Author: Sean Collins

Leonid Capital Partners Named First Place Sponsor for UC Irvine’s 12th Annual Grad Slam Competition

Post author By Sean Collins
Post date February 12, 2026

Irvine, Calif. — The University of California, Irvine will host its 12th annual Grad Slam competition on March 12 at the Verano 8 Community Center. Leonid Capital Partners has been named the event’s First Place sponsor for the second consecutive year.

Part of UC Irvine’s Graduate Division, Grad Slam is a systemwide competition that showcases and awards the best three-minute research presentations by graduate scholars. The competition highlights the excellence, importance, and relevance of graduate research while also strengthening participants’ communication skills.

Leonid Capital Partners is a trusted private credit firm that invests vital capital in companies with government contracts. The firm provides tailored financing solutions—including term loans, lines of credit, and acquisition financing—to help businesses scale and support critical government initiatives.

“We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with Leonid Capital Partners,” said Jaymi Smith, Interim Vice Provost for Graduate Education at UC Irvine. “Leonid has long been a supporter of our graduate scholars, and we are grateful for their continued commitment. It is a pleasure to welcome them back as our Grad Slam First Place sponsor.”

Christopher Lay, co-founder of Leonid Capital Partners, is a proud UC Irvine alumnus who earned his Ph.D. in neurobiology in 2011 and serves on the UCI Graduate Division Dean’s Leadership Council. His professional background spans healthcare, financial services, technology, and specialty finance, with extensive experience in private equity and hedge fund investment environments. Lay will also serve as a judge for this year’s competition.

“UC Irvine has always meant a great deal to me, and Grad Slam captures the very best of the graduate experience,” Lay said. “The Grad Slam program plays a critical role in preparing future leaders and innovators, and we are honored to support it.”

Grad Slam winners receive cash prizes totaling up to $6,500, along with a competitive résumé credential. Judges place strong emphasis on presentation clarity, engagement, and effectiveness for a general university audience.

UC Irvine gratefully acknowledges the support of all 2026 Grad Slam sponsors, including Cie Digital Labs, Johnson & Johnson MedTech, The Pacific Club, AbbVie, UC Irvine Foundation, OC Alliance, UC Irvine Chancellor’s Club, UC Irvine CEO Roundtable, UC Irvine Academic Personnel, UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Informatics and Computer Sciences, UC Irvine’s Samueli School of Engineering, UC Irvine’s School of Education, and UC Irvine’s Charlie Dunlap School of Biological Sciences.

For more information about the event, please contact Raslyn Rendon at rrendon@uci.edu.

About the University of California, Irvine
Founded in 1965, UCI is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu.

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Cie Digital Labs Named Second Place Sponsor for UC Irvine’s 12th Annual Grad Slam Competition

Post author By Sean Collins
Post date February 11, 2026

Irvine, Calif. — The University of California, Irvine will host its 12th annual Grad Slam competition on March 12 at the Verano 8 Community Center. Cie Digital Labs has been named the event’s Second Place sponsor.

“What an honor it is to continue our partnership with Cie,” said Jaymi Smith, Interim Vice Provost for Graduate Education at UC Irvine. “Cie and its founder, Anderee Berengian, have been valued partners of UCI for years. Their work aligns seamlessly with our mission, and we are excited to welcome them back as a Grad Slam sponsor.”

Cie Digital Labs is a venture studio that serves as both an innovation lab for internally generated ideas and an accelerator for bold entrepreneurs seeking to transform disruptive concepts into thriving ventures. In addition to serving as the Second Place sponsor, Anderee Berengian, founder and CEO of Cie Digital Labs, will return as a Grad Slam judge for the second consecutive year.

“I’ve been proud to support the UC Irvine Graduate Division and Grad Slam for several years,” said Berengian. “Serving as a judge has given me a firsthand look at the creativity and talent of these impressive scholars. I always leave this event feeling inspired and optimistic about the future.”

With more than 20 years of experience guiding corporate and product strategy, Berengian is an accomplished entrepreneur, technologist, and investor. At Cie Digital Labs, he leads a world-class, execution-focused team and drives the growth of digital transformation initiatives into sustainable, profitable companies.

UC Irvine gratefully acknowledges the support of all 2026 Grad Slam sponsors, including Leidos, Johnson & Johnson MedTech, Leonid Capital Partners, The Pacific Club, AbbVie, UC Irvine Foundation, OC Alliance, UC Irvine Chancellor’s Club, UC Irvine CEO Roundtable, UC Irvine Academic Personnel, UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Informatics and Computer Sciences, UC Irvine’s Samueli School of Engineering, UC Irvine’s School of Education, and UC Irvine’s Charlie Dunlap School of Biological Sciences.

For more information about the event, please contact Raslyn Rendon at rrendon@uci.edu.

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“Talking Together” With Jay Connor

Post author By Sean Collins
Post date December 23, 2025

Jay Connor

When Joseph A. “Jay” Connor and his wife, Carol McDonald Connor, first met in Chicago in the 1970s, they were two young professionals bonded by their aspiration for meaningful work and impact. Three children, two careers, and countless conversations later, they launched a shared effort to help every child in America learn to read by the end of third grade, eventually bringing the couple back to Southern California after Carol accepted the prestigious role of Chancellor’s Professor at UC Irvine’s School of Education in 2016. Using Carol’s rigorously tested and proven technology that enables teachers to individualize reading instruction, their company worked with schools to turn thousands of students across the nation into proficient readers. In 2022, after Carol’s untimely death from cancer, Jay sold the technology to Scholastic, which had the resources and reach to continue the Connors’ mission.

Dr. Connor’s legacy still lives on to this day through UCI’s Carol Connor Equity Advisor Impact Award. The award recognizes former and current equity advisors in pioneering, innovative and evidence-based peer mentoring and consultations to advance diversity, equity and inclusion at UCI.

