2022 New Faculty

Apparel Merchandising & Management

Education

• PhD Apparel Design, Cornell University
• MS Textiles, Design, and Merchandising, Louisiana State University

Research Interests

My research focuses on post-consumer textile waste management from corporate uniforms. Workwear has limited diversion opportunities from the landfill because they are branded and non-ready to wear apparel, therefore, they cannot be donated through charity and textile banks. My research seeks to offer higher material recovery rate for unused and discarded uniforms by upcycling them into new garments.

Other Languages Spoken

Spanish

Computer Information Systems

Education

• PhD Information Science and Technology, Syracuse University
• MS Information Management, Syracuse University
• MS and BS Computer Science, Donetsk National Technical University, Ukraine

Research Interests

Her research interests include the impact of IT on Organizations, IT Occupational Culture, Cybersecurity, Information Security Auditing, Business Intelligence, Distance Learning, and Performance Assessment in Higher Education. She serves as a research consultant for the project funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) via the UNISELVA Foundation, aimed to promote women’s leadership in IT. Dr. Guzman is an active member of the Academy of Management, the Association of Computing Machinery's special interest group in Management Information Systems, ISACA, and the Association of Information Systems (AIS)’s Latin American and Caribbean Chapter, of which she is the 2021-2023 president-elect.

Other Languages Spoken

Spanish, Russian

Computer Information Systems

Education

• PhD

Research Interests

Mostly on IT organizational impacts and business values

Other Languages Spoken

Chinese

International Business & Marketing

Education

• PhD Marketing, University of Missouri - Columbia

Research Interests

My research interest centers on frontline sales interactions over technology-mediated platforms. My dissertation investigates the effectiveness of live chat agents in business-to-consumer negotiation.

Other Languages Spoken

Mandarin

Management & Human Resources

Education

• PhD Management, UC Irvine
• BA Sociology & German, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Research Interests

My research focuses on how to make organizations better and work for everyone. I study diversity and inclusion in organizations, leadership perceptions, and lower level workers.

Early Childhood Studies

Education

• TBA

Research Interests

TBA

Other Languages Spoken

TBA

Early Childhood Studies

Education

• PhD Education, Claremont Graduate University & San Diego State Joint Doctoral Program
• MA Human Development with early childhood education specialization, Pacific Oaks College
• BA Child Development, San Diego State University

Research Interests

My research and teaching center the need to prepare critically conscious early childhood educators using anti-racist and anti-bias frameworks. My research and scholarship include critical theory, culturally responsible pedagogy, and issues of equity in early childhood education.

Aerospace Engineering

Education

• PhD Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, UC Irvine.

Research Interests

Spacecraft control and stationkeeping (maintaining a spacecraft in the right orbit); orbital mechanics and rocketry.

Other Languages Spoken

Italian

Civil Engineering

Education

• PhD in Civil Engineering, UCLA

Research Interests

(1) Design-build challenge of a sustainable house through Orange County Sustainability Decathlon 2023, (2) Structural reinforced concrete wall testing per wind loads, (3) Improving spatial skills for undergraduate engineering students

Other Languages Spoken

Korean

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Education

• TBA

Research Interests

TBA

Other Languages Spoken

TBA

Mechnical Engineering

Education

• PhD Mechanical Engineering

Research Interests

My field of research is in dynamics and control systems with specific application to micro-electromechanical systems. This is one of the areas that mechanical and electrical engineering overlap.

Other Languages Spoken

Farsi (Persian)

Architecture

Education

• TBA

Research Interests

TBA

Other Languages Spoken

TBA

Architecture

Education

• TBA

Research Interests

TBA

Other Languages Spoken

TBA

Art

Education

• Master of fine arts, California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts)

Research Interests

I have been showing my artworks in galleries and film festivals. My augmented reality art incorporates traditional art mediums such as painting and sculpture into digital art.

Other Languages Spoken

Korean

Landscape Architecture

Education

• BARCH, USC
• MDS, BAC

Research Interests

My research is an interdisciplinary analysis of how people experience the built environment through the intersectional lenses of culture, caste, and gender. In drawing from anthropology, psychology and human geography, and building an understanding of the interrelation of cognitive dynamics, I explore how these paradigms can prioritize human and bio-diversity for design pedagogy and practice towards an equitable public good.

