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Sarah Haley

Sarah Haley receives Marguerite Casey Foundation Freedom Scholars Award

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Sarah Haley

Sarah Haley | UCLA

UCLA Newsroom | January 24, 2023

Sarah Haley, an associate professor of gender studies and African American studies in the UCLA College, has received the Marguerite Casey Foundation Freedom Scholars Award.

Each Freedom Scholar receives a one-time $250,000 award, which has no restrictions. The awards are designed to provide greater freedom to scholars, supporting them to advance their work however they see fit. They were launched in 2020 to spotlight commitment to scholarship benefitting movements led by Black and Indigenous people, migrants, queer people, poor people and people of color.

Haley’s expertise focuses on Black feminism, U.S. women’s and gender history, African American history from 1865 to the present, carceral studies, and labor and working-class studies.

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

Image Source: Sustainable LA Grand Challenge Undergraduate Research Scholars Program

Sustainable LA Grand Challenge receives $543,000 commitment for student programming, equitable clean water research

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Sustainable LA Grand Challenge Undergraduate Research Scholars Program

Jonathan Van Dyke | February 03, 2023

The UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge has received a commitment of $542,986 from wellness company Liquid I.V. that will help fund innovative solutions to expand access to clean and abundant water for communities in need, and create the next-generation of climate and sustainability advocates.

The Sustainable LA Grand Challenge is an interdisciplinary university-wide initiative aimed at applying UCLA research, expertise and education to help transform Los Angeles into the world’s most sustainable megacity by 2050 — making it the most livable, equitable, resilient, clean and healthy megacity, and an example for the world.

Liquid I.V., a Los Angeles-based company that produces non-GMO electrolyte drink mixes, is committed to giving back to the community and has invested in three facets of the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge:

• The Undergraduate Research Scholars Program, providing much needed support to ensure all students interested in sustainability — regardless of major or experience — have an opportunity to contribute to sustainability solutions. Water access topics will be tackled through classroom speakers, faculty-mentored research and collaborative group projects with the Los Angeles community.

• A Liquid I.V. Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Graduate Fellow, who will work with a faculty member and an external partner within the Los Angeles region to focus on water security, access to clean water and other water justice issues.

• Two years of faculty research on a personal hydration product that could take polluted water from any source and produce a safe, drinkable output.

“We are very excited about this new partnership with Liquid I.V. and grateful for its visionary gift to the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge,” said Eric Hoek, faculty director of the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge. “Liquid I.V.’s philanthropic support will not only have an immense impact on opportunities for students to receive unique educational experiences but will also have an immediate impact in the Los Angeles region and beyond through student and faculty research that is focused on sustainable and equitable water solutions.”

The investment is part of a $1.3 million commitment by Liquid I.V. that also includes MAP International and International Rescue Committee, as part of the goal of evolving its impact programming and expanding water access beyond a one-to-one product donation model to focus more holistically on expanding water security.

“Here at Liquid I.V., we’re committed to expanding equitable access to clean and abundant water,” said Jayce Newton ‘02, director of impact at Liquid I.V. “There are many ways to do this, and through our partnership with UCLA we are investing in the next generation of leaders in the water security space.”

The gift is truly transformational for the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge, Hoek said, and is more important than ever with an increase in natural and humanitarian disasters throughout the globe leading to more water quality and access issues.

The partnership is not only meaningful to Liquid I.V. as a whole, but particularly to Newton, who is a UCLA graduate. “Our collective water future is very challenging, and we are in desperate need of thinkers and doers who are not bound by current trends or conventional wisdom,” he added. “As a Bruin myself, I know those vibrant contrarians can be found in Westwood, and our team jumped at the chance to invest in their visions.”

Image Source: Sustainable LA Grand Challenge Undergraduate Research Scholars Program

This article was originally published on the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge website.