UC Irvine Graduate Division caught up with Jay to talk about his journey, how he still honors Carol’s legacy, and much more. Jay and Carol’s inspirational journey together is also documented in his new book “Talking Together”, which can be purchased on Amazon.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Let’s start with your book. You and Carol have a special love for each other, and you built a beautiful family together. How did the academic side tie into all of that?

A: The title of Talking Together comes from Carol’s dissertation and reflects a central idea in our marriage: a true partnership empowers both people. Early on, our focus was supporting my corporate career. Later, when Carol pursued her PhD, I shifted so she could have the same freedom and support she had given me. In time, my corporate experience helped translate her academic research and resulting technology (called A2i) into real-world impact—something we didn’t plan, but that came full circle.

At the heart of it all was what I think of as a “through line”—a shared set of values that guided our decisions, especially when things were difficult. Talking together was our way of maintaining that through line, reminding ourselves that life isn’t just about what happens to you, but how you respond, guided by a clear sense of purpose and shared direction.

Q: Can you share a bit of your professional background?

A: I earned a joint JD/MBA from Northwestern on a full scholarship. I started in business school and quickly discovered my passion for business. I enjoyed building things, bringing people together, and achieving results. While law school proved valuable, I never intended to practice law and never took the bar, as business became my true focus.

My career began in marketing and evolved into creating tools that help people accomplish meaningful goals. That perspective carried through later, when Carol developed new educational technology. Her work created tools that enabled teachers to do things that had previously been very difficult, and it aligned perfectly with the same “through line” that had guided my career all along, which was using collaboration and practical tools to drive real results.

Q: For those who don’t know, can you please explain the basis behind Carol’s research?

A: Carol’s research grew out of a fundamental problem: we are doing a poor job helping children learn to read, a challenge seen not only in the U.S., but internationally. For decades, reading instruction has been framed as a false choice between two opposing methods—whole language or phonics—rather than focusing on what the individual child actually needs.

Carol’s path to literacy research began in the late 1990s through her work on cochlear implants at the University of Michigan. Her research showed that early access to sound was critical for language development, influencing policy to allow infants to receive implants. That work led her to focus on how language develops and, ultimately, how children learn to read.

Her research demonstrated that children learn differently. Some need more phonics, others thrive with independent reading. Carol’s technology allows teachers, even in large classrooms, to individualize instruction by grouping students effectively and matching them with the right materials from their existing curriculum. Without this shift toward individualized learning, reading outcomes have remained stagnant for decades, with more than a third of students still struggling to read.

Q: Is the biggest issue due to resources or is it not implementing the right technique? Or both?

A: Early on, the biggest barrier wasn’t resources or technique—it was the lack of agreement among researchers. That’s why Carol’s first major paper was Beyond the Reading Wars, calling for an end to ideological battles so real change could happen. For years, approaches became identities, and the focus shifted from outcomes to defending strategies.

The real shift comes when you stop asking what method you’re using and start asking what results you’re getting. Within existing classrooms and budgets, it’s possible to do better, but decades of failure created psychological inertia. Low expectations became the norm, and blame shifted to students and families rather than systems.

What was needed was a new approach and technology that made doing it right easier than doing it wrong. Carol’s technology to individualize instruction helped teachers succeed in teaching almost all their students how to read. Universities play a critical role here: they have the credibility to say that having a third of children unable to read is unacceptable and to reframe the conversation around accountability without blame. That changes the dialogue from excuses to shared responsibility and action.

Q: How did your family end up at UC Irvine?

A: It was a long, circuitous journey. We lived in Southern California when our kids were very young, and that early experience left a lasting imprint. Even after moving back to Michigan, our children all gravitated back to California for school and careers.

Over the next 20 years, we kept moving closer, from Ann Arbor (University of Michigan) to Florida State, then Arizona State—until we were recruited by both UCI and Stanford at the same time. UCI ultimately won out because of our deep affinity for Southern California and the opportunity to have all our kids nearby.

Q: What went into the decision to start the Carol Connor Equity Advisor Impact Award?

A: The award grew out of conversations with the Graduate Division, initially with former dean Dr. Gillian Hayes, as I was thinking about meaningful ways to honor Carol’s legacy. While my instinct was to focus on the School of Education, Gillian shared plans for an additional initiative, which became the Carol Connor Equity Advisor Impact Award. I was so impressed by the Graduate Division’s vision that I decided to endow it, even though it wasn’t a donor-driven request.

What made it especially meaningful was seeing the first award recipient reinvest the funds—exactly what Carol would have done. The award reflects a broader goal: connecting groundbreaking research, whether in education, health, or science, to real-world impact. UCI, and Orange County in particular, offer an ideal environment for this kind of applied innovation, which is why my focus remains on graduate education—where ideas are translated into tools, use cases, and lasting change.

Q: What are your next steps with Carol’s research?

A: In many ways, I’ve passed the baton. Through Learning Innovations, which was acquired by Scholastic, A2i (Assessment to Instruction) and its intellectual property are now in the hands of an organization capable of scaling it to thousands of school districts. That responsibility for implementation has moved forward.

My focus now is on recognition and learning—supporting the School of Education and the Graduate Division and using the book and this new grant to explore how research moves into real-world practice. The goal has shifted from measuring impact solely by how many children can read to sharing what we’ve learned about turning research into outcomes. That broader lens naturally extends from the School of Education to the entire university, where those lessons can inform impact across disciplines.

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Building Connection and Confidence: How Graduate Networking Mixers Are Transforming Student Success

Post author By Sean Collins
Post date December 12, 2025

By Trista Acebo for NC State

In today’s competitive job market, technical expertise and academic excellence only go so far. The ability to build relationships has become one of the most valuable competencies graduate students can possess. Recognizing this need, the UC Irvine Graduate Division launched a series of networking mixers designed specifically to support scholars in strengthening these essential skills. Jennifer Ellinger, Associate Director of Development and Industry Partnerships, shares how these mixers came to life and the impact they are having on graduate student success.

