UCLA School of Education & Information Studies

Early-Career Scholar Series Presenter: Kyle Halle-Erby Ph.D. and Advanced-Career Scholar Facilitator John Rogers Ph.D.
2025-03-14 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | UCLA Moore Hall, Room 3320
In this session, the focus will be a research talk about an in-progress paper from my dissertation study called “New Trouble: The Construction of Newness and the Imperative to Find Solidarity with Insurgency.” Based on an ethnographic study of specialized high school programs for recently-arrived immigrant young people, I argue that the construction of “newness” is a strategy for dominating, structuring, and having authority over Indigenous and Latinx children as part of the ongoing project of U.S. state formation through conquest. This argument relies on in-depth analysis of Gedeón Sacalxot Tepaz’s story, which include his migration from Guatemala to Los Angeles, his experiences with work and immigration court, and with attending, leaving, and returning to school. These arguments draw conceptually on abolition and relationality. Abolition is engaged to think about praxis in this context and to identify students’ goals as a practice of futurity around which solidarity can be forged between educators and immigrant communities.

Kyle Halle-Erby, PhD., is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Education. He studies language policy and planning using critical Black and Indigenous frameworks. His research focuses on educational language policy in public schools for young people who have recently immigrated into the United States.

Refreshments will be served. Please direct questions to Dr. Deborah Southern, desouth@ucla.edu

Winter Quarter Instruction Ends
2025-03-14 00:00 - 23:59

Learning Café: A Community-Engaged Scholarship Series with Priscilla P. Avitia, Blair Black, Ana Elizabeth Lara, Riona Tsai, and Sam Stroud
2025-03-11 12:00 - 13:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Reading Room, 3340, 457 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, California, 90095, United States
Join us for our monthly Learning Café series highlighting the community engaged work of our faculty and graduate students. Listen, learn and engage with the work of our school.

Featuring Priscilla P. Avitia, Blair Black, Ana Elizabeth Lara, Riona Tsai, and Sam Stroud

As part of Faculty Organizing for Community Archives Support (FOCAS) and with the support of the Mellon Foundation, the UCLA Community Archives Lab administers paid internships for second-year MLIS students at community archives across Los Angeles, including La Historia Historical Society Museum, Visual Communications, the Skid Row History Museum and Archive, the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, and the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives. This program represents a transformation in archival education by centering non-dominant archival traditions and the needs of minoritized students and communities. In this moderated panel discussion, the five current Mellon interns will discuss their experiences in community archives, as well as the impact of their internships on their career trajectories and the future of the archival profession.

Celebrating 50 Years of Learning from Coach Wooden
2025-03-08 08:30 - 15:00 | UCLA Moore Hall Reading Room, 457 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
This year marks 50 years since Coach Wooden announced his retirement, just days before his team won UCLA’s 10th basketball championship. This makes it an opportune time to celebrate his long-standing achievements and to be re-inspired by his exemplary coaching practices and philosophy.

Please join us in a special event organized by UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies honoring and learning from Coach’s accomplishments, on and off the court. The event will bring together Wooden’s former athletes, coaches and associates who will share their experiences with Coach as a teacher and his inspiration for coaching practices. The event also brings together researchers who will present their research on Coach Wooden.

RSVP HERE: https://www.greenvelope.com/card/.public-66a5b5d199a040218655da25568759d537323835333034#card_1

Thinking Gender 2025: “Gendered Labors and Transnational Solidarities”
2025-03-07 08:30 - 18:00 | James West Alumni Center, 325 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095
The Information Studies Department is cosponsoring the Center for the Study of Women|Barbra Streisand Center’s 2025 Thinking Gender Conference. We are thrilled to announce that registration is now open for Thinking Gender 2025: “Gendered Labors and Transnational Solidarities.”

Event Details:

Date: Friday, March 7, 2025

Time: 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM

Location: James West Alumni Center, The Collins Conference Room325 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095

This year, we invite attendees to a day of dynamic student presentations and a keynote address by labor rights organizer Adriana Paz Ramírez of the International Domestic Workers Federation.

We kindly ask you to share our event flier (attached) and registration link with your communities: Thinking Gender 2025 Registration.