Water glass on a tableThomas Kinto/Unsplash

Sustainable LA Grand Challenge receives $543,000 commitment for clean water research

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Water glass on a table

The funds will, in part, support faculty research on producing potable water from polluted sources. | Thomas Kinto/Unsplash

Jonathan Van Dyke | February 2, 2023

UCLA has received a commitment of $543,000 from Los Angeles-based Liquid I.V. to fund undergraduate research, a graduate fellowship and faculty research through UCLA’s Sustainable LA Grand Challenge.

The Sustainable LA Grand Challenge is an interdisciplinary university-wide initiative aimed at applying UCLA research, expertise and education to help transform Los Angeles into the world’s most sustainable megacity by 2050.

The gift from Liquid I.V., a manufacturer of electrolyte drink mixes, will help support students in the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program, creating opportunities for students, regardless of their academic major, to contribute to research on sustainability; an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Graduate Fellow, who will work with a faculty member and an external partner to focus on water security, clean water access and other water justice issues; and two years of faculty research on a method for producing safe, drinkable water from polluted water.

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

Picture of a hand gently holding a baby’s fingers.

New UCLA center promotes reproductive science and sexual health

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Picture of a hand gently holding a baby’s fingers.

Aditya Romansa/Unsplash

Holly Ober | January 30, 2023

A new center at UCLA will bring together students, scientists, educators and physicians across a wide range of disciplines to support research and education initiatives designed to improve human reproductive health, promote healthy families and to advance the well-being of society.

The UCLA Center for Reproductive Science Health and Education aims to fill a void in reproductive health knowledge while developing new technologies to improve reproductive health for all. The center’s inaugural director is Amander Clark, a UCLA professor, stem cell biologist and an expert in the field of reproductive sciences.

While reproductive health is often associated with issues of reproduction, infertility and contraception, it also includes healthy human development as well as the study and treatment of menopause and cancers related to reproductive organs. However, individuals and policymakers alike often make decisions around reproductive health that are not based on science.

“In the past several years, far too little of the dialogue and decision-making around sexual and reproductive health has been based in scientific research,” said Tracy Johnson, dean of the UCLA Division of Life Sciences. “Yet, science is the foundation by which health and policy professionals can make rational, informed decisions on topics that impact everyone. The time has arrived for an internationally recognized center for research, education and innovation in the reproductive sciences.”

Challenges in the field today include declining fertility rates, the lack of insurance coverage for infertility treatments and the need for better access to reproductive technologies for all.

• According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 2020 marked the sixth year in a row that fewer babies were born in the United States than any previous year. This is on top of a 60-year worldwide trend in declining fertility rates. In addition, there is a marked shift in the increased age of first-time parents.

• Nearly 8 million Americans of reproductive age face a diagnosis of infertility, but treatments in most U.S. states are not covered by insurance. For women over 40 who use in-vitro fertilization, the chances of having a successful pregnancy and a healthy baby are significantly reduced, according to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. For reasons that are not well understood, even for those under 40, sometimes IVF just doesn’t work.

• People need better and more accessible options for contraception. According to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, almost 40% of women who use contraception stop in their first year because they are not satisfied with existing options.

• There’s also a need for increased access to other reproductive technologies and medical services, especially for LGBTQ and gender-diverse Americans.

Amander Clark

Amander Clark | Don Liebig

The center’s work will include research into the reproductive and endocrine systems, contraception, infertility and pregnancy — as well as the social science of reproduction and reproductive interventions.

“Once established, this will be a home for innovative science and educational programs aimed at changing the national conversation around human reproduction and infertility,” Clark said. “We will develop new therapies toward promoting healthy parents, pregnancies and families of all genders today and for future generations.”

The UCLA Center for Reproductive Science Health and Education will operate in partnership with the division of life sciences at UCLA, the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Institute for Society and Genetics, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, where Clark is also a member.

The center will serve as a national and international home for training and career development of undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral and clinical fellows — and create an educational pipeline to benefit the UCLA community and beyond.

Hosted by Dean of Life Sciences Tracy Johnson, the Center for Reproductive Science Health and Education’s first event, “Let’s Talk Science: Conversations About the Future of Reproductive Health,” will be held Feb. 16 at 5:30 p.m. Register for the webinar.