Why Networking Mixers are Meeting a Critical Need

Ellinger shared that the inspiration for these mixers came from a simple and powerful insight: graduate students benefit profoundly from strong, supportive networks. Whether they are seeking mentorship during their academic journey, preparing for career transitions, or exploring employment opportunities, students thrive when connected to people who can guide, encourage, and open doors.

“Networking is one of the most valuable competencies our scholars can have,” she explained. “They need these skills to build relationships with mentors during their degree, prepare for career goals near completion, and ultimately secure roles through introductions, referrals, or direct hiring.”

Preparing Students for Meaningful Engagement

For many graduate students, especially those who are new to networking or introverted by nature, the thought of initiating professional conversations can be daunting. To reduce anxiety and build confidence, Ellinger and her team integrate preparation into the Graduate Division’s broader career development programming.

Through the Career Foundation Series and Career Transitions Series, students learn not only the value of networking but also how to practice it in real time. Sessions focus on building a personal “board of directors,” cultivating mentor relationships, and crafting polished elevator pitches. This gives students clear objectives and conversation goals before entering the room.

Creating a safe environment is also central to the mixers’ success. All external guests—alumni, industry partners, and community professionals—are briefed beforehand and understand their role as micro-mentors. They come ready to offer insights, share their experiences, and continue conversations after the event.

“We want our scholars to feel prepared and supported,” Ellinger said. ” We brief our partners, share guest lists with our students, and encourage LinkedIn pre-connections. We also follow up several times leading up to the event so students feel welcome and know what to expect.”

What Makes These Events Work?

When asked what elements contribute most to the mixers’ success, Ellinger pointed to several key components:

Structured Preparation
- Students enter confident, knowledgeable, and equipped with conversation starters.
Partner Engagement
- Trusted alumni, industry leaders, and community partners serve as approachable guides and micro-mentors.
Strategic Timing
- Mixers are held on campus in the evenings at the end of each academic quarter, when students are more available.
Supplemental Learning Tools
- Asynchronous modules through Beyond the Professoriate, Interstride, and Career Center recordings reinforce networking skills.
Welcoming Atmosphere
- This combination of preparation, logistics, and hospitality results in events that feel both structured and welcoming.

Micro-Mentorship: The Heart of the Mixers

One of the most valuable outcomes of these events is the emergence of micro-mentorship opportunities. Before the mixer, students receive guest LinkedIn profiles to help them prepare personalized introductions. Afterward, they are provided with guest email addresses to encourage follow-up.

Ellinger emphasizes that this is where real relationships begin: “We encourage students to reach out, invite someone to coffee, and build genuine, holistic connections. Many of these brief interactions turn into meaningful mentorship opportunities.”

Advice for Institutions Looking to Launch Networking Mixers

For other universities hoping to replicate UCI’s model, Ellinger offers clear advice: start small.

“Work with trusted partners first so you can fine-tune logistics with a smaller group,” she recommended. “Collect feedback, refine your approach, and then scale. When you’re ready, aim for about 25 students and 20 external guests—you’ll always have some fallout on both sides.”

She also emphasized the power of personalized communication. Rather than sending mass emails, her team sends individual invitations, calendar holds, and detailed logistical notes including parking, attire, event flow, and participant information. Immediate follow-up after each mixer keeps momentum strong.

Lessons Learned: Preparing for the Unexpected

No event is without its surprises. Ellinger shared that unexpected issues—weather disruptions, late food deliveries, last-minute cancellations, or an unexpected guest—are inevitable. The key is staying flexible and maintaining a strong staff presence.

“It’s important to have staff circulating, not just sitting at a check-in table,” she said. “We make sure someone is available to facilitate introductions, support students who may need to recharge, and help anyone who feels unsure about approaching a group.”

This hands-on support ensures that every student feels seen, included, and encouraged.

Strengthening Graduate Success Through Connection

UC Irvine’s networking mixers represent more than just an evening of introductions—they are part of a broader initiative to cultivate confidence, community, and career readiness among graduate scholars. Through intentional preparation, personalized engagement, and a commitment to student wellbeing, these events are helping students build the social capital they need to thrive beyond their academic programs.

As Ellinger’s insights make clear, well-designed networking events can become powerful tools for professional growth, mentorship, and long-term success.

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Minding The Gap

Post author By Sean Collins
Post date November 20, 2025

Christine Byrd for UC Irvine School of Social Sciences

In the last five years, more than a million people have crossed the Darién Gap, a roadless, mountainous swath of rainforest between Panama and Colombia that is partially controlled by a paramilitary group. The treacherous journey has been undertaken on foot by migrants from Africa, Asia, Europe and South America seeking a better life in North America. Maira Delgado Laurens, a fifth-year graduate student in global and international studies at UC Irvine, has twice traveled to Colombia to compare the realities on the ground to official statements and media coverage about the Darién region—a focal point for international migration from 2020-2024.

“Maira challenges conventional scholarship on migration by taking a global perspective, allowing her to analyze the mobility of people across borders, regions and continents that previously had not been studied,” says Eve Darian-Smith, Distinguished Professor and chair of global and international studies.

Delgado Laurens’ own story begins in Colombia, where she was born in the capital city of Bogotá. After migrating to join her mother in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2005, Delgado Laurens learned English at a community college and, with the encouragement of school counselors, transferred to UC Davis to study sociology. She found herself seeking out classes about migration, she says, as a way to better understand her own evolving identity as an immigrant in the U.S.

After earning a bachelor’s degree, Delgado Laurens worked for programs that offered academic support services to underserved community college students. She cherishes her work and even now considers returning to community college some day to teach courses on international migration and immigration.