The conference, Thinking Gender 2025: “Gendered Labors and Transnational Solidarities,” will explore the rich repertoire of organizing strategies and spotlight contemporary and historical campaigns led by precarious workers worldwide. This event convenes feminist, queer, and BIPOC scholars, artists, and organizers to reflect on labor solidarity and care, imagining a more livable and equitable society.

We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

UC|CSU Collaborative for Neuroscience, Diversity, and Learning Spring 2025 Webinar Series: Early Literacy Screening in CA
2025-03-06 15:30 - 16:30
​California’s early literacy screening requirement (CA Ed Code 53008) takes effect in the 2025-2026 school year for all California public school students in grades K-2. For students who struggle to learn to read, it’s imperative that they have an educational experience that accelerates their learning, which can include more intensity, frequency, and duration of reading and literacy instruction, all while attending to students’ language, social-emotional, and behavioral needs. This talk features Honorable Senator Anthony Portantino (ret.) and distinguished panelists who provide key insights into what the law requires for K-2 screening, implementation tips to support teachers and administrators, and broad implications for educator preparation programs and professional development.

Register Here!

Information Studies Colloquium: Book Talk - "Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, and Why it Desperately Needs a Reformation" with Professor Greg Epstein
2025-03-06 14:00 - 16:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Reading Room, 3340, 457 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, California, 90095, United States
Please join us for our next IS Colloquium on March 6, 2:00-4:00 p.m. in the Reading Room, 3340 Moore Hall. There will be refreshments to follow.

Bio

Greg M. Epstein serves as Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, where he advises students, faculty and staff members on ethical and existential concerns from a humanist perspective.

Citizen Ashe Film Screening
2025-02-27 18:00 - 20:00 | UCLA Northwest Auditorium, 350 De Neve Dr, Los Angeles, California, 90024, United States
Date: Thursday, February 27, 2025

Time: 6:00 pm – Reception; Citizen Ashe Film Screening / Discussion to follow from 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Location: UCLA Northwest Auditorium, 350 De Neve Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90024

Refreshments will be served. Attendance is complimentary; registration is required. We kindly request your RSVP by Wednesday, February 25, 2025.

On behalf of Arthur Ashe Legacy Project @UCLA, we are pleased to invite you to a 50th Anniversary Celebration of Arthur Ashe’s Historic Wimbledon Victory. This event commemorates one of the most significant milestones in tennis history and the enduring impact of Arthur Ashe’s legacy.

Arthur Ashe, one of UCLA’s most influential alumni, was not only a groundbreaking tennis champion but also a tireless advocate for social justice, civil rights, health, and education. Ashe’s legacy goes beyond his remarkable athletic achievements, including becoming the first African American man to win Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open. He used his platform to challenge the systemic inequities of his time and fought for marginalized communities both on and off the tennis court. Ashe was particularly outspoken on issues of racial inequality, apartheid, HIV/AIDS awareness, and the importance of education. Many of the systemic issues Ashe fought for — racial injustice, access to healthcare, educational inequities, and global human rights — continue to inflict harm on individuals and communities across the world.

Join us for an exclusive celebration paying tribute to Ashe’s extraordinary contributions to the world and learn more about the ongoing impact of his legacy through the Arthur Ashe Legacy Project at UCLA. The evening will feature a reception followed by a film screening of Citizen Ashe, a biography that highlights his life and enduring influence.

Introductory Movie:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/js3mzcv4s0wfanmoqci6k/Welcome-to-the-Ashe-Project-at-UCLA.mov?rlkey=[REDACTED]&e=1&st=9d286fy9&dl=0

Information Studies Colloquium: Frank Gilbreth, Fatigue Elimination, and Consuming and Producing "Information" Systematically (1892-1924) with Jimein Tina Wei Ph.D. candidate
2025-02-27 02:00 - 16:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Reading Room, 3340, 457 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, California, 90095, United States
Please join us for our next IS Colloquium on February 27, 2:00-4:00 p.m. in the Reading Room, 3340 Moore Hall. There will be refreshments to follow.