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

Dominic Thomas

UCLA’s Dominic Thomas wins international Gutenberg Research Chair honor

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Dominic Thomas

Dominic Thomas, UCLA’s Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies | UCLA

Jonathan Riggs | January 23, 2023

Last November, Dominic Thomas, Madeleine L. Letessier Professor of French and Francophone Studies in the UCLA Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies, won the Gutenberg Research Chair. As part of his prize, he will serve as lead investigator on a project, “Ecology and Propaganda.”

“This honor is a testament to the remarkable timeliness, power and scope of Dominic Thomas’ work,” said Alexandra Minna Stern, dean of the UCLA Division of Humanities. “We are proud to have him representing our division, university and field on a global scale as he innovates new approaches to critically studying pressing environmental and ecological questions.”

Awarded to exceptional internationally renowned researchers, Gutenberg Chairs serve to spark scientific studies in the Alsace region of France. They are funded by the Greater East Region of France and Eurometropolis of Strasbourg at the recommendation of the Gutenberg Circle, which includes all of the Circle’s active members: the Institut de France, Collège de France, Institut Universitaire de France and an international, multidisciplinary jury of researchers.

“The Chairs were inaugurated in 2007 and have been awarded primarily to scientists,” said Thomas. “It is an honor to have been selected, but the fact that the selection committee has chosen to support a humanities project is therefore especially satisfying and, I believe, also indicative of the visionary qualities of the selection committee.”

With his interest in propaganda dating back to graduate school — not to mention it being the subject of both his first as well as his most recent books — Thomas will explore the paradox of how new technologies have simultaneously enhanced and undermined democratization. A transdisciplinary research project that investigates the legacies of colonialism on the environment, “Ecology and Propaganda” will be organized around five pillars (historical, intercultural, ethical, aesthetic and media/linguistic perspectives) and will correspond directly to priorities outlined by Sylvie Retailleau, the French minister for higher education.

“The transdisciplinary, transcultural scope of the project is indicative of a paradigm shift happening in the humanities,” said Todd Presner, chair of the department of European languages and transcultural studies. “UCLA is an engine of innovation for new, experimental humanities fields such as the environmental humanities.”

On the UCLA faculty since 2000, Thomas also created the UCLA Summer Paris Global Studies program, which he directed for 11 years, and will draw inspiration for his project from across UCLA’s global research leadership on ecology and the environment — and from an unwavering commitment to his field.

“The humanities have, arguably, perhaps never been so crucially important; they are relevant to all contemporary cultural, economic, political and social debates. In the face of assaults on democratic principles, the humanities help us improve intercultural understanding and encourage inclusivity,” said Thomas. “Ultimately, humanities provide the space in which to study the past, but also to delineate the contours of the future.”

For more of Our Stories at the College, click here.

Kanon Mori, wearing a nametag, speaks into a microphone

Leading the Japan-America Innovators of Medicine

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UCLA student Kanon Mori works to improve health care while bridging cultures and disciplines

Kanon Mori, wearing a nametag, speaks into a microphone

Fourth-year UCLA student Kanon Mori, an organizer of the Japan-America Innovators of Medicine, speaks during a presentation last November to medtech entrepreneurs, investors, physicians and pharmaceutical executives at Awaji Island in Japan.

Lucy Berbeo | January 12, 2023

Many students embark on their college journey with the goal of finding a true sense of purpose. Kanon Mori found hers during her first year at UCLA — and spent her time as an undergraduate bringing that purpose to fruition.

Born in Los Angeles to parents from Japan, Mori grew up bilingual and passionate about bridging Japanese and U.S. culture. Excelling in STEM and interested in medicine, she chose to major in computational and systems biology, an interdisciplinary program in the UCLA College that trains students to solve biological problems by combining the sciences, math and computing.

In classes on public health and health policy, Mori learned about inequities in the U.S. health care system and decided to help change things on a global scale. “I realized the potential technological innovations can have to shake up the entire industry,” says Mori, who is set to graduate this June. “And UCLA is the gateway into the U.S. from Japan’s perspective. With its world-class medical research and technological innovations, I knew I had to take advantage of being a student here to initiate a project.”