Delgado Laurens went on to complete a master’s in migration studies at the University of San Francisco before relocating to Los Angeles, where she wanted to continue her research on the ways in which global governance, human rights and immigration intersected. She soon realized she did not need to look any further than UC Irvine’s Department of Global and International Studies.

“I started learning about the department’s approach to study social phenomena by looking at its impacts beyond geographic boundaries. Understanding that events taking place within community and local spaces can have impacts at the global level,” Delgado Laurens explains. “When you think about (im)migration, it’s impossible not to think about boundaries, but a global perspective helped see its impacts on this local-global continuum.”

During her time in the program, Delgado Laurens’ research interests evolved. More than a half million people trekked across the Darién Gap in 2023—an all-time high—traveling through South and Central American countries. The majority at that time were from Venezuela, but migrants from Haiti, China, India, Afghanistan and African countries also traversed the route on their journeys to Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. The situation on the ground at the Darién Gap, and its role in a larger global migration phenomenon, fascinated Delgado Laurens.

“Maira is one of those scholars that as she reads and learns more about her project in the field, she is also constantly rethinking her project and asking new and insightful questions,” says Darian-Smith. “She is a delight to work with.”

In 2023, with funding from UC Irvine’s Miguel Velez Scholarship, Delgado Laurens expanded her research on the ground by traveling to Ipiales and Medellín, two of the Colombian cities that many migrants pass through on their journey north.

“The dominant narrative is that the Darién region is dangerous and you should not try to cross. But there’s also a narrative that the Colombian government protects migration as a human right, even if it doesn’t look like that’s the case on the ground,” says Delgado Laurens. “That’s the tension.”

In 2024, she once again received Velez scholarship funding, as well as a grant—with three other researchers—from the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) to go to the Colombian side of the Darién Region. Delgado Laurens and her fellow researchers interviewed locals, government officials, humanitarian rights advocates, and church leaders. Traveling to the town of Necoclí from the city of Medellín, their bus got stranded for about 12 hours due to a miners’ strike road block. The unexpected delay was a gift to the researchers, providing a rare glimpse into the social ties that migrants forged before crossing the jungle.

“We had the opportunity to see how these individuals supported each other, provided information, and formed groups to take care of each other, all within that space of struggle and uncertainty,” Delgado Laurens says. “They also found ways to be hopeful about their journey through the jungle despite being aware of the difficulties they were going to face.”

When they finally arrived in the Colombian towns bordering the jungle, Delgado Laurens was surprised by how the residents helped and supported the migrants on the journey. Despite the fact that the locals had been displaced and experienced violence at the hands of the paramilitary group in the region, they chose to organize—often through their churches—meals for migrants, or offered a place to wash their clothes. They even planned recreational activities for children living at a beach encampment, on their journey north.

Already, she has begun sharing early findings. She and the other three research collaborators contributed a chapter to a book published by CLACSO in May 2025. Then this fall, Delgado Laurens spoke at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability’s 7th annual International Migration and Displacement Workshop in Bonn, Germany, on “Bottom-Up Solidarity vs. Top-Down Humanitarianism: Reshaping Social Cohesion in Colombian Towns Adjacent to the Darién Gap.” Later this year, she will participate in a workshop focused on the Darién Gap at the National Autonomous University of México Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas.

Her research at the outskirts of the Darien region, and ongoing interviews, form the foundation of Delgado Laurens’ dissertation—which will help shed light on the politically, economically, socially and environmentally complicated segment of rainforest that so many migrants have crossed.

“I love the global studies program at UC Irvine, and how diverse our faculty’s research projects and methodologies are – it’s knowledge you don’t get from every program,” Delgado Laurens says. “The idea of looking at social phenomena from this local-global perspective can really help create transdisciplinary projects.”

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Economics for Social Good

Post author By Sean Collins
Post date November 18, 2025

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Christine Byrd for UC Irvine School of Social Sciences

Cassie Zhang was creating lessons for children in Kenya and rural China who lacked basic educational resources when she started reflecting on her background in economics. She wondered if she could make a bigger impact by helping people make better-informed economic decisions for their social welfare.

The question brought Zhang back to her alma mater to pursue a doctorate in UC Irvine’s economics department — ranked among the nation’s top 20 public economics graduate programs in the U.S. Now in the fifth year of her doctoral program, Zhang has spent the better part of a decade as an Anteater, while her parents remain 6,000 miles away in China. The campus has become a second home, while her faculty mentors and the students she has guided, have become like family.

“We’re not here by ourselves. With UCI’s supportive environment, you have company. You always have supportive peers and mentors to keep going and help you find your way,” Zhang says. “And then, looking back on how far you’ve come, you are able to mentor others, continuing this great circle of support.”

Education abroad

When Zhang came to UC Irvine as an undergraduate in 2013, she was interested in helping international students understand the rules and processes they needed to succeed.

“People then mainly thought international students faced language barriers and culture shock, but I think there’s way more to it,” Zhang says. “I wanted to ensure students had a voice, and that schools understood international students’ needs.”

Zhang’s empathy stemmed from her own difficult transition. Her parents sent her abroad for high school because they feared she could not get into a good college in China. But at her private international school in California, Zhang felt manipulated by administrators who required her to take additional tutoring – which cost her family more. On top of that, peers bullied her for befriending classmates outside of her own nationality. The experience made her more sensitive to peers who may be struggling in silence.

At UC Irvine, she provided peer mentorship and guidance through the International Center, LGBT Resource Center, and School of Social Sciences Undergraduate Student Affairs Office. Zhang also developed strong connections with UC Irvine faculty in economics and international studies, which she double majored in.

“I love UCI and the economics department,” says Zhang. “They want you to pursue what you’re interested in, try different things, and they will support you in ways I don’t think you can get anywhere else.”