Bio

Jiemin Tina Wei is a PhD candidate in Harvard University’s Department of the History of Science, where she is completing her dissertation on the history of fatigue in the workplace. Her research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Prior to graduate school, she worked at Google, Stanford University, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Abstract

In the 1910s, an “efficiency craze” swept the United States, as debates erupted over the veracity and ethical, social, and economic consequences of a new system of managing human labor newly coined as “Scientific Management.” As these dramas raged over the theories of the consultant Frederick Winslow Taylor and his colleagues, bricklayer-turned-franchise-owner Frank Gilbreth had been tinkering away on alternative solutions to the “labor problem.” Contracted to implement efficiency improvements at the New England Butt Company in 1912 and 1913, he used this testing ground to introduce his new method for finding “the One Best Way to do work.” Armed with photography assistants, he sought to transition the focus in his field of Scientific Management from “time studies” of the stopwatch to “motion studies” of the camera. Both Taylor and Gilbreth aimed at efficiency, but Gilbreth’s motion study approached efficiency through a different plane of analysis: space, not time. For Frank and his wife Lillian Gilbreth, one achieved work efficiency by manipulating the lines and shapes of the body. Although generated in a seemingly top-down context—by an efficiency engineer creating systematized and objective knowledge about workers’ bodies—Frank Gilbreth’s photographs and their paraphernalia captured how workers both resisted and collaborated with the sometimes-bumbling Gilbreth and his obsessive, eccentric methods. The Gilbreths’ pursuit of “fatigue elimination” through the motions of the human body involved gathering, storing, and generating vast stores of what they called research “information.” To contain, sort, and selectively retrieve this torrent of “information” with efficiency, the Gilbreths had to apply their own methods of “fatigue elimination” to their own work as researchers.

Learning Café: A Community Engaged Scholarship Series with Thuy Vo Dang
2025-02-26 12:00 - 13:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Reading Room, 3340, 457 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, California, 90095, United States
Join us for our monthly Learning Café series highlighting the community engaged work of our faculty and graduate students. Listen, learn and engage with the work of our school.

Featuring IN-PERSON PANELISTS:

Thuy Vo Dang, Assistant Professor of Information Studies and Asian American Studies/Project PI

Angela-MinhTu D. Nguyen, Volunteer at Los Angeles Public Library–Chinatown Branch

Joanna Fabicon, Senior Librarian, Children’s Services at Los Angeles Public Library, UCLA Lecturer

Candice Mack, Senior Librarian, Young Adult/Teen Services at Los Angeles Public Library, UCLA Lecturer

Mads Le, Ph.D. and MLIS student, UCLA Information Studies

VIRTUAL PANELISTS:

Shirley Ly, Children’s Librarian–Echo Park Branch, Los Angeles Public Library

Kim Chu, public librarian and Viet Storytime Club member

The panel will present a UCLA Center for Community Engagement Social Impact Collaborative grant project that supports an international peer collective of Việt storytime facilitators. This collective arose from a need to build community to address feelings of isolation in the struggle to research, translate, plan programming, and manage collections. For immigrant and minority communities, language-appropriate resources are essential to foster a foundation of cultural identity and a sense of belonging, alongside promoting literacy and early learning skills. By developing and promoting culturally sustaining bilingual Vietnamese storytimes, the collective provides a model of uplifting diverse community’s cultures, stories, and songs in order to foster communal joy, which is inseparable from individual heritage, resilience, and empowerment. The exploratory grant phase enables UCLA researchers to bring together Việt storytime facilitators with Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) and the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) experts as partners.

UC|CSU Collaborative for Neuroscience, Diversity, and Learning Spring 2025 Webinar Series: Cradle-to-Career Data System
2025-02-21 15:30 - 16:30
The UC|CSU Collaborative for Neuroscience, Diversity, and Learning is excited to announce our Spring 2025 Webinar Series kicks off with a webinar on the California Cradle-to-Career Data System (C2C) to share with our research and policy community! The C2C data system connects individuals and organizations with trusted information and resources, providing insights into critical milestones in the pipeline from early care to K–12 to higher education, skills training, and employment. C2C empowers individuals to reach their full potential and fosters evidence-based decision-making to help California build a more equitable future.

Register Here!

Information Studies Colloquium: "Art as a Tool for Empowerment and Social Change" with Professor Michael Massenburg
2025-02-20 14:00 - 16:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Reading Room, 3340, 457 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, California, 90095, United States
Please join us for our next IS Colloquium on February 20, 2:00-4:00 p.m. in the Reading Room, 3340 Moore Hall. There will be refreshments to follow.