Other Languages Spoken

French

Urban & Regional Planning

Education

• Doctorate, University of Southern California
• Masters, University of Southern California
• Bachelor's, Cal Poly Pomona

Research Interests

I specialize in studying the creation and development of ethnic enclaves and how public policies encourage or limit development. Additionally, I research and review government entitlement programs (health) to develop fact-based descriptions of barriers to access resulting from poverty and addiction (digital divide).

Geography & Anthropology

Education

• PhD, UC Berkeley
• MA, UC Berkeley
• BA, Barnard College/Columbia University

Research Interests

I do anthropological research in collaboration with Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian-American communities in the US. I work with my community partners to understand how people, places, and things leave traces of themselves and influence inequality in the present. I combine art and archaeology to deepen our understanding of materiality, history, and place. The San Fransisco Bay Area, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, and museum archives provide endless sources of inspiration for my use of GIS, social practice art, and database technology. I am starting a new project looking at the history of water use of the LA river from Spanish colonization to the present.

Communication

Education

• PhD Mass Communications, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Research Interests

My research centers on political communication and examines the effect of digital media use on civic engagement and attitudes toward political information.

Other Languages Spoken

Korean

English & Modern Languages

Education

• PhD English Rhet Comp, Univ. NC Greensboro
• MA English & Af. Am. Lit, NCA&T State University
• BA English, Livingstone College

Research Interests

Research and creative writer. My focus is African American Literatures and Rhetorics.

English & Modern Languages

Education

• PhD English, University of Florida

Research Interests

Black literature, film, and cultural studies

Other Languages Spoken

Spanish (proficient)

Ethnic & Women's Studies

Education

• PhD and MA, Depth Psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute
• BA, Theatre, Acting Option, CPP

Research Interests

I am the founder of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network, a global community inspired and creating work around the pioneering speculative fiction writer.

Ethnic & Women's Studies

Education

• PhD American Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
• MA Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University
• MEd Postsecondary Administration and Student Affairs, University of Southern California
• BS Psychology, University of La Verne

Research Interests

I am an interdisciplinary researcher and scholar. My research focuses on my community, who are Cham Muslim Americans. Cham peoples are a small Indigenous and ethnic minority group, descendants from the Champa Kingdom (present-day Vietnam), and who are also refugees of the Khmer Rouge genocide (in Cambodia) and Vietnam War. I focus on the social construction and erasure of my community's intersectional identity as Indigenous, Asian, Muslim, refugees (and children of refugees).

Other Languages Spoken

Cham (Conversational), Khmer (Intermediate)

History

Education

• TBA

Research Interests

TBA

Other Languages Spoken

TBA

Political Science

Education

• PhD Political Science, USC
• MA Political Science, University of Arkansas
• BA Political Science, UC Irvine

Research Interests

I study American politics with an emphasis on Latino politics. Specifically, I use quantitative methods to analyze Latino political behavior within the US

Political Science

Education

• PhD Political Science, UCLA
• MSc Political Theory, LSE
• MSc Gender, LSE
• BA Philosophy and Political Science with minor in Women's Studies, Union College

Research Interests

Attentive to the politics of citation that, as Sara Ahmed has argued, tells us that one “becomes a theorist by citing other theorists that cite theorists,” my research goals are oriented toward a politics of subversive citation that might urge contemporary political theorists in the direction of appreciating the sophisticated conceptual renderings of U.S. Black and Women of Color feminism. Situated in relation to the resist platforms emerging in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, my forthcoming book (Duke University Press), Feminism in Coalition: Thinking with U.S. Women of Color Feminism, presents early U.S. Women of Color coalitional feminism as an indispensable resource to contemporary political theory, feminist studies, and intersectional social justice activism. My second single-authored book project (currently in progress) turns again to U.S. Women of Color feminists to revisit the controversy surrounding the political cul-de-sac of deconstructive feminism emerging in the 1980s and 1990s. By contextualizing deconstructive feminism in relation to U.S. Women of Color feminism (which predates deconstructive feminism by almost two decades), I seek to set the stage for an imagined site of generative feminist exchange that might help us to avoid the pitfalls of deconstructive feminism’s most vexing commitments. Finally, in a co-edited book project, colleagues and I are exploring the role “pedagogies of discomfort” might play in political science classrooms oriented toward an “equity,” as opposed to a “diversity,” framework. Centering critical inquiry, a normative commitment to social justice, and the move to “action,” an equity approach calls into question more traditional approaches to political science. In this edited volume, we seek to not only make the case for why an equity frame is needed, but we also plan to offer a range of practical “how-to” guides on incorporating an equity focus and balancing liberatory pedagogies of both love and discomfort in the political science classroom.

