UC Irvine School of Social Sciences

09/03/2026

As a social policy and public service major, Tracy La ’17 conducted undergraduate research exploring how to strengthen civic engagement among young Asian Americans. Determined to boost voter turnout on campus, La ran for president of the Associated Students of UCI in 2016. She won, and went on to lead a student get-out-the-vote campaign that got more than half of the Anteater student body to cast ballots in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

A decade later, the Anteater alumnus is serving as the executive director of VietRISE, the advocacy organization that she co-founded to engage Vietnamese Americans in local politics to shape their communities around issues that affect their lives. Her leadership impact can be felt across Little Saigon and the five Southern California cities it spans where she’s helped enact rent control, provided legal support to immigrants facing deportation, and advocated for residents affected by the recent chemical leak in Garden Grove.

“In the beginning, we were very much focused on turnout and civic engagement among 1.5 to second- generation Vietnamese Americans, to get them more active in local government and to create a program to get young people to care about advocacy,” says La. “But VietRISE quickly evolved into fighting to change systems.”

https://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news/2026/2026-09-03-tracy-la-raising-a-new-generation-of-vietnamese-leaders

pictured: Tracy La, ’17 social policy & public service. La facilitating a panel of youth canvassers during the primary election about their experience going door to door talking with voters. La organizing a workshop with Vietnamese seniors on Santa Ana’s rent stabilization ordinance, as well as their rights as mobile home residents.

University of California, Irvine University of California UCI Alumni VietRISE Associated Students UCI (ASUCI)

09/01/2026

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, UCLA, and University of Michigan have received nearly $9 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish a new data infrastructure capability that will help scientific communities across the nation use advanced data science and artificial intelligence tools.

The award, called NSF BRIDGE and led by UC Irvine computer science professor Chen Li, helps scientific communities deploy computing platforms tailored to their needs, allowing researchers to share datasets, analysis pipelines, and machine learning models. Built on the open-source Texera system, these platforms can run on public clouds such as Amazon Web Services or on computing clusters operated by research laboratories. They enable scientists to collaborate on data analysis and apply AI techniques without requiring advanced IT or programming skills.

Li, from the Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences, will serve as principal investigator, continuing a career focused on engineering and open-source system building. Co-principal investigators are UCLA’s Wei Wang; Ardalan Amiri Sani, also from ICS at UC Irvine; Kristin Turney from UC Irvine’s School of Social Sciences; and Rui Chen from UC Irvine’s School of Medicine. Subawards go to Wang and Naomi Sugie from UCLA’s College of Social Sciences; Michigan’s Steve Parker; and the Research Cyberinfrastructure Center at UC Irvine.

In addition to five domains the team already worked on, the NSF BRIDGE team is actively looking for partners interested in the software system and service to help their research using data science and AI techniques.

University of California Sociology, UC Irvine

UC Irvine’s Chen Li to help lead NSF-funded national effort

08/27/2026

In her newest work, Landing in Place: A Graphic Novel (Penguin Random House), UC Irvine anthropology professor Sherine Hamdy takes readers on a journey of self-discovery from Long Island to Cairo through the story of Anisa, a recent high school graduate who’s grappling with questions about identity, family and following her dreams. Illustrated by Myra El Mir, Landing in Place is Hamdy’s second graphic novel and first collaboration with El Mir. Below, Hamdy shares what inspired the story, why comics offer a unique medium for exploring complex themes, and what she hopes readers take away from Anisa’s journey. You can also join Hamdy at the Laguna Beach Library on Sept. 10 for a reading and discussion of her latest work.

https://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news/2026/2026-08-27-hamdy-landing-in-place

pictured: Sherine Hamdy with her book cover, Landing in Place

University of California, Irvine University of California OC Public Libraries

08/26/2026

On November 5, the University of California, Irvine Alumni Association will honor 21 accomplished alumni and community leaders at the 2026 Lauds & Laurels ceremony. The premier awards celebration brings together the Anteater community to recognize distinguished contributions across professions, service and leadership. Among those to be honored are four outstanding alumni from the social sciences:

⭐ Hang Virginia Nguyen ’02, M.A.T. ’03 — School of Education Outstanding Alumnus
⭐ Jerry Braakman '95, EMBA ’08 — School of Social Sciences Outstanding Alumnus
⭐ Daniel Klatt ’01 — Outstanding Alumni Athlete
⭐ Mina Shin ’26 — Outstanding Undergraduate Student

The association’s highest honor – the Extraordinarius Award – will go to Ann and Charles Quilter. Learn more below about their significant contributions to the university and broader community, and congrats to all recipients!

pictured clockwise from top left: Hang Virginia Nguyen, Dan Klatt, Mina Shin, Jerry Braakman

https://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news/2026/2026-08-26-lauds-and-laurels.php

University of California, Irvine University of California UCI Alumni Sociology, UC Irvine UCI Department of Political Science UCI School of Education UC Irvine Athletics UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business

08/25/2026

UC Irvine’s 4+1 master’s in Philosophy, Political Science and Economics marked a milestone this spring as the program celebrated its 10th cohort to graduate from the accelerated bachelor’s-to-master’s degree program. The six newly minted master’s recipients walking in the university’s June ceremony completed graduate-level research on topics ranging from artificial intelligence and criminal liability to Latino voting, organized labor, global finance and Mexico’s cartel crisis.