AbstractMichael Massenburg uses art as a tool for empowerment and social change by exploring themes ofBlack identity, culture, and social justice. His work challenges stereotypes and celebrates AfricanAmerican experiences, fostering pride and resilience within marginalized communities. Massenburgaddresses systemic oppression through mixed media paintings and public art, encouraging dialogue oninequality and social transformation.Massenburg also views art as a tool for healing, allowing individuals to process trauma and findempowerment through creative expression.Through mentorship, Massenburg inspires younger generations to use art for activism and change,encouraging them to challenge the status quo and amplify their voices. His art serves as both areflection of personal and collective strength and a catalyst for social progress.

BioMichaelMassenburg was born in San Diego, raised in South Central Los Angeles, and lives in Inglewood. He pursued his studies at California State University, Long Beach, and the Otis School of Art and Design. Michael began his career at the Watts Towers Arts Center, influenced by the Watts Rebellion, the Black Art Movement of the 1960s, and the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising. He developed his social practice through art-making, teaching, lectures, community organizing, and activism for various organizations and causes. Massenburg’s interest is in historical, cultural, and personal narratives. His art practice fluctuates between painting, collage, photography, and assemblage. He incorporated various materials from found objects with traditional practices. Michael has exhibited in galleries, universities, and museums, completed private commissions, and created public art projects throughout the United States and abroad. One of his most recent exhibitions was for the Dak’Art 14th Edition Biennial of Contemporary African Art in Dakar, Senegal. Some of his work included public art commissions for Metro, DCA, Kia Forum, and the Intuit Dome in Inglewood. He receives various grants and awards, including the Art Matters Foundation, New York, Los Angeles Lakers Youth Foundation, and California Arts Council. He was recently honored by the city of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs COLA Individual Master Artist Project Grantee for an exhibition for summer 2023.

Presidents’ Day
2025-02-17 00:00 - 23:59

Early-Career Scholar Series Presenter: Arlyn Moreno Luna PhD. and Advanced-Career Scholar Facilitator Cecilia Rios Aguilar PhD.
2025-02-14 10:00 - 11:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Room 3320
In this session, Dr. Moreno Luna will explore the concept of spatial (in)justice in the context of community colleges and present preliminary findings from a national longitudinal analysis on degree attainment at these institutions, along with future research. She invites feedback, questions, and reflections to refine the theorization and clarity of the presentation.

Dr. Moreno Luna is a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA, working under the mentorship of Dr. Rios Aguilar. Her research employs quantitative methods to investigate access, experiences, and outcomes in higher education for historically underrepresented students. Dr. Moreno Luna has developed and validated an innovative instrument to measure college adjustment, contributing to the field’s understanding of student success. Current projects focus on the college transition experiences of Latina students at an elite public four-year institution and the STEM identity and belonging of Latinx students at a rural community college. She received her PhD in Education from UC Berkeley in the critical studies of race, class, and gender program

Refreshments will be served. Please direct questions to Dr. Deborah Southern, desouth@ucla.edu

Information Studies Colloquium with Professor Gregory Pierce
2025-02-13 14:00 - 16:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Reading Room, 3340, 457 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, California, 90095, United States
Please join us for our next IS Colloquium on February 13, 2:00-4:00 p.m. in the Reading Room, 3340 Moore Hall. There will be refreshments to follow.

POSTPONED: Building Pathways to Higher Education: CALKids in Public Schools
2025-02-07 10:00 - 15:00 | UCLA Kerkoff Grant Salon, 308 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, California, 90095, United States
Join us at the Southern California Regional Convening

Acquire awareness and knowledge of the CalKIDS program

Learn how to integrate CalKIDS into your TK-12 programming

Gain tools and resources to engage students in CalKIDS

The California Kids Investment and Development Savings Program (CalKIDS) is a children’s savings account program which provides eligible participants with college savings accounts, including seed deposits, to help pay for future qualified higher education expenses.