After graduating from the School of Social Sciences with the Order of Merit and Chancellor’s Award of Distinction in 2017, Zhang pursued a master’s in International Comparative Education from Stanford University. Zhang’s time in the master’s program coincided with the outbreak of COVID-19 in her hometown. The fear and helplessness she felt in the early months for her family in Wuhan, China, only became clear to her peers and professors later, when the pandemic reached their own community. This gap in how she experienced the outbreak further fueled her desire to support international students in their educational journeys.

For her thesis, she drew on her strengths in economics and math to develop a theorem that describes how mental health impacts international students’ academic performance. For example, she found some Chinese international students experience a combination of familial pressure and a fixed mindset that creates significant stress – enough to negatively impact academic performance.

Economics to address social challenges

Zhang started working in international education, joining the non-governmental organization Education Without Barriers, where she developed online curriculum for underserved students in Kenya and rural China. But that role quickly brought her full circle back to economics.

“I witnessed how financial constraints impact educational opportunities. Those experiences, especially during the pandemic, shifted my focus to economics,” Zhang says. “I wanted to understand how governments and companies affect consumer and social welfare, and use economic analysis to develop evidence-based policies that would enhance welfare and support those in need.”

Zhang did not need to look further than UC Irvine when choosing where to pursue graduate studies. She had built good relationships with several of UC Irvine’s economics faculty during her undergraduate years, and she knew that UC Irvine’s economics program ranks in the top 20 nationally with concentrations in monetary policy and central banking, public choice and transportation. Plus, she missed the campus.

Early in the doctoral program, Zhang attended a lecture with the Institute of Transportation Studies and became interested in how consumers decide to switch to electric vehicles, and whether they put too much value on purchase price without factoring in longer-term savings on fuel and maintenance. She spent six months collecting data for the project – a much bigger undertaking than she first imagined — and wrote her second-year paper on the topic.

Now, she is collaborating with faculty at UC Irvine and UC Berkeley on a project to better understand how the shift to EVs will impact highway infrastructure, which is largely funded by gas taxes. She is also examining the 2024 merger of Alaskan and Hawaiian Airlines to understand how it impacted travelers in ways hidden outside of ticket prices — like legroom and checked bag fees.

“These projects both show how consumers often don’t have direct access to the information they need in order to make the best decisions,” Zhang explains.

Her research has already garnered accolades. Her analysis of the airline merger recently won the 2024-25 Ken Small Award from the economics department. She also received the 2025 Otto W. Shaler Scholarship for international students and the Long US-China Institute’s graduate research grant.

“Her work on electric vehicle policies and airline merger analysis demonstrates not only methodological rigor but also a deep understanding of how economic research can address pressing societal challenges like sustainable transportation and market competition,” says Jiawei Chen, associate professor of economics, and Zhang’s thesis advisor. “I expect Cassie to become a leading voice in applied economics, particularly in areas where rigorous empirical analysis meets critical policy questions. Her background in education and social services, paired with her expertise in economics, positions her to bridge the gap between academic research and practical policy solutions that improve people’s lives.”

A ‘scholar-citizen’

Zhang’s commitment to supporting students remains as strong as ever. In addition to mentoring undergraduates as a teaching assistant, Zhang was selected for the competitive Diverse Educational Community and Doctoral Experience (DECADE) program and served as the DECADE representative for the economics department. In that role, she and peers organize lectures and luncheons to foster a more inclusive, supportive environment among graduate students and with faculty.

“What truly sets Cassie apart is her commitment to lifting others up, through both her dedication to supporting and mentoring fellow students and her focus on research that serves the public good,” says Chen. “She exemplifies the kind of scholar-citizen we hope to cultivate: intellectually rigorous, socially engaged, and deeply committed to using her expertise to make a positive impact.”

As she enters her final year in the doctoral program, Zhang is looking to the future. She plans to go on the job market for an academic position – the path taken by about half of UC Irvine’s economics graduate students. Recently, she was selected as a Division of Teaching Excellence & Innovation Graduate Scholar, and will be working with Santa Ana College instructors, gaining insight into the educational needs at the community college level.

“People say, ‘I want to make the world a better place,’ and I think education is an important tool to do that,” says Zhang. “When you receive education, you change your life. And when you use your education to help others, you change the world around you.”

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From Data to Models

Post author By Sean Collins
Post date November 13, 2025

Jill Kato for UC Irvine School of Social Sciences

Growing up in the rural Philippines, Kathleen Medriano learned early on that opportunity wasn’t always nearby. It could lie across towns, between disciplines, and even across oceans. At eight, she moved with her family to a farm so her parents could focus on their business. At eleven, she left home with her siblings to pursue a better education in a town two hours away. For college, she moved to Metro Manila. Through it all, she developed the ability to adapt, to work independently, and to see education not as a given but as something to be pursued.

Now a cognitive sciences Ph.D. student at UC Irvine in her fourth year, she’s interested in how people make decisions and how cognitive processes can be better captured through data-driven modeling.

Shifting course

In college in the Philippines, Medriano majored in psychology with plans to enter medicine. She imagined she might one day become a neurologist or neurosurgeon. While the courses she took opened her eyes to new ways of thinking, she found herself wanting a more structured way of understanding the mind. So, after graduation, she enrolled in a graduate program in mathematics, where she found a new kind of precision and a way of thinking that would later shape her research.

“Mathematics insists on abstract thinking. It teaches you to find shared structures across problems. That changed how I approached research,” she says.

After earning the graduate diploma, she took a job as a data analyst at a multinational financial technology company. During the pandemic, when she was forced to work from home, the distance between her job and her intellectual interests became harder to ignore.

“I wanted to return to the kinds of questions that had always interested me, like how people make decisions and what cognitive processes guide them,” she says.

At the time, she didn’t know that research, and eventually a Ph.D., would be the next step. Searching online, she came across a profile of a student from her university who had earned a master’s degree abroad and realized that maybe that was something she could do too.