Mori teamed up with students from Stanford University and medical schools in Japan, including those at the University of Tokyo, Osaka University and Kyoto University. Together, with support from academic institutions, companies and individuals, they spearheaded Japan-America Innovators of Medicine, or JAIM — a student-driven, entrepreneurial effort to tackle the global health care challenge of dementia and to foster U.S.-Japan collaboration in advancing medicine.

Dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, is on the rise worldwide and especially in Japan, where more than a quarter of the population is 65 or older. JAIM leaders, including Mori and her counterparts at Stanford and Osaka, recruited nine students from Stanford and UCLA to participate in training bootcamps, then flew them to Japan to visit dementia care settings, observe the need firsthand and generate solutions. Returning to the U.S., the students spent the next four months working under JAIM supervision to develop prototype medical devices aimed at helping dementia patients and caregivers worldwide. By addressing the urgent need in Japan, JAIM aims to create solutions before the problem becomes severe in nations like the U.S.

REMBUDS, one of the prototype medical devices created by JAIM participants

REMBUDS, one of the prototype medical devices created by JAIM participants, were designed to electrically stimulate the transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve and reduce sleep-related injuries in Lewy Body dementia patients with REM sleep behavior disorder.

The rigorous program’s success, Mori says, owes much to the drive and dedication of everyone involved. “We all poured our passions into this project,” she says. “Each one of us brought our own respective strengths to the table, and we all had an unwavering confidence that what we were doing was valuable to the world.”

Since completing their prototypes in November, several participants have presented and garnered interest at national and international conferences. In February, Mori says, JAIM will attend the UCLA MedTech Partnering Conference hosted by the UCLA Technology Development Group in order to seek mentorship and resources to launch their prototypes into production.

Mori describes leading JAIM as “challenging to say the least” — she and her team spent a year developing the program, which she says felt like running a startup in addition to being a full-time student — but found it incredibly fulfilling.

“My life mission is to bridge Japan and the U.S. by connecting resources and people in the field of medicine,” she says. “And entrepreneurship is fascinating to me — through the many failures and the endless uphill battle, I feel most alive.”

The same spirit drives Mori’s winning efforts as part of UCLA’s triathlon team. “You can find us gasping for air while inching our way up the steep hills of Malibu with our road bikes on an early Saturday morning, or charging into the crashing waves of Santa Monica to practice open water swimming before heading back to campus for class,” she says. “It’s a group of fit, quirky and driven people who make the challenging sport of triathlon into an enjoyable one.”

Mori’s ultimate goal, she says, is to develop a product or service that will make health care more accessible, affordable and efficient through technological innovation in business. She envisions herself working as a product manager, international business development manager or possibly even the creator of her own startup. For now, as she finishes senior year, she’s enjoying the many opportunities UCLA has to offer.

“There really is no place like it,” she says. “It’s so exciting to be here, just imagining what can start up in such an environment. I’m grateful for every professor, expert and fellow student who has changed my life in a profound way.”

For more of Our Stories at the College, click here.

UCLA collaboration fosters mathematical brilliance of Latino and Black middle school students

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Undergraduates work in L.A. schools to bolster math learning through innovative research electives

Middle school students presenting about STEM research in their South L.A. communities

Middle school students presented their research poster about whether there should be a vaccine mandate for teenagers. | Don Liebig/UCLA

Holly Ober | January 4, 2023

A program that brings together UCLA students, the Los Angeles Unified School District and professional engineers and technologists to enhance mathematics learning in select South Los Angeles middle schools has made its public debut.

Forget boring demonstrations of solving equations on a whiteboard or listening to long lectures about math. As part of the Applied Mathematics Mentorship Program, on Dec. 14 the middle school students presented the results of research projects that were connected to their communities. The projects included studying the impacts of heat islands and COVID-19 on their neighborhoods, and on aerospace efforts in South Los Angeles. The research investigations were created so students could apply the mathematics they learn in the classroom to investigate and analyze mathematical issues and opportunities in their neighborhoods.