Registration & Refreshments: 10 AM

Program: 10:30 AM- 3 PM

Free Parking & Lunch Provided

Early-Career Scholar Series Presenter: Dr. Cinthya Salazar and Advanced-Career Scholar Facilitator Dr. Ozan Jaquette
2025-01-31 10:00 - 23:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Room 3320
During this session, Cinthya Salazar will present a paper in progress that she is co-authoring with Cindy Barahona from Texas A&M University. Using longitudinal data from 23 undocumented students with and without DACA, Salazar and Barahona seek to understand how participants experience legal violence during their college graduation process and its effects on post-graduation life. Specifically, the research questions guiding this investigation are: (a) In what ways do undocumented students graduating from college with and without DACA experience legal violence through their transition out of higher education? and (b) How does legal violence influence the post-graduation experiences of undocumented college graduates with and without DACA? During the session, Salazar will discuss the findings on this investigation and engage in conversations with attendees about the implications of this work for higher education research, policy, and practice.

Dr. Cinthya Salazar (ella/she) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education within UCLA’s School of Education & Information Studies. Dr. Salazar’s research focuses on the mechanisms used by undocumented students to access, persist, and succeed in higher education. She uses participatory action research and engages undocumented students as co-researchers to generate localized student success models that can promote their college retention.

Refreshments will be served. Please direct questions to Dr. Deborah Southern, desouth@ucla.edu

Kenneth Karmiole in Archival Studies: Roots & Culture(s): Leaning In/Reaching Out
2025-01-30 16:30 - 18:00 | UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center, 425 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join us for Kenneth Karmiole in Archival Studies: Roots & Culture(s): Leaning In/Reaching Out with Dr. Etienne Joseph

Introduction by: Thuy Vo Dang; Assistant Professor, and Anne J. Gilliland; Professor

The focus on difference and cultural specificity in contemporary archival praxes is both good and necessary as part of the movement toward the decolonization of ‘the archive’. However, especially in the polarized social and political conditions in which we find ourselves, it is also important that immediate intra-community concerns do not obfuscate potential cross-community solidarities grounded in our common humanity. Through a living example, this paper reflects on how leaning into principles and practices rooted in a specific diasporic culture can support the further development of a community-focused archival practice that explores solidarities across cultural lines.

For more information, please contact us at (310) 206-0375.

SSCE Lunar New Year Celebration
2025-01-29 14:00 - 17:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Reading Room, 3340, 457 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, California, 90095, United States
Join SSCE in celebrating Lunar New Year with couplet writing and a

chance to win a gift!

CGI Winter Virtual Mini-Conference
2025-01-25 08:00 - 11:30 | Online
Saturday, January 25, 20258:00 – 11:30 AMOnline

7:30 – 8:00 Pre-Admittance Gathering8:00 – 9:00 Suzanne Huerta, Keynote Speaker9:15 – 10:15 Session 110:30 – 11:30 Session 2

Join us online on Saturday, January 25, 2025, for a morning filled with inspiring and empowering stories from teachers and collaborators in our shared journey. Our presenters will be sharing from their CGI practice and experiences aimed at promoting mathematical understanding, centering student thinking, and infusing joy into the teaching and learning of mathematics.

Hear our Stories: Campus Sexual Violence, Intersectionality, and How We Build a Better University
2025-01-22 16:00 - 17:30 | UCLA Moore Hall Reading Room, 457 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Dr. Jessica Harris will be in conversation with Dr. Shannon Speed about her recently published book, Hear Our Stories: Campus Sexual Violence, Intersectionality, and How to Build a Better University. The conversation will take place on Wednesday, January 22nd, 2025 from 4:00pm-5:30pm in the Moore Hall Reading Room (Moore Hall 3340). Light refreshments will be served and a limited number of books will be available for participants at no cost.

This event is co-sponsored by the Office of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies and the UCLA Center for the Study of Women | Streisand Center.

For comments or questions, please email jharris@gseis.ucla.edu

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
2025-01-20 00:00 - 23:59

Information Studies Colloquium: Participatory AI with PhD candidate Kelly Wagman
2025-01-16 14:00 - 16:00 | Zoom
Please join us by Zoom for this week’s Information Studies Colloquium, Thursday, January 16, 2-4 p.m. The presenter will be Kelly B. Wagman, discussing participatory AI.