She reached out to the student, and through that connection discovered a broader network of Filipino graduate students and postdocs, many of whom were mentoring others back home.

A meeting of minds

With support from that network, Medriano applied to programs worldwide. She focused on programs that would allow her to bring together her interests in the mind, mathematics, and data.

What set UC Irvine apart during the application process wasn’t just the strength of its cognitive sciences program. It was a 15-minute recruitment call that stretched into an hour and a half.

Medriano had originally applied to work with a different professor, but as part of the recruitment process was also scheduled to speak with cognitive sciences professor Joachim Vandekerckhove. What followed was less an interview than an idea-driven conversation.

“We were just brainstorming,” she says. “It turned into this open exchange of ideas. I realized pretty quickly that I could work with him.”

Vandekerckhove saw the same potential.

“Kath’s work sits at the intersection of cognitive science, statistics, and AI/ML,” he says, referring to artificial intelligence and machine learning. “This is an extremely fast-changing area of science and knowing that there are talented junior scholars tackling these subtle but important problems is both exciting and comforting.”

Early on, their conversations focused not only on technical fit, but on understanding where the field was heading.

“Outside of a research department it’s difficult to know what topics are interesting to the field now and in the near future. This is something we worked on together: to get a bird’s-eye view of the world of data-driven cognitive science.”

That shared way of thinking—analytical, interdisciplinary, forward-looking—has shaped their mentorship ever since.

Model discovery

Medriano is developing new approaches to cognitive modeling that challenge conventional assumptions.

“In research, it’s typical to choose a model and then fit it to your data. But that means your conclusions depend entirely on your chosen model—its structure and all the assumptions baked into it,” she says.

Medriano’s research inverts this procedure to discover plausible models that generated the data. Rather than beginning with a model, she starts with the data itself, using statistical techniques to let patterns and potential models emerge directly from it. She’s particularly interested in extending her methods to other areas in cognitive science where empirical findings often accumulate without a clear theoretical thread.

“A lot of findings get reported, but we don’t always know how they fit together. I think these methods can help bring more coherence,” she says about the applicability of her research.

In the coming years, she’s looking forward to collaborating across disciplines, especially with neuroscientists whose data may benefit from more flexible modeling frameworks.

“I hope to develop broader networks. The tools I’m working on are field-agnostic. They can apply to brain signals, behavior, even economic data. That kind of versatility excites me,” she says.

Making sense

Early in the program, Medriano also decided to pursue a master’s in statistics alongside her Ph.D., a path available to students with strong quantitative interests. Balancing both wasn’t easy. The dual program demands more coursework and technical depth than most students are asked to complete. But for Medriano, the combination has been foundational. And often, the most meaningful parts of her experience have come not from the research itself, but from the relationships it has made possible.

“There were two of us doing the stats masters. We struggled together. And shared struggles create deeper bonds,” she says.

Her community now includes close friends in her cohort, a tight-knit lab group, a local badminton circle, and a small but supportive Filipino academic network, two members of which are UC Irvine faculty.

Looking ahead, she imagines a future in research. What matters most is that the work stays intellectually alive and grounded in curiosity.

“I want to understand how we think in a way that doesn’t skip steps. One way to check that is by focusing on the data and seeing what potential models might have generated it,” she says. “There’s something about that inversion procedure that makes sense.”

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More Than A Status

Post author By Sean Collins
Post date October 30, 2025

Jill Kato for UC Irvine School of Social Sciences

Jozef Robles never expected to be here at UC Irvine, or in a Ph.D. program in one of the top-ranked sociology departments in the country. He never expected to be preparing to interview for faculty jobs or traveling to conduct dissertation fieldwork funded by prestigious fellowships.

“Just being able to say that I even qualify for things like this is surreal,” he says. “My 18-year-old self would have never believed it.”

What stays with us

Robles’s dissertation, The Transformative Effects of U.S. Immigration Law Post Legal Status Regularization: A Comparative Analysis, explores what happens to undocumented immigrants after they gain legal status. His fieldwork took him from Southern California to Houston, where he conducted 76 interviews with formerly undocumented Mexican and South Korean immigrants who adjusted their status after 2016.

“People often assume that once you’re a resident or a citizen you have nothing to worry about,” he says. “But what we’re seeing now is that those protections are far from guaranteed.”

His research challenges assumptions about immigration and belonging. Gaining legal status doesn’t automatically erase fear or stigma. Many continue to behave in ways shaped by years of living in the shadows, such as pulling over to avoid police, even when there’s no longer a need. Robles’s research explores how those behaviors and emotions persist well after someone gains legal status.

“Jozef’s innovative dissertation centers around a phenomenon he calls the ‘remnants of illegality,’ the psychological and material implications of illegality that continue to shape immigrants’ life experiences long after they have adjusted their legal status,” says Irene Vega, associate professor of sociology and chair of Robles’s dissertation committee. “His dissertation is going to change the way we think about the lasting impacts of illegality.”

For many, legal status once eclipsed all other parts of their identity. Robles finds that after legalization, people begin to view themselves through a more racial lens. With the burden of illegality lifted, race becomes newly visible and salient.

That kind of perspective, one that bridges the personal and the structural, is what Robles brings to his own academic path, shaped as much by experience as by his research.

Disbelief to determination

For the early part of his life, Robles was undocumented. He was brought to the United States from Mexico at the age of two and grew up in Orange County believing he was just like everyone else.

“Then I suddenly realized I wasn’t – I wasn’t legally supposed to be here. It was a lot to take in.”

That realization unraveled Robles’ sense of identity. He had always been good at school, but now higher education felt like a dream that didn’t belong to him. He questioned the point of going to college if he couldn’t work legally afterward. His ambitions faded, and for a time, he dropped out.

But everything changed in 2013, when Robles received protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. It gave him permission to work and a foothold to imagine something more.

