in Los Angeles to become what it can yet become.”

The formal dedication will occur on Saturday, Dec. 11, when a host of labor, community and political leaders will join UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and others in honoring Lawson. Among those present will be California State Sen. María Elena Durazo, a former Lawson student who helped secure $15 million in state funding to renovate and rename the UCLA Labor Center’s historic MacArthur Park building, which houses the center’s research, education and service programs in the heart of Los Angeles.

Lawson’s imprint on history through nonviolence

Naming this particular building in Lawson’s honor was a perfect fit, according to friends, former students and colleagues. The activist and theologian played key roles in some of the most famous social and worker justice demonstrations in American history:

• providing nonviolence and spiritual guidance to the nine Black students (the Little Rock Nine) who enrolled at an all-white public school in Little Rock, Arkansas, to test the school integration order from the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education;

• spearheading the 1960 Nashville sit-in campaign to desegregate lunch counters marking a pivotal moment in launching the Civil Rights Movement;

• leading the Freedom Rides of 1961, which protested segregated bus terminals in the South, mobilizing a new generation of civil rights activists;

• organizing the Birmingham Campaign of 1963, which demonstrated against segregation in Alabama.

But Lawson is perhaps best known for his work behind the 1968 sanitation workers strike and his role in bringing King to Memphis, Tennessee, for the demonstration. Tragically, this is where Lawson’s dear friend was assassinated.

The two had previously led workshops together, during which Lawson partnered with King as his right-hand man in their mutual promotion of nonviolence. Among those who participated in those workshops, the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who was a student at American Baptist College in Nashville at the time.

By the early 1970s, Lawson moved to Los Angeles and became pastor of the Holman United Methodist Church, where he met leaders in the Los Angeles labor rights movement. Among these leaders was Durazo, then president of the hotel workers union of Los Angeles.

Durazo, who as a California state senator represents Central and East Los Angeles, said the mostly Latina hotel workers were inspired after he spoke to them. Lawson continued working with the union leading workshops about civil disobedience tactics like taking over the streets, hunger strikes and other peaceful shows of resistance to oppose the exploitation of hotel workers.

“He rekindled our movement through his teachings,” Durazo said.

For Lawson, the philosophy of nonviolence is “compassion in action.”

“Using the powers of the best that is in each of us … not only can we be transformed, but we can transform,” Lawson said.

Teaching UCLA students to be the leaders of the future generations

By the early 90s Lawson had cemented himself as a fixture in the Los Angeles labor movement, and it was a natural next step to join the UCLA Labor Center’s efforts to advance worker justice in Los Angeles County and beyond. The center, housed in the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, launched the first labor studies program in the University of California system.

Kent Wong, director of the center since 1991, has been a friend and student of Lawson for almost 40 years. While a staff attorney at the Service Employees International Union, Wong was part of a group of people that met Lawson at his church to participate in workshops centered on nonviolence. Among the group was Durazo and other community activists who would years later go on to elected office bringing with them a support for the labor movement, such as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, and City Councilmember Gilbert Cedillo.

“We were very grateful for his willingness to share his wisdom, his analysis and perspective,” said Wong, who in 2001 asked Lawson about teaching a UCLA class about nonviolence.

Image of Kent Wong and Rev. James Lawson

Kent Wong and Rev. James Lawson. Photo credit: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

“It’s been very important to me that I’ve been teaching once a year at UCLA and that the opportunity has given me a chance to talk with a wide range of students,” said Lawson, who tailors the course to engage with current events but always through the lens of nonviolence and economic justice. “The emergence of nonviolence as a science of social change could be the most important paradigm called for in the 20th century.”

Even though Lawson’s students have included elected leaders like Durazo and Lewis, he said that each spring quarter’s new class of 300 UCLA students is always his most extraordinary one.

“I try to teach all the time that your big task in college is to be what you are and figure out what you are becoming, because that’s the immediate power that you can control and use,” he said.

The shift to online classes because of COVID-19 has allowed Lawson and Wong, who moderates the discussions, to bring in guest speakers who would not have flown to Los Angeles. In April, UCLA students heard from Angeline Butler, civil rights icon and former student leader of the Nashville sit-in movement. In May, anti-apartheid activist the Rev. Allan Boesak spoke to UCLA students from South Africa.

