2025 Labor Summer Graduates Honored
The future of California’s organized labor movement was on full display at the Corwin Pavilion on Aug. 8, when UC Santa Barbara’s Community Labor Center (CLC) celebrated 14 students who just completed an intensive internship program with local labor unions. Now in its third year, the Labor Summer Internship Program pairs students with local unions and worker organizations, providing them with hands-on experience in organizing, communications, and outreach.
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Professor's Drug Policy Research Wins Federal Funding
Along with colleagues at the UC San Diego School of Public Health, Communication Professor Dr. Jiaying Liu has been awarded funding by the National Institute on Drug Abuse! The over $3 million project period will provide five years of funding from July 2025 to April 2030. The research team will also be working closely with the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department throughout the project. The project will focus on enhancing health warning messages for recreational cannabis products in California, using experimental and eye-tracking methods.
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2204 Reasons Why Social Science Matters
The Social Sciences Division handed out 2204 diplomas to undergraduate students representing 10 different degree programs in a pair of commencement ceremonies on June 14. Following introductory remarks by Dean Charlie Hale and Chancellor Henry Yang, a crowd of roughly 6000 guests per ceremony heard from keynote speakers Tracey Newell, a proud Gaucho and bestselling author of Hers For the Taking: Your Path to the C-Suite and Beyond; and Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, a civil rights leader.
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UCSB Celebrates Inaugural Graduation of PROPEL Scholars in Historic Ceremony
The ceremony at Mosher Alumni House brought together students, families, faculty, and community supporters to celebrate the achievements of twenty remarkable scholars who have demonstrated resilience, dedication, and a commitment to social justice.
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Climate at a Crossroads: Kyle Meng Brings data and direction to California Policy
When Kyle Meng stepped into the hearing room in Sacramento on April 30, he wasn’t just delivering policy advice—he was delivering a decade’s worth of expertise at the intersection of environmental economics and climate science. As California weighs reauthorizing its signature cap-and-trade program, Meng’s voice is increasingly one of the most trusted in the conversation.
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Charmaine Chua Receives Harold J. Plous Memorial Award
Charmaine Chua, Assistant Professor of Global Studies, has received the 2023-2024 Harold J. Plous Memorial Award. Established in 1957 to honor Harold J. Plous, Assistant Professor of Economics, this award is given annually to an assistant professor or instructor in humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences who has demonstrated outstanding performance by creative action or contribution to the intellectual life of the university's community. On April 11, 2024, Charmaine Chua gave the Harold J.
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Political Scientist Christopher Parker Named a 2025 Carnegie Fellow
The Carnegie Corporation of New York has awarded Christopher Sebastian Parker a 2025 Carnegie Fellowship to fund his timely and incisive research on political polarization and communities of color. Parker, a UC Santa Barbara professor of political science, is among 26 distinguished recipients chosen from over 300 nominees for this honor, which includes a stipend of up to $200,000 to support his research.
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A Message From Our New Propel Program Director
My name is Bryan Zuniga, and I am honored to introduce myself as the new PROPEL Program Director within UC Santa Barbara’s Division of Social Sciences. I walked the same campus as a first-generation Promise Scholar less than a handful of years ago— and like many of our scholars, my frame of reference for higher education was always beyond who and what was familiar to me. Also coming from an under-resourced, low-income background, I’m extremely grateful to help PROPEL Scholars, who share similar stories, aspire on their own terms and make the most of UCSB.
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