“I think that undocumented status absolutely just rocked so many things in my life,” he says. “It changed who I thought I was, and my ambitions in this country.”

DACA allowed him to return to school with a renewed sense of purpose. He earned two associate degrees with honors from Santiago Canyon College, followed by a sociology degree from Cal State Long Beach and a master’s from Cal State Fullerton. And he’s now in his fifth year as a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at UC Irvine, working on a dissertation that builds directly from his own story and those of many others.

Where he needed to be

UC Irvine was never supposed to be Robles’ destination.

“When I applied, I told myself, I’ll only go if I don’t get in anywhere else,” Robles says laughing at the irony. “I wanted to finally have that American college experience—go somewhere new, live in a dorm, be far from home. Irvine was just too close.”

After growing up undocumented, grad school was an opportunity to live somewhere else. And at first, he planned to. But something shifted. During his interview, he spoke with Vega and felt an immediate connection.

“There are just some people you click with,” he says about their first meeting.

Robles was also drawn to the department’s culture of mentoring and the resources available to students. As he attended virtual open houses during the pandemic, UC Irvine rose to the top of his list. Then his husband was accepted into a master’s program on campus and the decision was clear.

“I think sometimes life points you in the direction that you need to go, even if it’s not where you think you want to be,” Robles says. “Looking back, I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.”

That decision proved to be the right one. Robles quickly found his footing in the program and began building the kind of scholarship he once thought might be out of reach.

“Jozef is an absolute star—he is intellectually curious, creative, astute, and has impeccable work ethic,” says Vega. “He continues to grow in skill and confidence. I am very much looking forward to his very bright future in academia—we are lucky to have him.”

Perfect alignment

Robles credits much of his progress to mentorship. Vega helped him publish his first solo-authored article. Another faculty member, sociology associate professor Rocío Rosales, co-leads a project with him interviewing immigrants in detention centers through letter writing.

“There’s so much about academia that isn’t written down, things you don’t know how to ask,” he says. “Being part of groups like the qualitative research collective, getting feedback, and just having people invest in you—that’s made a huge difference.”

Robles is also grateful for the support he has outside of campus. His husband, who he calls his biggest support system, has walked a similar academic path.

“We’ve both had to put our education on hold at different points, and now we’re doing it together,” he says. “I don’t know if I could do this without him.”

After years of uncertainty, Robles now has permanent residency and completed his citizenship interview this summer. As he finishes his dissertation, he’s turning his attention toward faculty and postdoctoral applications—steps that mark not just a career transition, but a life redefined.

“I’ve been trying to understand who I am now, merging the different parts of my life,” he says. “Now that I’m a citizen, I’m exploring my identity outside of my previous legal status. For the first time, who I believe myself to be and how the country sees me are finally in alignment.”

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Where Global Meets Local

Post author By Sean Collins
Post date October 28, 2025

Christine Byrd for the UC Irvine School of Social Sciences

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, UC Irvine graduate student Gvantsa Gasviani was surprised at how the conflict reshaped her home country of Georgia. On one visit, she noticed anti-Russian graffiti on nearly every street, amid a surge of Russian exiles moving in.

“I was really curious to learn about these people who uprooted their lives in Russia to avoid participating in the war in Ukraine, but came to a country that was hostile to them,” Gasviani says. “I felt it was very important and needs to be talked about – especially in the West.”

Now a sixth-year graduate student in global & international studies, Gasviani has published in three peer-reviewed journals about post-Soviet Georgia, and is writing her dissertation on emigres who fled Russia after it invaded Ukraine. Thanks to grants from the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies and the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding, she has twice traveled to Georgia to interview immigrants about how their lives in Russia changed after the war started, and why they fled their homeland.

Gasviani’s background makes her ideally suited for this research. Born in Georgia on the coast of the Black Sea, she spent 18 months in Moscow as a child, where she learned to speak Russian in addition to her native Georgian. She studied international relations in Georgia before earning a master’s in global studies through an English-language program that spanned universities in Denmark and Germany as well as the University of California, Santa Barbara. It was there that she first read The Global Turn by Eve Darian-Smith, UC Irvine Distinguished Professor of global & international studies and department chair, and and Philip McCarty, global & international studies associate professor teaching. Gasviani knew intuitively that she wanted to use the book’s method.

“Given the transdisciplinary nature of the field, selecting appropriate research methods in global studies can be challenging. Finding a book that engaged with these very questions, and having the opportunity to work with its authors, made my decision to pursue the Ph.D. program in global studies at UCI both clear and compelling,” Gasviani explains. “Having come from a small country, I always understood that the global impacts us locally.”

Research pivot

Gasviani joined the inaugural cohort of graduate students in the UC Irvine Department of Global & International Studies in 2020. Since officially earning department status in 2017, global & international studies has expanded to 17 faculty and 28 graduate students pursuing interdisciplinary research projects exploring social, cultural, economic, political, legal and historical contexts in locations all around the world.

Many of Gasviani’s peers in the graduate program are also international students, and their diversity strengthens the group’s supportiveness.

“The greatest thing about our cohort is that all of our research is extremely different, so you don’t feel any pressure of competition,” she explains. “We’re all studying completely different things in different parts of the world, but we can still help each other because we’re using the same framework. Everyone is very supportive.”

“Additionally, I’ve benefited from the invaluable support of my dissertation chair, Long Bui, who played a major role in helping me publish my work,” she adds. “Through his detailed feedback and constant encouragement, he guided me and made it possible for me to publish in a peer-reviewed journal as early as my second year as a Ph.D. student.”

Initially, Gasviani was researching how different generations of Georgian women coped with the legacy of Soviet control. But when she went home the summer of 2022, she was struck by openly anti-Russian sentiment in the capital city Tbilisi, and wondered what had compelled so many Russians to flee their homes. She started interviewing the recent exiles and ultimately pivoted her dissertation research to focus on this emerging issue.