Psychology

Education

• TBA

Research Interests

TBA

Other Languages Spoken

TBA

Psychology

Education

• PhD, Claremont Graduate University
• MA, Claremont Graduate University
• BA, University of South Florida

Research Interests

My research focuses on prosocial development and well-being, especially among adolescents and young adults.

Psychology

Education

• PhD Counseling Psychology, University of Iowa

Research Interests

My interests include immigrants and people of color’s mental health and well-being.

Other Languages Spoken

Korean

Psychology

Education

• PhD School Psychology, Howard University
• BA Psychology, Arizona State University
• BA African and African American History

Research Interests

Dr. Tierra T. Ellis received her doctorate in school psychology from Howard University, with an emphasis in forensic psychology. She completed her APA-Accredited internship at the Illinois School Psychology Internship Consortium (ISPIC) where she specialized in trauma at Egyptian Public and Mental Health Department (EHD), which was a dual clinical and school psychology focused site. She completed a 2-year APA accredited postdoctoral fellowship at Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) where she specialized in adolescent and young adult medicine. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Psyches of Color, Inc., a progressive nonprofit organization that uses strengths-based and culturally relevant approaches to provide mental health support to decrease the stigma of mental health and promote radical healing to at-promise Black and Latinx adolescents and young adults. She is a recent graduate of the Youth Justice Leadership Institute (YJLI) Fellowship within the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN). She is a Licensed Psychologist (LP), Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP), and a member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility (Psy-SR) where she serves on the Abolition Working Group team. Dr. Tierra published a chapter in the book, Students with Parents Involved in Substance Abuse or Dependence (2020) and is currently completing a chapter in the book, Social Justice in Supervision and Field Experiences (in preparation). Her scholarship includes dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline, destigmatizing mental health in Black and Latinx communities, culturally relevant interventions for at-promise Black and Latinx adolescents and young adults, and the representation of Black students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Dr. Tierra conducts Hip Hop and Healing workshops as she is super passionate about creating and integrating culturally relevant approaches such as Hip-Hop culture and psychotherapeutic treatments for which she is committed to expanding in the mental health field.

Sociology

Education

• PhD Sociology, UC Merced
• MA Sociology, UC Merced
• BA Sociology with Minor in Multicultural Studies, Cal Poly Pomona

Research Interests

Dr. Zermeño's research areas of expertise include race and ethnicity, health disparities, mestizaje, Latinx Indigenous resurgence, ritual ceremonies, and qualitative methodologies. His primary research advances a critical Indigenous-based framework to study how European settler colonial histories harm the health of marginalized ethnoracial communities in the U.S., and how those communities fight back to promote healing, resilience, and unity through collective mobilization, ritual ceremonies, and asserting their Indigenous roots.

Other Languages Spoken

Mexican-Spanish

Sociology

Education

• TBA

Research Interests

TBA

Other Languages Spoken

TBA

Sociology

Education

• PhD Education, University of California, Los Angeles
• BA Sociology and Spanish, University of San Diego

Research Interests

My current program of research focuses on the areas of educational inequality, race and gender, and school pushout as it pertains to the Chicanx/Latinx community. Using a Critical Race Feminista Praxis, my most recent study examined the factors that push Latina high school students out of school. My commitment to research is paired with a dedication to organizing with and for Communities of Color. I am currently collaborating with Gente Organizada, a community-led social action non-profit organization in Pomona, California. My agenda is a life-long commitment to centering the voices of youth who are often overlooked in research, policy, practice, and social justice efforts.

Other Languages Spoken

Spanish

Sociology

Education

• PhD Sociology (emphasis in Criminology and Gender), University of California, Riverside

Research Interests

My research focuses on intimate partner violence (IPV), specifically variations in perpetration by gender and sexual orientation. I am ultimately interested in determining causes and correlates of IPV for all perpetrators.

Sociology

Education

• PhD, UC Santa Barbara

Research Interests

Research scholarship: race, gender, elite culture, sport and the body (diss. Black women in ballet)
Creative activities: art

Theatre & New Dance

Education

• PhD, The Ohio State University
• MFA, Cal State LA
• BFA, New York University

Research Interests

Dr. Truett is an artist-scholar whose work explores performance as resistance, resilience, and community-builder. Based on continuing ethnographic research in Oaxaca, Mexico, his dissertation "Performing Indigenous Fiesta Resistance: Muxes, Velas, and Zapotec Style" explores festivals of the indigenous Zapotec community in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. In particular, he focuses on of the activism performed by groups of muxe; a non-binary gender and non-normative sexual identity within the Isthmus Zapotec culture. He is also a producer, writer, and performer working across dance, theatre, and new media.