“We’re trying to embed mirrors and windows into the student experience so they see mathematics as a field in which they belong,” said Heather Dallas, executive director of the Curtis Center for Mathematics and Teaching at UCLA.

Supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Applied Mathematics Mentorship Program is a collaborative effort of the Curtis Center, three LAUSD middle schools, SpaceX engineers, FieldKit environmental technologists and the UCLA Myco-fluidics Lab.

The program places UCLA undergraduates as mentors at Barack Obama Global Preparatory Academy, William Jefferson Clinton Middle School, and Western Avenue T.E.C.H. Magnet School to support student research.

“It is important to show students mathematicians from their community doing mathematics for their community to inspire them to believe: I can do mathematics, I AM a mathematician,” Dallas said.

The program innovates mathematics learning by tapping into students’ innate desire to explore and understand the world around them. The effort highlights the relevance of mathematics and shows students how their community uses math to make a difference in the world.

The investigations are the brainchild of Dallas and Travis Holden, principal of Barack Obama Global Preparatory Academy and a UCLA alumnus who earned his bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics. Holden originally reached out to the Curtis Center to provide training for his mathematics department to implement a new textbook during the height of the pandemic.

The collaboration developed further when Dallas and Holden discussed a suggestion by an outside observer to involve the UCLA’s mathematics department in tutoring his middle school students.

“I told Heather I was big on not doing something remedial because I know that doesn’t work and it doesn’t excite kids,” Holden said. “I wanted to build on strengths our students already had. There’s a lot of research that says if you maintain high cognitive challenges during learning you see higher levels of learning.”

If research experiences during his time at UCLA excited him about mathematics, research could inspire his middle school students, too, he reasoned.

Dallas understood immediately, and pursued funding for a two-pronged effort: collaborate with mathematicians and scientists to develop relevant applied mathematics research investigations aligned to the school’s mathematics textbook and provide professional development for teachers and UCLA undergraduate mentors to facilitate the investigations. The Gates Foundation funded the effort and a research study of its effectiveness, which precipitated expansion to nearby Clinton Middle School and Western Avenue T.E.C.H.

Seventh-grade students collected data using devices from Los Angeles startup company, FieldKit to analyze heat islands in their communities. Heat islands occur in urban areas that experience higher temperatures compared to surrounding areas with more vegetation because buildings and roads reflect heat.

Eighth graders researched the disproportionate effects of COVID-19 on their community. In the Grade 9 investigation, student learned about aerospace endeavors in South Los Angeles, highlighting the experiences of local astronauts and SpaceX engineers of color.

“The 7th grade investigation places students in the driver seat to solve challenges in their own community.  Students learn how to look at a problem, explore solutions and most importantly use their voice to bring upon change,” said Johnny Rivera, principal of Western T.E.C.H.

Cassandra Robbins, vice principal of Clinton Middle School, said that she sees students giving up on mathematics before they even start because it seems irrelevant to their goals. She said that the math interventions they have tried have not moved the students forward much, but the Curtis Center was not offering just another intervention.

“The Curtis Center came up with this idea that, similar to a physics class, you tie theory together with laboratory experience. It’s an addition to, not a replacement for regular math class,” Robbins said.

To study heat islands, for example, the students must learn about how materials absorb or reflect light, take accurate temperature readings, and apply mathematics to calculate averages. To study COVID, the students track and compare the spread of the illness in their own and surrounding communities. They do experiments and then graph, analyze and discuss the resulting data. In addition to applying grade-level mathematics, the students learn valuable lessons about teamwork and mathematical practice.

“It’s really great coaching them — they see me as a coach. They’re fully engaged,” said Jose Medel, who teaches a seventh grade elective on heat islands at Clinton Middle School.

The event, held at the Barack Obama Global Preparatory Academy, included a panel of STEM professionals of color, student research team poster presentations and a reception honoring their accomplishments.

