Collaborating BTI Clusters
The Infrastructure Equity cluster is one of three cluster initiatives supported through UC Irvine’s Black Thriving Initiative’s faculty cluster hiring program. This program recruits scholars that focus on understanding anti-Blackness and its varied manifestations in human activity and expression; or public policy solutions to structural racism in criminal justice, education, environment, health and wellness, urban planning and policy; or broadening participation in science and technology, business, and innovation. The IE cluster will coordinate hiring and programming activities with the two BTI clusters, which include:
- The Environmental Health Disparities cluster was launched in 2021 to foster multidisciplinary collaborations that seek to understand and address the ways in which environmental stress and racism contribute to health disparities in Black communities. It includes UCI’s Program in Public Health, Henry Samueli School of Engineering, School of Social Sciences, and School of Medicine and is affiliated with the Center for Health Disparities Research.
- The Poetic Justice cluster was launched in 2022 to build stronger connections between UCI and community-based institutions that focus on the production and preservation of Black history, culture and art. It includes UCI’s School of Art, School of Business, School of Humanities, and School of Social Ecology and supports the creative talents of Black communities, builds sustainable arts and culture industry careers, and promotes campus- and societal-level visions of reparative justice.
Affiliated Centers and Initiatives
The IE Cluster will energize new collaborations and generate extramural funding focused on IE for Black communities, an emerging area that requires interdisciplinary teams working across fields such as planning, policy, engineering, environmental science, and law. Campus centers and initiatives supporting interdisciplinary collaboration and amplifying the IE Equity Cluster include: