Supporting inclusive excellence
Supporting inclusive excellence
- December 4, 2015
- Social sciences professors recognized for work on diversity education and advancement
Three social sciences faculty members have been named recipients of UCI ADVANCE Spirit
Grants, designed to advance diversity, equity and inclusion at UCI. Funded studies
will tackle undocumented student support at UCI, research tools for the visually impaired,
and effects of public education and incarceration on black families in LA.
"This diversity of projects beautifully captures the range of expertise in the School
of Social Sciences, as well as our commitment to building an inclusive environment
for all our students, faculty and staff,” said Bill Maurer, social sciences dean.
“It made my day when ADVANCE announced these awards--and I'm looking forward to the
results of the research they will support!"
Social sciences recipients and their funded work include:
Laura Enriquez, Chicano/Latino studies assistant professor. Enriquez joined the UCI faculty in fall 2015. A sociology Ph.D. graduate from UCLA,
her research focuses on the experiences of undocumented young adults who came to the
U.S. at a young age. With Spirit Grant funding, she’ll be working to determine the
needs of undocumented University of California students and uncovering practices being
implemented across the UC campuses to meet these needs. Learn more about her work. 
Emily Grossman, cognitive sciences associate professor. Grossman received her Ph.D. in psychology from Vanderbilt and spent two years as
a postdoctoral research at Harvard before coming to UCI in 2004. She specializes in
visual perception and neuroimaging research, using fMRI, TMS an EEG to advance our
understanding of how the human brain processes what we see. The Spirit Grant will
fund development of computing tools to make brain imaging data analytic software –
essential neuroimaging research – accessible to individuals with low vision or blindness.
Learn more about her lab.
Damien Sojoyner, anthropology assistant professor. Sojoyner earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and was an assistant
professor of Africana studies at Scripps College in Claremont before he joined the
UCI faculty in fall 2015. His research focuses on prisons, public education, urban
anthropology, race, African diaspora theory, public policy and law, and gender. Spirit
grant funding will support his research on the relationship between schools and prisons
in Los Angeles. Learn more about his work.
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