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

Kelly Lytle Hernández and David Myers

History professors on New Yorker’s best books of 2022 list

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Kelly Lytle Hernández and David Myers

Kelly Lytle Hernández (left) and David Myers | UCLA; Scarlett Freund

Manon Snyder | 

Books authored or co-authored by UCLA history professors have been included on the New Yorker’s Best Books of 2022 So Far list: “Bad Mexicans” by Kelly Lytle Hernández and “American Shtetl,” co-written by David Myers.

“Bad Mexicans”

Kelly Lytle Hernández, the Thomas E. Lifka Professor of History and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, is a race, mass incarceration and immigration expert and an award-winning author. She is also the principal investigator for Million Dollar Hoods, a data-driven project that uses police and jail records to examine costs and incarceration disparities in Los Angeles neighborhoods.

In “Bad Mexicans,” Lytle Hernández uncovers the story about a band of Mexican revolutionaries — headed by the radical Ricardo Flores Magón — that helped spark the Mexican Revolution and lead to the eventual ousting of President Porfirio Díaz in 1911. The subsequent impact of the revolution was massive, causing more than a million Mexicans to migrate north. Lytle Hernández emphasizes that “you cannot understand U.S. history without Mexico and Mexicans.”

“American Shtetl”

David Myers is the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Professor of Jewish History and director of the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. He has authored five books in the field of modern Jewish intellectual and cultural history, and is co-editor of the Jewish Quarterly Review. Myers wrote “American Shtetl” with Nomi Stolzenberg, a professor at USC Gould School of Law.

“American Shtetl” dives into the history of a separatist Hasidic Jewish group which built its own village, Kiryas Joel, in upstate New York. Myers and Stolzenberg explore how America’s political, legal and economic institutions created this ethnographic response. “‘American Shtetl’ provides an unambiguous historical refutation of the idea that liberalism renders meaningful community impossible,” according to the New Yorker.

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

UCLA Fulbright winners collage

Graduate students selected for Fulbright-Hays Fellowship

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UCLA Fulbright winners collage

UCLA’s honorees are (top row from left) Aurora Echevarria, Rebecca Waxman, Degenhart Brown, Carly Pope; and (bottom row) Yiming Ha, Jessie Stoolman, Benjamin Kantner. | UCLA

Vania Sciolini | 

The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship has been awarded to seven UCLA graduate students, the most chosen from any university in the nation.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the Fulbright-Hays program provides awardees the opportunity to study aspects of a society or societies, including their culture, economy, history and international relations. The fellowship is designed to contribute to developing and improving the study of modern foreign languages and area studies in the U.S.

The 2022 UCLA Fulbright-Hays fellows come from diverse disciplines. They will conduct their research in the Republic of Benin, Taiwan, Mexico, Panama, Morocco, Spain, India, the United Kingdom and the Brazilian Amazon.

The Fulbright-Hays research abroad program at UCLA is administered by the Division of Graduate Education.  More information is available at the UCLA Fulbright Fellowships website.

The 2022 awardees are:

Degenhart Brown, culture and performance, will study in the Republic of Benin. Using ethnographic fieldwork, Brown focuses on the pragmatism of syncretic religious practice, animal-based power objects, and the relationships between different species including pathogens and divinities to illustrate how traditional-medicine unions inform established knowledge of selfhood and well-being in contemporary Benin.

Yiming Ha, history, will study in Taiwan. Ha’s research focuses on changes to the military in Yuan and Ming China due to socio-economic factors and how the state responded to these changes. He is interested in how the shifts in military mobilization affected the state’s finances, what strategies the state employed in response, and the potential disconnect between the central and local officials in how to best manage the military.

Aurora Echavarria, urban planning, will study in Mexico. Echavarria’s research explores issues at the intersection of local public finance, urban inequality, and the political economy of land and property, with a focus on how local governments tax property in Latin America. Her fieldwork will employ experimental survey methods to examine how perceptions of public good provision influence levels of support for property taxation in Mexico.

Carly Pope, archaeology, will study in Panama. Pope’s research examines archaeological ceramics from Bocas del Toro, Panama, including locally made wares and foreign imports, and the potential they hold to elucidate both interregional systems of cultural interaction and community-level labor organization. She will conduct geochemical and mineralogical analysis of these materials to determine potential locations and methods of production.