Other Languages Spoken

Spanish

Biological Sciences

Education

• PhD Ecology, University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia)
• BSc (Hons), University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia)
• BSc from Monash University (Melbourne, Australia)

Research Interests

I study global change biology. For me, that means I'm interested in how we can conserve biodiversity in an environmentally just way, in a world that is rapidly changing. I focus on vertebrate predators because they contribute disproportionately to ecosystem function, and interact with humans in ways that present challenges and opportunities.

Biological Sciences

Education

• TBA

Research Interests

TBA

Other Languages Spoken

TBA

Chemistry & Biochemistry

Education

• PhD Chemistry, UC Irvine

Research Interests

I am interested in developing new chemical reactions to efficiently access complex molecules from simple building blocks. I am particularly interested in using first row transition metals like nickel to catalyze these new transformations.

Computer Science

Education

• PhD, University of Texas at Arlington

Research Interests

My research is to investigate the interdisciplinary research among practical security and privacy problems in the real networks/systems (i.e., VR devices) and emerging theory/algorithms (i.e., machine learning techniques), especially the emerging ones whose security and privacy vulnerabilities are far from well investigated.

Other Languages Spoken

Chinese

Computer Science

Education

• PhD, Temple University

Research Interests

My research focuses on the design, analysis, measurement, and implementation of wireless and mobile systems, as well as these systems' applications in Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT). My current and future research interests are connected and autonomous vehicle, edge computing, and cybersecurity.

Other Languages Spoken

Chinese

Kinesiology & Health Promotion

Education

• PhD Higher Education
• MS College Counseling
• MS Educational Counseling
• BS Psychology

Research Interests

My research and passion includes student and athlete activism, students of color and faculty interaction, women of color in leadership, and critical race theory in higher education. I am also a frequent presenter at conferences throughout North America and internationally, including the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE), the Black Student Athlete Summit, North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS), International Activism Conference, Advancing Women in Leadership Conference, and at the University of Western Cape in South Africa. I have created models curated to honor and center the experiences of activists known as the Activism Growth Model (c) (AGM), a research based framework and guide for this very timely moment on how to utilize your voice for change. Additionally, I birthed the Black athlete activist leadership (BAAL) model (c), a framework for stakeholders who serve athlete activists and activists of color holistically. I am looking forward to expanding my research and collaborating with some incredible scholars!

Kinesiology & Health Promotion

Education

• Anticipated Fall 2022: PhD Kinesiology with a concentration in coaching and teaching studies
• MS Kinesiology with an emphasis in adapted physical activity, Oregon State University
• BS Kinesiology with a concentration in exercise science, California State University, Sacramento

Research Interests

My overarching goal in my scholarship is to improve practices in preparing physical educators to include students of all abilities in meaningful participation in physical education. I am currently engaged in three overlapping projects addressing this goal related to physical educators’ behavior management, 3D printed assistive technology, and adapted sport in physical education teacher education curriculum.

Mathematics & Statistics

Education

• PhD Mathematics with Specialization in Statistics, UC San Diego

Research Interests

My research focuses on unsupervised learning, in particular clustering and mixture modeling. I am also interested in applications to mathematical education.

Other Languages Spoken

Chinese

Apparel Merchandising & Management

Education

• PhD Apparel Design, Cornell University
• MS Textiles, Design, and Merchandising, Louisiana State University

Research Interests

My research focuses on post-consumer textile waste management from corporate uniforms. Workwear has limited diversion opportunities from the landfill because they are branded and non-ready to wear apparel, therefore, they cannot be donated through charity and textile banks. My research seeks to offer higher material recovery rate for unused and discarded uniforms by upcycling them into new garments.

Other Languages Spoken

Spanish

Early Childhood Studies

Education

• TBA

Research Interests

TBA

Other Languages Spoken

TBA

Geography & Anthropology

Education

• PhD, UC Berkeley
• MA, UC Berkeley
• BA, Barnard College/Columbia University

Research Interests

I do anthropological research in collaboration with Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian-American communities in the US. I work with my community partners to understand how people, places, and things leave traces of themselves and influence inequality in the present. I combine art and archaeology to deepen our understanding of materiality, history, and place. The San Fransisco Bay Area, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, and museum archives provide endless sources of inspiration for my use of GIS, social practice art, and database technology. I am starting a new project looking at the history of water use of the LA river from Spanish colonization to the present.