It comes as no surprise that Lawson plans to teach the course again in spring 2022. “This capacity, to be 93 years old and be agile, enabled to live well is a gift. I’m going to use it to expose as many different people as I can to the fact that we do not have to be a violent culture.”

Lawson, who received the UCLA medal, the campus’s highest honor, in 2018, said he humbly approves of the name dedication and is appreciative of the incorporation of “worker justice” in the name, a concept that to him is the future and hope for the nation.

“You’re in awe of the American history that exists in that man,” said Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and a friend of Lawson. The 800,000-members federation, which is helping host Saturday’s dedication ceremony, has a partnership with the UCLA Labor Center that goes back several decades as Wong and Herrera, the highest-ranking union leader in Los Angeles, found themselves in the same circles.

Herrera said he’s pleased that the name dedication will tie Lawson to a place like UCLA, as well as recognize Lawson’s fight for workers as well as social justice for Black Americans.

“I think this is a huge opportunity to tell the American public that this man is a historic icon,” Herrera said. “He shouldn’t be left out of the history books.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu.

 

An image of Judy Baca at “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” in the summer of 1983.Photo credit: SPARC Archives/SPARCinLA.org

A Legacy in Plain Sight: The Murals of Judy Baca

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By Stacey Ravel Abarbanel

In light of a retrospective at the Museum of Latin American Art, many are revisiting the professor’s striking public artwork.
An image of Judy Baca at “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” in the summer of 1983.

Work in progress at “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” in the summer of 1983. Photo credit: SPARC Archives/SPARCinLA.org

Mention “the Great Wall,” and thoughts may turn to China’s ancient fortifications. But California has its own same-named landmark — The Great Wall of Los Angeles — a monumental, half-mile mural depicting the multicultural history of the state from prehistoric times to the 1950s. The brainchild of artist, activist and UCLA professor emerita Judy Baca, the masterpiece is indeed “great” in every way imaginable — size, scope, ambition, creativity and impact.

Baca, whose more than four-decade career is the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, began work on the wall in the mid-1970s, following a request from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that she create a mural in a flood control channel in the San Fernando Valley. Baca led a team of 80 youth referred by the criminal justice department, 10 artists and five historians. They started by painting 1,000 feet of California history, from the days of the dinosaurs to 1910.

Image of mural makers meeting at "The Great Wall of Los Angeles," painted in the summer of 1981

Mural makers meeting. Work in progress at The Great Wall of Los Angeles, painted in the summer of 1981. Image courtesy of the SPARC Archives/SPARCinLA.org

But Baca, founder and artistic director of the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) in Venice, wasn’t content to stop at 1910, and active work continued into the 1980s. Now, the project has been energized anew with a $5 million-grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which will make possible the extension of The Great Wall of Los Angeles to one mile and the continuation of the historical narrative from the 1960s through 2020. The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has acquired Baca’s archive documenting the creation of the epic mural.

“Of greatest interest to me is the invention of systems of ‘voice giving’ for those left without public venues in which to speak,” Baca says. Inspired by the Mexican social mural movement, her epic narratives about marginalized communities fortify people’s connections to their diverse heritages not just as viewers, but also as collaborators. Through SPARC, she has spearheaded more than 400 murals in the Los Angeles area, in the process employing thousands of local participants, pioneering the art of contestation and place-making and leaving a magnificent legacy in plain sight.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

An image of Kyle Mays alongside his book coverPhoto credit: UCLA

Professor Kyle T. Mays spotlights Black–Indigenous solidarity in new book

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By Jessica Wolf

In ‘An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States,’ Kyle Mays reframes U.S. history

An image of Kyle Mays alongside his book cover

Mays’ narrative is infused throughout with his personal experiences as an Afro-Indigenous scholar. “As a Black and Indigenous person, I suppose I’m just Mr. In-between, a brotha without a home,” he writes. Photo credit: UCLA

With his book “An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States,” assistant professor Kyle Mays traverses broad, complex and intimate territory.