Jessie Stoolman, anthropology, will study in Morocco and Spain. Her project focuses on how the Moroccan archival landscape shapes the collective memory of Black-Jewish history. She has published academic and non-academic writing in international journals, including Hespéris-Tamuda and Asymptote.

Rebecca Waxman, history, will study in India and the U.K. Waxman’s research examines occurrences of sexualized violence that marked turning points in modern India. By engaging in pressing historical and contemporary questions concerning sexual violence in India, she hopes to contribute to scholarship on gender, power and knowledge in colonial and postcolonial South Asia.

Benjamin Kantner, geography, will study in the Brazilian Amazon. His current project maps the relations between the capital city of Belém in the state of Pará and the Quilombola communities of the surrounding islands and waterways. This research will enhance recognition of the role traditional territories play in adapting urban areas to climate change and the extra-regional political networks increasingly used by them.

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

Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in a casino in scene from Rain Man | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

Recent UCLA grad helped Wikipedia set the record straight on ‘Rain Man’ and autism

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Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in a casino in scene from Rain Man | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise as Raymond Babbitt and Charlie Babbitt in “Rain Man.”

Lucy Berbeo | December 21, 2022

The 1988 film “Rain Man” won four Academy Awards, earned millions at the box office and moved audiences with its depiction of a central character with autism, played by Dustin Hoffman.

But at least some of that depiction obscured or misrepresented aspects of autism spectrum disorder. And because the movie has reached such a wide audience, those discrepancies have informed how generations of viewers perceive the condition. Until recently, many of the same issues also lived on in the Wikipedia entry about “Rain Man.”

That’s where Madeline Utter comes in. Before she graduated from UCLA in June, Utter took a course called “Performance and Disability Studies,” taught by visiting professor Elizabeth Guffey. As part of the course, Utter watched the film for the first time, and she was struck by elements that seemed to misrepresent autism spectrum disorder and savant syndrome. The latter is a condition in which a person with a developmental disorder shows remarkable brilliance in a specific area, such as music or math — the film’s protagonist, Raymond Babbitt, for example, is able to quickly perform complex mathematical calculations.

Madeline Utter

Madeline Utter | Courtesy of Madeline Utter

For a course project, Guffey tasked her students with researching and rewriting Wikipedia entries about representations of disability in performance to ensure they reflected the latest disability studies research. Utter chose “Rain Man” — and saw an opportunity to right a few things that the film, as well as the Wikipedia entry, had gotten wrong.

Wikipedia allows any user to edit articles directly with the proviso that revisions and additions must be attributable to reliable sources or they may be removed by other users. Utter revised the “Rain Man” article, adding context about how the film’s portrayal of neurodivergent conditions led to public misunderstanding.

Wikipedia bills itself as the world’s largest reference website, and the “Rain Man” entry typically receives about 2,500 visitors a day. Since Utter updated the page in May, it has been viewed more than 465,000 times. Utter has two brothers with autism, so the opportunity to improve the public’s understanding of the condition has been especially meaningful for her.

“From watching the film through a critical lens, to getting feedback from my peers on the article, to finally seeing the published article, I learned so much,” said Utter, who graduated in June with a major in communication and a minor in film studies. “The biggest impact that this project had on me was to start to be able to recognize the places in film where disability representation can be improved.”

UCLA’s disability studies program comprises courses in a range of academic subjects, from media arts to anthropology to nursing. Students play an active role in advancing creative approaches to service and advocacy, from improving health care for people with disabilities to creatively reimagining assistive technology using 3D modeling.

“Our students in UCLA Disability Studies are future leaders in their fields, and they are already helping to create a more inclusive society,” said Adriana Galván, dean of undergraduate education in the UCLA College. “By participating in projects such as this one, they are making a real-world impact.”

A program operated by Wiki Education invites college students to write Wikipedia entries through their coursework. The nonprofit profiled Utter’s project on its website.

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