English & Modern Languages

Education

• PhD English Rhet Comp, Univ. NC Greensboro
• MA English & Af. Am. Lit, NCA&T State University
• BA English, Livingstone College

Research Interests

Research and creative writer. My focus is African American Literatures and Rhetorics.

English & Modern Languages

Education

• PhD English, University of Florida

Research Interests

Black literature, film, and cultural studies

Other Languages Spoken

Spanish (proficient)

Political Science

Education

• PhD Political Science, UCLA
• MSc Political Theory, LSE
• MSc Gender, LSE
• BA Philosophy and Political Science with minor in Women's Studies, Union College

Research Interests

Attentive to the politics of citation that, as Sara Ahmed has argued, tells us that one “becomes a theorist by citing other theorists that cite theorists,” my research goals are oriented toward a politics of subversive citation that might urge contemporary political theorists in the direction of appreciating the sophisticated conceptual renderings of U.S. Black and Women of Color feminism. Situated in relation to the resist platforms emerging in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, my forthcoming book (Duke University Press), Feminism in Coalition: Thinking with U.S. Women of Color Feminism, presents early U.S. Women of Color coalitional feminism as an indispensable resource to contemporary political theory, feminist studies, and intersectional social justice activism. My second single-authored book project (currently in progress) turns again to U.S. Women of Color feminists to revisit the controversy surrounding the political cul-de-sac of deconstructive feminism emerging in the 1980s and 1990s. By contextualizing deconstructive feminism in relation to U.S. Women of Color feminism (which predates deconstructive feminism by almost two decades), I seek to set the stage for an imagined site of generative feminist exchange that might help us to avoid the pitfalls of deconstructive feminism’s most vexing commitments. Finally, in a co-edited book project, colleagues and I are exploring the role “pedagogies of discomfort” might play in political science classrooms oriented toward an “equity,” as opposed to a “diversity,” framework. Centering critical inquiry, a normative commitment to social justice, and the move to “action,” an equity approach calls into question more traditional approaches to political science. In this edited volume, we seek to not only make the case for why an equity frame is needed, but we also plan to offer a range of practical “how-to” guides on incorporating an equity focus and balancing liberatory pedagogies of both love and discomfort in the political science classroom.

Sociology

Education

• PhD, UC Santa Barbara

Research Interests

Research scholarship: race, gender, elite culture, sport and the body (diss. Black women in ballet)
Creative activities: art

Theatre & New Dance

Education

• PhD, The Ohio State University
• MFA, Cal State LA
• BFA, New York University

Research Interests

Dr. Truett is an artist-scholar whose work explores performance as resistance, resilience, and community-builder. Based on continuing ethnographic research in Oaxaca, Mexico, his dissertation "Performing Indigenous Fiesta Resistance: Muxes, Velas, and Zapotec Style" explores festivals of the indigenous Zapotec community in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. In particular, he focuses on of the activism performed by groups of muxe; a non-binary gender and non-normative sexual identity within the Isthmus Zapotec culture. He is also a producer, writer, and performer working across dance, theatre, and new media.

Other Languages Spoken

Spanish

Urban & Regional Planning

Education

• Doctorate, University of Southern California
• Masters, University of Southern California
• Bachelor's, Cal Poly Pomona

Research Interests

I specialize in studying the creation and development of ethnic enclaves and how public policies encourage or limit development. Additionally, I research and review government entitlement programs (health) to develop fact-based descriptions of barriers to access resulting from poverty and addiction (digital divide).

Biological Sciences

Education

• TBA

Research Interests

TBA

Other Languages Spoken

TBA

Kinesiology & Health Promotion

Education

• PhD Higher Education
• MS College Counseling
• MS Educational Counselin
• BS Psychology

Research Interests

My research and passion includes student and athlete activism, students of color and faculty interaction, women of color in leadership, and critical race theory in higher education. I am also a frequent presenter at conferences throughout North America and internationally, including the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE), the Black Student Athlete Summit, North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS), International Activism Conference, Advancing Women in Leadership Conference, and at the University of Western Cape in South Africa. I have created models curated to honor and center the experiences of activists known as the Activism Growth Model (c) (AGM), a research based framework and guide for this very timely moment on how to utilize your voice for change. Additionally, I birthed the Black athlete activist leadership (BAAL) model (c), a framework for stakeholders who serve athlete activists and activists of color holistically. I am looking forward to expanding my research and collaborating with some incredible scholars!