Mays, who is Black and Saginaw Anishinaabe, teaches African American studies and American Indian studies at UCLA. His latest book is billed as the first to examine the intersecting struggles of Black and Native Americans. In it, he delves into the the country’s founding; early 20th-century global reckonings with racism, like the multinational Universal Races Congress in 1911; the Black Power and Red Power movements of the 1960s and 1970s; and Black and Indigenous pop culture (and cancel culture) of today.

“Some say that the ongoing activism around civil rights for Black Americans and tribal sovereignty for Native Americans are two different things that aren’t in solidarity,” Mays said. “But what I try to do in the book is use those two things as a jumping off point and say, if we look historically throughout U.S. history, how U.S. democracy was constructed and how even if these two groups often might have different goals, we see they still often collaborated. They both wanted a whole different understanding of what the U.S. could be.”

In the book, which is intended for a general audience, Mays said he wanted to offer readers a window into his process and what thoughts come up to him as a researcher and scholar.

“I try to blend the storytelling and nuance and argumentation of the historian, while also keeping my unique voice and reveal how I actually am thinking,” he said. “If we consider writing as a form of thinking and process, this is how I’m literally thinking about it in my head, and I want readers to hear that.”

From memories of the literature and teachers who inspired (and confounded) him during his academic career to moments with his teenage cousins “on the rez” watching impromptu rap battles, Mays’ narrative is infused throughout with his personal experiences as an Afro-Indigenous scholar, and his writing captures his purposeful language style.

“As a Black and Indigenous person, I suppose I’m just Mr. In-between, a brotha without a home,” he writes.

Released for Native American Heritage Month, “An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States” anchors an understanding of U.S. history on the twin atrocities fueled by settler colonialism and capitalism:
– the dispossession and attempted erasure of Indigenous peoples who lived on land now called the United States long before European ships set sail toward it;
– the enslavement of Indigenous Africans forcibly brought to these shores and whose bodies worked the land for the profit of others.

He critiques the racist underpinnings of early foundational texts, including the Declaration of Independence, and writings like “Democracy in America.”

“We must recognize antiblackness (and anti-Indianness, too!) as a core part of this country’s material and psychological development,” he writes. The book also illustrates how the parallel oppressions of Indigenous dispossession and anti-Blackness are ongoing.

Despite that continuing oppression, Mays offers the suggestion that we should think about how Indigenous Africans who were forcibly brought to and sold in America, still retained their inherent indigenous identities, similarly to how displaced Native tribes forced to reservations far from their ancestral territories retained their original tribal identities.

Expanding on and contextualizing the personal, Mays spotlights the history of collaboration between Blacks and Indigenous people. To do so, he combed through speeches and writings from revered Black writers, leaders and scholars such as Malcom X, Stokely Carmichael, Audre Lorde, Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois as well as Native activists and writers such as Charles Eastman (Dakota), Laura Cornelius Kellogg (Oneida), Dennis Banks (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) and others, exploring how Black and Indigenous peoples have always resisted and struggled for freedom, sometimes together, and sometimes apart.

“I try to explore all those and just to say, ‘look, there have been forms of collaboration,’ but I always remind people, as I do in the book, that, as Audre Lorde told us, that solidarity is not easy,” he said. “Anything worth fighting for should not be easy. And we have to break down assumptions about what solidarity means and what that could look like. Hopefully I offered at least an entryway into exploring what relationships have looked like, are looking like now and what they can look like going forward.”

“An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States” requires readers to set aside preconceived ideas about what the United States is and what it might become. Mays argues that the enslavement of Africans and dispossession of Indigenous peoples were not necessary to the creation of an American democracy, but they were invaluable to the creation of wealth, property and the prestige of whiteness.

Mays said he hopes the book inspires in readers to take a more critical look at how the United States practices democracy and how it might evolve, and the pervasiveness of racism, even among and between groups that are most affected by it.

“It is important to really critically think about how we can all sort of reproduce racism, prejudice about other people,” he said. “But our job is also to try to overcome those things. And you need some form of solidarity to do so.”

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom. For more news and updates from the UCLA College, visit college.ucla.edu/news.

TV shows with diverse writers rooms, casts resonated with pandemic audiences

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By Jessica Wolf

The latest UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, published today, reveals that television viewers during the COVID-19 pandemic leaned into content that came out of diverse writers rooms and that featured diverse casts.