Gasviani’s advisor, Long Bui, professor of global & international studies, was instrumental in helping her decide to refocus her research on the unfolding events in Eastern Europe.

“Deploying multiple methodologies and crossing various fields, Gvantsa embodies the kind of interdisciplinary research that is done in global and international studies,” says Bui. “It speaks to our department’s focus on matters of social justice and issues related to the Global South.”

Through dozens of interviews with exiles, Gasviani notes two major themes. First she noticed a gender dynamic for Russians in exile. Whether they stayed in Russia and avoided being conscripted, or left the country to avoid a war they considered unjust, their actions were considered emasculating. The war has become a tool for more harsh “gender discipline,” strictly prescribing how men and women are supposed to behave in public. At the same time, the line between public and private behavior dissolved in Russia.

“There’s been an understanding since the late Soviet era, that you could act certain ways in private as long as in public you demonstrated loyalty to the Russian government,” said Gasviani. This included homosexuality, which is effectively outlawed. “Many of the people I interviewed were queer, and they had vibrant queer lifestyles in Moscow and St. Petersburg before the war — there was even rumored to be a gay bar right across from the Kremlin.”

But after the war escalated in 2022, that changed. People started reporting their neighbors, coworkers and even family members who expressed any lack of support for the war — or even used forbidden terms like “war” to describe the invasion of Ukraine.

Gasviani also studies media and propaganda from the region, and recently published a peer-reviewed paper in The Journal of International Global Studies about how masculinity was depicted through Western media’s coverage of the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, she argued, was celebrated in popular media as a strong man fighting to defend his country, while Putin’s masculinity was cast in a negative light. Regardless of whether it’s positive or negative masculinity, Gasviani says any propaganda that associates manliness with militarization is not going to help end the war.

Teaching & mentoring

One of Gasviani’s favorite parts of the graduate program is teaching UC Irvine’s diverse undergraduate population in courses like the introduction to global studies.

“I love big intro classes because we get to have discussion sections with students,” she says. “I like to use real-life examples, including from my own experience in post-Soviet spaces, to show how big concepts are relevant in everyday life. I think the students really like to learn about hidden parts of history — what they weren’t taught in high school.”

To strengthen her own teaching, Gasviani participated in the CSU Pre-Professor Program (PREPP), where she was paired with a mentor on the faculty at CSU Dominguez Hills and gave a lecture on the history of masculinity in the Soviet state. By bringing both academic expertise and personal experience to her subject, she aims to break through stereotypical depictions of former Soviet countries like Georgia.

Gasviani, who has benefitted from the mentorship of Bui and other faculty, has also focused on mentoring others. Through Next Gen Pathways, she gets paired with incoming graduate students and answers questions about how to navigate graduate student life at UC Irvine, whether it’s about teaching undergraduates or how to effectively communicate with your faculty.

After earning her Ph.D., Gasviani hopes to continue both her research and teaching in the U.S., a path that her advisor sees as a promising one.

“Gvantsa will have future impact as a professor who truly cares for students, especially those who are international and from countries that are often not studied enough, like her native Georgia,” says Bui. “Her teaching is one focused on student experiences outside the classroom as the impetus for one’s higher education.”

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Sohyeon Park Receives 2025 Google PhD Fellowship

Post author By Sean Collins
Post date October 27, 2025

Tonya Becerra – UC Irvine ICS

Sohyeon Park, PhD student in informatics at the UC Irvine Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS), received the 2025 Google PhD Fellowship on Oct. 23, 2025. Her research focuses on human-computer interaction, responsible AI, and accessibility.

The program provides vital direct financial support for each Fellow’s PhD pursuits and connects them with a dedicated Google Research Mentor.

In announcing the 2025 fellowship recipients, a Google representative said:
“These fellowships recognize outstanding graduate students who are conducting exceptional and innovative research in computer science and related fields, specifically focusing on candidates who seek to influence the future of technology. We are excited to welcome this global cohort and look forward to partnering with them as they continue to become leaders in their respective areas.”

Park shared her insights on receiving the Global Google PhD Fellowship:

What does receiving the Google PhD Fellowship mean for you?
Receiving the Google PhD Fellowship feels deeply validating. It makes me feel recognized for the kind of interdisciplinary research I do – work that bridges the social and technical dimensions of AI. I’ve often worried that my research might fall in between fields: too technical for social science audiences, yet too grounded in human and social concerns for purely technical communities. This fellowship affirms that there is real value and space for research like mine. I’m excited for the opportunity to learn from and contribute to a broader community of researchers who share similar values and curiosity, while continuing to push my research forward.

Could you describe your research interests?
My research lies at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Accessibility, and Responsible AI. I’m particularly interested in how large language models (LLMs) understand and discuss people with disabilities, and what that reveals about broader biases in advanced AI design. Ultimately, I aim to use my work to challenge potentially harmful narratives and help shape more inclusive and equitable digital experiences.

What is the impact of your research?
My research examines how LLMs represent and potentially impact autistic people, revealing how these systems can both reinforce and reshape social narratives about disability. As LLMs increasingly shape everyday experiences, from communication to education and work, they carry the potential to either further marginalize or empower users through the biases they reflect. My research identifies how AI systems can better align with people’s diverse communication preferences, cognitive styles, and lived experiences. The insights gained from this work can inform inclusive design frameworks that extend beyond the autistic community, ultimately benefiting all users by supporting technologies that adapt to each individual’s different needs.

Anything else you would like to add?
I’m deeply grateful for the community I’ve found in my lab and in Informatics at UC Irvine. My lab mates and my advisor, Gillian Hayes, have been constant sources of support. Their support and encouragement have played a huge role in shaping both my research and who I am as a scholar. I feel very fortunate to be surrounded by people who are not only intellectually inspiring but also genuinely kind and generous with their time and insight.