Bio:

Kelly B. Wagman is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago in the Computer Science department where her focus is human-AI interaction. Kelly’s research centers around understanding how AI integrates with sociotechnical systems and how to improve the design of those systems. Previously she worked at Microsoft Research and received a MS in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and BAs in Computer Science and Economics from Brown University.

Abstract:

“Participatory AI” has been proposed as a mechanism for designing ethical and inclusive AI systems. However, scholars differ on theoretical definitions for participatory AI and few practical examples exist of participatory AI implementations in real-world settings. In this project, we develop a participatory AI system for climate that is being deployed in a Chicago neighborhood in order to understand the benefits and limits of this approach. More specifically, we partnered with climate scientists and a Chicago community non-profit organization to understand how AI models of microclimates can benefit community residents and incorporate their perspectives. To do this we conducted interviews, co-design workshops, and ethnographic work. Based on this qualitative work, we built a climate reporting and visualization app for the community to contribute data (e.g. photos of basement flooding) to the science AI pipeline as well as understand how these climate models can be made actionable in their own lives. Ultimately this project demonstrates that it is possible to develop a practical participatory AI system that benefits multiple stakeholders, although it is time-intensive and questions remain as to the scalability of such an approach.

Technological Jingoism and the Domestic Politics of the US-China "AI Arms Race"
2025-01-09 13:00 - 14:00 | UCLA Murphy Hall Room 3312
All Are Welcome!

January 9, 2025 | 3321 Murphy Hall | Talk: 1-2 p.m.

The rise of large language models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT has popularized the notion that AI companies are locked in a race to be the first to produce artificial general intelligence (AGI). This narrative is amplified by the geopolitical framing of US-China competition, cast as a battle between democracy and authoritarianism. Layering propaganda atop speculation, technocrats posit that building AGI first is a moral imperative for the United States because the Chinese government would use the advanced technology to assert global political control. This framing not only distorts the discourse around AI itself, but also limits the ways information is constructed, shaping data infrastructures to serve a narrow agenda of economic nationalism.

In this talk, Dr. Shazeda Ahmed argues that democracy is threatened by each new iteration of AI arms race thinking. Drawing upon interview studies in China and the United States, Dr. Ahmed investigates how certain expert communities have transformed ideological stances on AI into knowledge production practices and policies that sustain policymakers’ belief that maintaining the United States’ global technological dominance is a top national security objective. This framing is instrumentalized to justify anti-Asian xenophobia in the proposed TikTok ban, as well as the persecution of Chinese STEM researchers in the US; to defer the accountability of Silicon Valley companies that claim regulation will dampen innovation; and to stymie efforts to safeguard society against well-documented AI harms, including automated discrimination. Yet, despite how deeply AI discourse has become saturated with an air of inevitability, international scholars, civil society advocates, and tech workers committed to trans-Pacific peace point a way forward and out of recursive Cold War logics.

Bio

Shazeda Ahmed is a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral (Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship Program) fellow at UCLA. Shazeda completed her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley’s School of Information in 2022, and was previously a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy. She has been a research fellow at Upturn, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) Institute, and NYU’s AI Now Institute.

Shazeda’s research investigates relationships between the state, the firm, and society in the US-China geopolitical rivalry over AI, with implications for information technology policy and human rights. Her work draws from science and technology studies, ranging from her dissertation on the state-firm co-production of China’s social credit system, to her research on the epistemic culture and knowledge production practices in the emerging field of AI safety.

Winter Quarter Instruction Begins
2025-01-06 00:00 - 23:59

Winter Campus Closure
2024-12-21 00:00 - 2025-01-01 23:59

Coffee, Pastries and a Book: SEIS Book Club 2024-25 - Virtual Book Club Meeting
2024-12-11 16:00 - 17:00
Our 2024-2025 AY book club reading and discussing Prentis Hemphill’s new book, What It Takes To Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World

Fall Quarter Virtual & In-Person Meetings

Virtual Book Club Meeting – Wed, Dec. 11th, 4PM-5PM

(Spring and Winter Quarter Meetings TBD)

Early-Career Scholar Series Presenter: Dr. Chris Jadallah and Scholar Facilitator Dr. Teresa L. McCarty
2024-12-06 10:00 - 11:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Room 3320
The UCLA Department of Education Early-Career Scholar Series invites Department faculty, staff, and students to come together to engage with early-career scholars and their research, and build community over a Department lunch at noon following the session. At each session, an early-career scholar will either present their research or workshop a paper or study in progress facilitated by an advanced-career scholar.