“We have seen this appetite for diverse content repeated over the history of our analyses,” said Darnell Hunt, co-author of the report and UCLA’s dean of social sciences. “The fact that shows with diverse writers rooms did well last year also illustrates that audiences are looking for authentic portrayals.”

The report, which covers statistics for the 2019–20 TV season, tracks racial and gender diversity among key job categories, as well as ratings and social media engagement for 461 scripted shows across 50 broadcast, cable and streaming providers.

The new study found a continued correlation between the racial makeup of shows’ writers and TV ratings. For example, among households of all races in 2019–20, the scripted broadcast shows that earned the highest ratings were those in which people of color made up between 31% and 40% of the credited writers.

Overall, racial diversity improved in almost every job category tracked by the report, and representation among women improved in about half of the job titles.

And for the first time in the report’s history, people of color had a higher percentage of scripted broadcast TV acting roles, 43.4%, than their overall percentage of the U.S. population.

Across all three platform types, there were more people of color credited as writers than in the previous report. Overall, people of color made up 26.4% of the credited writers for broadcast series last season (up from 23.4%), 28.6% of credited writers for cable (up from 25.8%) and 24.2% of credited writers for streaming (up from 22.8%). Most of those modest gains were recorded by women, according to the study.

But people of color are still largely underrepresented among TV writers, given that 42.7% of Americans are nonwhite.

Lagging representation among Latino actors, directors

Latino representation in all job categories remained flat from the previous year, and Latinos hold far fewer TV jobs than their share of the U.S. population overall would predict. Latino actors held just 6.3% of broadcast TV roles, 5.7% in cable and 5.5% in streaming. Meanwhile, Latino directors were responsible for only 5.4% of broadcast TV episodes, 3.5% of cable episodes and 3.0% of streaming episodes.

“This UCLA report clearly demonstrates that more work is necessary to achieve more accurate representation and truly authentic portrayals in American television,” said U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas. ”I hope this report encourages entertainment executives to reevaluate their systems for recruiting, retaining, and promoting Latinx talent, work in earnest to make changes, and create a more inclusive culture.”

According to the report, a significant proportion of 2019–20 TV content — 35% of broadcast shows, 22.9% of cable and 25.7% of streaming — was made in Los Angeles, where census data shows that 48.6% of the population is Hispanic or Latino.

“Diversifying the workforce means bringing equity to the economy and ensuring inclusionary practices in Hollywood,” said California State Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo. “As Latinos make up the largest population in the state of California, yet only a dismal percentage in Hollywood, I’m looking forward to ensuring the Latinx community is not subsidizing its own exclusion via California’s Film Tax Credit Program, which the legislature oversees.”

The Hollywood Diversity Report recently received funding from the state of California that will enable UCLA researchers to continue to support such progress.

Diversity in acting

Over the decade since the Hollywood Diversity Report began, diversity has improved the most among acting jobs, especially in TV, compared with all other TV and movie job types. In 2019–20, television shows with majority-nonwhite casts were more prevalent than ever.

For the first time since the researchers began tracking data, a plurality of shows on cable (28.1%) and streaming platforms (26.8%) featured casts in which the majority of actors were nonwhite. And 32.1% of broadcast shows had majority-nonwhite casts, up from just 2.0% in the first report, which covered the 2011–12 season.

Photo of Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramón

Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramón. Photo: Mike Baker

The new report provides further support for the fact that audiences favor shows with diverse casts. During 2019–20, among white households, ratings for scripted broadcast shows were highest for shows whose actors were 31% to 40% nonwhite. Among Black households, scripted broadcast shows with the highest ratings where those in which casts were more than 50% nonwhite.

For streaming programming, which is dominated by Netflix, ratings among white, Black and Asian households were highest for shows with casts that were from 31% to 40% nonwhite.

The report’s authors also analyze audiences’ interaction with TV programs on social media, and how those trends correspond with cast diversity. For scripted cable shows during 2019–20, for example, they found that programs with majority nonwhite casts had the highest engagement on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And for streaming shows, audience engagement on Twitter specifically was highest for programs with majority nonwhite casts.