Administered by the Department of Logic & Philosophy of Science within the School of Social Sciences, the unique program allows students to earn a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree in just five years while developing an individualized, interdisciplinary course of study.

Read more below about this innovative program and learn how to apply for the 2027 cohort.

https://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news/2026/2026-08-25-ppe-program-celebrates-tenth-graduating-cohort

pictured: Five of the six 2026 PPE cohort graduates at their June commencement ceremony in the Bren. Courtesy of LPS.

University of California, Irvine University of California UCI Alumni UC Irvine Graduate Division UCI Department of Political Science

08/20/2026

Understanding the enduring impact of immigration detention is the focus of a new Mellon Foundation-funded fellowship supporting UC Irvine sociology assistant professor Mirian Martinez-Aranda in the development of her book manuscript. Drawing on ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews with formerly detained immigrants and their families, Martinez-Aranda will provide substantive documentation of the long-term physical, social and emotional effects that follow detention.

Funding for this work is provided by The Mellon Foundation through the Institute for Citizens & Scholars Career Enhancement Fellowship which supports travel, research and attendance at the institute’s annual retreat. Funding began in June and runs through December 2027.

https://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news/2026/2026-08-20-martinez-aranda-receives-mellon-foundation-career-enhancement-fellowship.php

University of California, Irvine University of California Sociology, UC Irvine Mellon Foundation C&S

08/19/2026

Why is housing so expensive in some American cities—and why does it seem like we can never build enough of it? In this episode of the Wealth Formula Podcast, University of California, Irvine economics Distinguished Professor Emeritus Jan Brueckner, expert in urban economics and real estate markets, dives into the basic economic forces that shape our cities, why housing affordability has become such a serious problem, and how zoning and other land-use restrictions can drive prices higher by limiting supply. ⬇

University of California Wealth Formula

Why is housing so expensive in some American cities—and why does it seem like we can never build enough of it?

We tend to blame everything from interest rates and developers to investors and population growth. But a big part of the answer may be much simpler: in many of the places where people most want to live, we’ve made it extraordinarily difficult to build more housing.

My guest on this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast is Dr. Jan K. Brueckner, professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine, and an expert in urban economics and real estate markets.

We talk about the basic economic forces that shape our cities, why housing affordability has become such a serious problem, and how zoning and other land-use restrictions can drive prices higher by limiting supply.

We also get into upzoning, the push toward greater housing density, and why economists are generally so skeptical of rent control—even though it can certainly benefit the tenants who already have it.

For those of us who invest in real estate, this is an especially interesting conversation because these policies don’t just affect housing affordability.

They can fundamentally change supply, rents, property values, and ultimately the economics of investing in different markets.

Watch on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/Bh7sxGpWaBw

Listen on Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/572-zoning-rent-control-and-the-housing-shortage/id718416620?i=1000783655310

Listen on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5SDfnpHTH6SnFwrn6GZkCE

08/18/2026

A chance encounter in 2010 with a University of Chicago student who was home on winter break led Kristen Monroe, currently UC Irvine Distinguished Professor of Political Science, to launch a mentoring program that’s since served more than 3000 scholars who are interested in exploring some of life’s biggest questions.

This year, the month-long program Summer Mentoring Program wrapped on July 10 and featured 17 modules on topics ranging from AI to hope to nuclear risk. "You really get involved in the research that the mentor is doing," says Monroe. For example, she taught a course on morality during war, so she asked students to interview people who had been in a war to see what it was like. "Another year, I've had courses on the moral of the story — how you learn about ethics through stories — and I said, find somebody, maybe in your family or someone that was important to you, ask them about their life and the moral choices that they made, and then write that up. Do the interview, write it up, and see what that teaches you that you can learn as a young person by talking to someone who's had a longer life and had more experience."

While the program started out with mostly college students, it's not restricted by age nor by academic experience. Today, many local high schoolers take part, as do non-traditional students and seasoned professionals on occasion.

“If you give an opportunity to someone, it's really exciting to see what they do with it, and that's pretty much all we do," says Monroe. "We just show them that there are some doors, and then they go charging through them."

She likens the mentorship program to a ripple effect. "I do one thing that helps somebody else, and then they help somebody else. That's what you want to do in education."

www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news/2026/2026-08-18-ethics-in-action

University of California, Irvine University of California UCI Department of Political Science

08/17/2026

Explaining the ‘vibecession’ | In her first essay for Good Authority, University of California, Irvine political scientist Erin Lockwood explains why consumer sentiment is low, despite measures that show the U.S. economy is thriving

University of California UCI Department of Political Science

Good Authority explains the ‘vibecession.'

By many measures, the U.S. economy is thriving. So why is consumer sentiment so low?

https://goodauthority.org/news/explaining-the-vibecession/

08/14/2026

How money actually works in American elections | Danielle Thomsen, University of California, Irvine political science professor, shares expert insight with Vox

University of California UCI Department of Political Science

The midterms are flooded with cash, but donors don’t always get what they want. A political scientist explains where the money matters most.