About Us
We are an interdisciplinary collaborative working group of scholars engaged in research, including law and policy, incarceration, institutions, and immigration.
We use a variety of ethnographic methodologies and perspectives, such as participant observation, interviews, activist and decolonial approaches, oral histories, and archives and mapping. Our research focuses on institutional processes, categorization, place-making and identification.
Through biweekly meetings, graduate students and faculty convene to workshop papers, work through issues encountered in the field, provide feedback and insight, and foster a sense of community and support.
Accomplishments
2024
Jordan Grasso earned the Criminology, Law and Society Quarterly Fellowship, which will be awarded in winter 2024.
2023
Ekaterina (Katya) Moiseeva received the 2023 NSF Law & Science Dissertation Improvement Grant.
Veronica Valencia Gonzalez received an NSF INTERN Grant, funding 4 month research internship with UN Women Mexico in Mexico City.
Ruth Barankevich received the 2023 Michael Brill Research Grant in Urban Communication and Community Design.
Jordan Grasso received the 2023 Most Promising Future Faculty Award.
2022
Veronica Gonzalez received an NSF INTERN Grant, funding 6 month research internship with INMUJERES in Mexico City in 2022
Orlando Lara received the 2022 Ford Predoctoral Fellowship.
Orlando Lara received the 2022 NSF Cultural Anthropology Research Improvement Grant.
Veronica Gonzalez received the 2022 UCI Blum Center’s Small Change, Better World Grant to support development of sustainable community food gardens in Michoacan, Mexico.
2021
Deyanira Martinez, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Urban and Regional Planning in the MSU School of Planning, Design and Construction, has received a 2021-2023 Emerging Poverty Scholar Fellowship from the Institute of Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is one of five national scholars who were selected to receive this prestigious award. This fellowship provides support for the career development and success of promising emerging poverty scholars from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Joanne DeCaro received the 2021 UCI Criminology, Law and Society Peer Mentoring Award.
Carolyn Coles received a $50,000 grant from the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) to continue a COVID-19 mask study with the Los Angeles Police Department (2021). Read more about Carolyn’s research here.
Gabriela Gonzalez received the 2021 Gil Geis Excellence in Research award.
Deyanira Nevarez Martinez successfully defended her dissertation. Congratulations Dr. Nevarez Martinez! (2021)
Vicente Mata received the 2021 UCI Criminology, Law and Society Peer Mentoring Award.
Gabriela Gonzalez successfully defended her dissertation and is officially Dr. Gonzalez! (2021)
2020
Alex Aguirre received the 2020 UCI Doctoral Student Peer Mentorship Award.
Veronica Gonzalez received the Newkirk Graduate Student Fellowship in Community-based Research (2020-2021), earning a year of training and experience in community-based research.
Courtney Echols received the Outstanding Social Justice Activist Award from the UCI Womxn’s Hub (2020).
Joanne DeCaro received the 2020 Arnie Binder Award for Outstanding Service.
Jordan Grasso received a California State University Chancellor’s Fellowship (2020-2023).
Khirad Siddiqui received a 2020 Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship.
Joanne DeCaro received a 2020 Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship.
Margaret Goldman received a 2020 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship.
2019
Khirad Siddiqui received a 2019 Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship.
Veronica Gonzalez received a UCI Initiative to End Family Violence Graduate Student Fellowship (2019-2020).
Veronica Gonzalez received a UCI Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation Small Change, Better World Grant (Fall 2019).
Deyanira Nevarez Martinez received a 2019 UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative Senior Policy Fellowship.
Joanne DeCaro received a 2019 Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship.
2017-2018
Veronica Gonzalez received a UC MEXUS Student Small Grant (2018).
Navjyot Gill received a 2017 Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship.
Veronica Gonzalez received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (2018).