Mixed progress among show creators

Another area in which diversity improved was among show creators. That’s an important datapoint because show creators have influence over which stories are developed, whose stories they represent and how they’re told, said Ana-Christina Ramón, co-author of the report and the director of research and civic engagement in the UCLA Division of Social Sciences.

Women made up 29.0% of the creators of scripted cable shows, up nearly 7 percentage points over the prior season, marking the largest one-year gain for women in that job category since the report began. And people of color made up 20.6% of scripted cable show creators in 2019–20, up from 14.5% the previous season and nearly triple the share (7.4%) from 2011–12.

However, women held creator positions for fewer broadcast shows in 2019–20 (24.1%) than they did the prior year (28.1%) — and even fewer than women held in 2011–12 (26.5%).

“We also see that when women and people of color hold high-level creative positions, there is greater diversity down the line in casting and likely for crew hiring,” Ramón said. “Women and people of color are still very underrepresented in these and other behind-the-camera jobs, which is why this report continues to exist.”

Other takeaways:

  • The number of acting roles for women in 2019–20 was nearly equal to those of men across all three platform types. Women made up 46.3% of total cast in scripted broadcast shows, 45.3% in cable and 46.9% in streaming.
  • Trans and nonbinary actors were virtually absent across all platforms.
  • Out of a total 2,932 credited actors, just 13 were Native people, including just three Native women.
  • People of color directed 25.8% of broadcast episodes, 27.2% of cable and 21.4% of streaming, up from 24.3% and, 22.9% and 18.2% in the 2018–19 season.
  • Women directed 30.6% of broadcast episodes, 31.3% of cable and 33.4% of streaming, up from 29.3%, 29.7% and 29.1% the prior season.
  • Latinos made up just 4.8% of the credited writers for broadcast programs, 4.7% in cable and 4.3% in streaming.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

Photo of Urban oil drilling in Inglewood. Photo Credit: Ty Woodson/KLCS

UCLA environmental experts featured in PBS series about sustainability

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Faculty and others play a major role in shaping stories of accountability in ‘Sustaining US,’ whose second season debuts Oct. 6

By Madeline Adamo 
Photo of Urban oil drilling in Inglewood. Photo Credit: Ty Woodson/KLCS

Urban oil drilling in Inglewood. Photo Credit: Ty Woodson/KLCS

Browse all episodes of “Sustaining US” here.

As climate change and other environmental threats continue to harm and threaten people’s daily lives, the United States remains politically and ideologically divided. KLCS PBS show “Sustaining US” has partnered with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability to foster earnest discussion — informed by top research and perspectives.

The weekly half-hour program highlights topics related to green buildings and cities, climate change, health care, homelessness and transportation. UCLA faculty, alumni and students represent many of the experts on the program.

Content producer David Colgan said that the focus of the show is to approach environmental issues with science and to present solutions, not fearmongering. Colgan, who is the director of communications at the institute, works with the PBS producers to help identify topics and experts.

“I get to talk to brilliant people at UCLA, and many of them are great at breaking down issues in a conversational way,” Colgan said. “I want viewers of ‘Sustaining US’ to have that same access.”

Colgan says UCLA’s collaboration in the project began when investigative journalist David Nazar contacted the university for a source on a story about wildfires. During the conversation, both recognized the need for more rigorous news reporting about climate change and sustainability, and realized a partnership between PBS and the nation’s top-ranked public university could help inform and educate viewers.

“What sets ‘Sustaining US’ apart from other news programs is that we don’t just focus on the doom and gloom of environmental issues,” said Nazar, host and reporter of the program. “We bring people from all walks of life together to explore each issue and find solutions.”

KLCS is a multiple Emmy Award–winning, noncommercial PBS affiliate station, broadcasting to more than 15 million viewers in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California. KLCS is licensed to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Board of Education, the second-largest school district in the nation, educating more than 673,000 students. Ty Woodson directs and co-produces the program for the station.

The Radio & Television News Association of Southern California awarded “Sustaining US” two Golden Mikes in 2020 for its first season, which went beyond traditional sustainability topics to talk about social issues such as homelessness and technology.