This monthly event strives to foster community and connection within our Department, come together to learn more about our early-career scholars, and support their work. Coffee and refreshments will be served.

In this session, Dr. Jadallah will present a recently completed study with educators of color mapping the sociopolitical commitments that guide their pedagogies in farms, gardens, and other land-based settings (Jadallah, 2024). He will also share plans for an upcoming study extending this work in partnership with young people in the San Fernando Valley using oral history approaches to document their own families’ connections to and relationships with land. He welcomes comments, questions, and feedback.

Dr. Jadallah is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Justice in the Department of Education at UCLA, where he co-designs, implements, and studies learning environments where people come together to learn in, with, and from the natural world. Across his projects, he endeavors to foreground the knowledge of non-dominant communities as an asset for both learning and socio-ecological changemaking, operating from the premise that these communities’ everyday practices provide fertile ground from which to anchor the work of building more just and sustainable futures.

Upcoming Series Dates:

January 17, 2025

February 14, 2025

March 14, 2025

April 11, 2025

May 9, 2025

June 6, 2025

Fall Quarter Instruction Ends
2024-12-06 00:00 - 23:59

Information Studies Colloquium: Social Media and the Spread of Hate (SMASH) with Dr. Christine Ong and Seul Lee
2024-12-05 14:00 - 16:00 | UCLA Moore Hall, Reading Room, 3340, 457 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, California, 90095, United States
Please join us for our next IS Colloquium on December 5, 2:00-4:00 p.m. in the Reading Room, 3340 Moore Hall. There will be refreshments to follow.

Social Media and the Spread of Hate (SMASH)

Dr. Christine Ong and Seul Lee

Abstract

Social Media and the Spread of Hate or SMASH is an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers, educators, and policy advocates from UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, the Semel Healthy Campus Initiative (HCI), and an independent non-profit partner, the Organization for Social Media Safety (OFSMS). SMASH is funded by UCLA’s Initiative to Study Hate.

Our primary goal is to explore how young people encounter hate speech online, their responses to it, and ideas for making social media safe for everyone. Our study incorporates various methods including survey data gathered during school assemblies and in-depth conversations with young people about their own experiences using social media.

In the past two years, SMASH has gathered survey data from over 24,000 students in grades 5-12 across 94 schools nationwide. Our findings have informed OFSMS program improvements. Our research has also been shared by OFSMS partners in legislative testimony related to potential harms on social media and broader advocacy efforts at the local, state and national level. SMASH results may also inform future development of educational resources and interventions, such as activities to promote kindness, empathy, resiliency, and critical thinking around social media use.

Bios

Seul Lee is a doctoral candidate in Information Studies at UCLA, holding a B.A. in Management Information Systems, an M.A. in Data Science, and a graduate certificate in Digital Humanities. Her research interests involve investigating the intricate landscape of information biases, algorithmic subjectivities, and the pivotal role of digital literacy education in fostering a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of biases behind the presentation of online information. She has been working as a graduate student researcher for the Social Media and the Spread of Hate (SMASH) team to combat online hate speech by collaborating with middle and high school students in the US.

Dr. Christine Ong is a research scientist at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) at UCLA. Dr. Ong has extensive experience managing research and evaluation studies that involve multi-institution partnerships. She is project director of the Social Media and the Spread of Hate (SMASH) study, an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers, educators, and policy advocates from UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies and the non-profit Organization for Social Media Safety and funded by UCLA’s Initiative to Study Hate. This work includes an examination of features of social media apps that may help fuel hateful content adolescents encounter. She also serves as an external evaluator for two NSF grants that connect to computing education, Computational Thinking Equity Project (CTEP) and Researching Equity and Antiracist Learning (REAL-CS). In addition, she is part of the California Teacher Education Research and Improvement Network (CTERIN) and sister study, California Preparation Pathway Project (CP3, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), charged with constructing and enhancing teacher-level data related to new teachers’ preparation, placement and retention in the state.