Topics and respective UCLA experts in season two include:

  • – The Los Angeles River: Stephanie Pincetl, founding director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA
  • – Ancient cities: Monica Smith, professor of anthropology
  • – Solar decathlon: UCLA student team
  • – Desalination: Zack Gold, alumnus
  • – Urban heat islands: Alan Barreca, associate professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and graduate student Edith De Guzman
  • – Los Angeles aquarium/high-level discussion of environmental issues: Peter Kareiva, UCLA adjunct professor
  • – Culver City oil drilling: David Colgan

Season two premiers Wednesday, Oct. 6, and will air weekly on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. and the following Mondays at 5:30 p.m. Viewers can watch on the following channels in Southern California or livestream on KLCS PBS.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

UCLA internet studies and race scholar Safiya Noble awarded MacArthur Fellowship

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Picture of Safiya Noble

Safiya Noble, an associate professor of gender studies and African American studies, and co-founder of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry.

Professor Safiya Noble, director of an interdisciplinary research center at UCLA focused on the intersection of human rights, social justice, democracy, and technology — was announced today as a recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

In 2019, Noble, an associate professor of gender studies and African American studies, co-founded the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, with Sarah T. Roberts, associate professor of gender studies and information studies.

Noble’s scholarship focuses on digital media and its impact on society, as well as how digital technology and artificial intelligence converge with questions of race, gender, culture and power. She is the author of the bestselling book “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism,” which examines racist and sexist bias in the algorithms used by commercial search engines.

“Noble’s work deepens our understanding of the technologies that shape the modern world and facilitates critical conversations regarding their potential harms,” the MacArthur Foundation said in a statement.

The MacArthur Fellowship is a $625,000, no-strings-attached award to people the foundation deems “extraordinarily talented and creative individuals.” Fellows are chosen based on three criteria: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of accomplishments, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work. Noble is one of 25 individuals the foundation selected for fellowships in 2021.

In addition to recognizing and supporting exceptional creativity, the fellowship is intended to inspire people to pursue their own creative interests.

For Noble, who is also affiliated faculty in UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, that means launching her nonprofit EquityEngine.org, a leadership and empowerment initiative for women of color.

“The MacArthur Fellowship will have a transformative impact on the work I do to abolish the harmful and discriminatory effects of digital technologies,” Noble said. “It’s a great and unexpected honor, and I’m grateful to the selection committee and all my colleagues who made this possible. I plan to use this award to accelerate and amplify the work of other Black women and women of color.”

In addition to her research, Noble works with engineers, executives, artists and policymakers to think through the broader ramifications of how technology is built, deployed and used in unfair ways. She challenges them to examine the harms algorithmic architectures cause and shows the necessity of addressing the civil and human rights that are violated through their technologies.

With Noble’s award, seven current faculty in the social sciences are MacArthur Fellows, including historian Kelly Lytle- Hernández (2019), anthropologist Jason De León (2017), linguistic anthropologist Elinor Ochs (1998), sociologist Rogers Brubaker (1994), anthropologist Sherry Ortner (1990) and geographer Jared Diamond (1985).

“As social scientists, it is increasingly important for us to interrogate the power that technology holds over our social structures, cultures, behavior and potential for progress,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of the division of social sciences in the UCLA College. “Safiya’s work has done just that. We are deeply gratified and proud that the MacArthur Foundation has recognized Safiya for her ongoing commitment to engaging community, inspiring action and her efforts to build a more equitable world for all.”

Along with Roberts, Noble also serves as co-faculty director of the interdisciplinary Minderoo Initiative for Technology and Power held within the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry.

“This recognition of Dr. Noble by MacArthur Foundation is so timely, and rightly recognizes her indefatigable efforts, her incredible scope of vision, and her ability to hold fast to her convictions in the name of justice and equity, often years before the rest of the world catches up,” Roberts said. “Time and again, I have watched her fearlessly, boldly and assuredly lead the vanguard, push the boundaries of the possible, demand and then pave the way for something better. This world is a better place for the work of Safiya Noble. I am so proud to see her recognized as the iconoclastic genius that she is.”

Noble joins 13 other UCLA faculty as MacArthur fellows in total, a list that also includes mathematician Terence Tao, director Peter Sellars, astrophysicist Andrea Ghez and historian of religion Gregory Schopen.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

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Chemist Anastassia Alexandrova receives Max Planck-Humboldt Medal

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Anastassia Alexandrova. Credit: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

Anastassia Alexandrova, UCLA professor and vice chair of chemistry and biochemistry, has been selected to receive the Max Planck-Humboldt Medal, which honors extraordinary scientists outside Germany with outstanding future potential.

The medal, awarded jointly by Germany’s Max Planck Gesellschaft and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, will be presented to Alexandrova in a ceremony in Berlin in November 2022 (delayed one year because of COVID).

Alexandrova and her research team design new materials and develop new algorithms, guided by insights into electronic structure and chemical bonding, using a wide range of methods, including artificial intelligence and machine learning. She and her research team design new catalysts, building up from detailed understanding of their electronic structure, to the shapes, stability and catalytic properties.

She is being honored for her research in theoretical chemistry, in particular her studies on the catalysis of chemical reactions and materials science. Alexandrova has developed methods that simulate how a catalyst behaves during a chemical reaction, which structures mediate between the reaction partners in detail and how the reaction conditions — such as temperature, pressure and concentration of the starting materials — influence the states of the catalyst and this interaction states the press release announcing the medal.

“I am deeply honored to receive the Max Planck-Humboldt Medal,” said Alexandrova, a member of UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute. “My laboratory is a warm home for students of many different backgrounds, from chemistry and biochemistry to physics, material science and engineering, computer science and applied mathematics.”

Alexandrova is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the American Chemical Society’s 2016 Rising Star Award, which recognizes exceptional women chemists on a national level; a J. William Fulbright U.S. Scholar grant; a 2020 Early Career Award in theoretical chemistry by the physical chemistry division of the American Chemical Society; a 2019 UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award and 2018 UCLA Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor Award.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

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Richard Kaner wins award from American Chemical Society

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Richard Kaner, distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and of materials science and engineering at UCLA.

Richard Kaner, the Dr. Myung Ki Hong Professor of Materials Innovation at UCLA, was selected to receive the 2022 American Chemical Society’s Award in Applied Polymer Science. The award, sponsored by Eastman Chemical Company, recognizes “outstanding achievements in the science or technology of plastics, coatings, polymer composites, adhesives and related fields.” He will be presented the award at the society’s national meeting in San Diego, California, in March.

Kaner, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and of materials science and engineering, is among the world’s most influential and highly cited scientific researchers. Among his many awards and honors, he was elected a 2020 fellow of the American Physical Society and selected as the recipient of the American Institute of Chemists 2019 Chemical Pioneer Award, which honors chemists and chemical engineers who have made outstanding contributions that advance the science of chemistry or greatly impact the chemical profession. He is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.

Kaner and his research team have designed a series of materials. These include creating a membrane that separates oil from water and cleans up the debris left by oil fracking and scaling up a single layer of carbon known as graphene for use in energy storage devices. His research spans a wide range of topics within materials science and inorganic chemistry.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.

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Climate scientist Aradhna Tripati receives honors from two science organizations

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Aradhna Tripati. Courtesy of Aradhna Tripati

Aradhna Tripati, an associate professor affiliated with UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, has been named recipient of the Willi Dansgaard award from the American Geophysical Union.

Tripati, who is the founder and director of the Center for Diverse Leadership in Science at UCLA, has also recently been elected as a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. Fellows of the academy are a group of distinguished scientists nominated and appointed in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the natural sciences.

She has been a mentor and advisor to many and has established a number of laboratories. Tripati’s research is focused on using the chemistry of natural compounds as well as models as tools to understand how the Earth works. Her work is relevant to understanding climate change, the oceans, and the transfer of carbon between the biosphere, atmosphere and oceans.

The Dansgaard Award is presented annually and recognizes significant contributions to the fields of paleoceanography or paleoclimatology from a mid-career scientist within eight to 20 years of receiving their doctorate. Named in honor of Willi Dansgaard, a paleoclimate pioneer, this award is presented at the union’s fall meeting.

This article originally appeared in the UCLA Newsroom.