Meet our 2020-21 AAUW California Fellows/Grant recipients at a virtual “luncheon” which showcases their studies and goals for the year!
Inspired?
Make a donation to AAUW Fund and note that it is “In honor of AAUW California Fund Luncheon.”
October 24, 2020 Presenters:
| American Fellowship | Project Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
Rebecca Brunner | Defining Acoustic Space Along Streams and Strata: Implications for Amphibian Conservation | Rebecca currently studies how acoustic space and gene flow affect amphibian populations in forested vs. human-dominated landscapes, informing management strategies that expand the habitat potential of agriculture. |
Amie Camposs | Territorial Conflicts, Industry, and State Formation in Chile's Southern Frontera 1866-1910 | Amie Campos explores the dynamics of frontier settlement in southern Chile during the late 19th century. Using national, regional and local archival sources as its foundation, her research traces how the Chilean state, represented by engineers and government bureaucrats, developed and enacted its visions of economic progress through land-redistribution projects. |
Constance Iloh | Exploring the College-Going Decisions and Trajectories of Low-Income Single Mothers of Color | Constance Iloh is an anthropologist of education known for her cutting-edge research and conceptual frameworks that advance understanding of educational inequities, institutional culture and social contexts. One of her recent contributions includes “The Iloh Model of College-Going Decisions and Trajectories.” She has shared her expertise with NBC Universal, Telemundo and Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Campaign to name a few. Iloh is one of the few academics ever named to the Forbes “30 Under 30” list |
Lizette Solorzano | DACA Status Precarity and the Incorporation Experiences of Latina(o) DACA Recipients in Los Angeles Before and During the Trump Era | Lizette G. Solorzano’s research on immigrant integration has explored semilegal precarities of the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Her current dissertation research exposes the vulnerabilities, activist work and healing agencies of Los Angeles–based DACA beneficiaries in anti-immigrant times. |
| Career Development Grants | Discipline | Description |
Claire Breining | Health and Medical Sciences. M.S.N. Women's Health Nurse Practioner/Nurse Midwife | Claire Breining is pursuing a master of science in nursing, specializing in nurse midwifery and women’s health. |
Feather Ives | Health and Medical Sciences | Feather Ives transitioned to a career in science in 2016 through a STEM career education program at a community college. She is now a faculty member in that program and helps students build their STEM careers. She is earning a master of public health and is implementing a college food-security resources program for The Richmond Promise. She seeks to improve health outcomes for college students by reducing inequities and ensuring access to basic needs. |
Denise Mitchell | Biology. M.S. Botany and Plant Sciences | As a veteran science educator, Denise Mitchell wishes to expand her expertise by diving into meaningful plant ecophysiology research aimed at understanding the strategies plants employ to tolerate drought and heat across ecosystems. With a sound knowledge base and university ties established, she will then create an engaging plant ecology course for high-school students, with the goal of providing the necessary key instruction in relevant environmental-science topics amid today’s critically changing climate. |
| International Fellowship | Project Name | Description |
Rochelle McFee | Ph.D., Ethnic Studies | In her research, Rochelle McFee brings structural analysis to bear on systems of power, social discourses and historical conditions that shape [il]legibility of sexualized violence particularly against queer women in Jamaica. She cofounded WE-Change (2015) and the Tambourine Army (2016). The former is a women-led organization focused on increasing the number of LBT women participating in social-justice advocacy; the latter is a movement organized around eliminating the scourge of sexual violence against women and children. |
Maria Jose Navarette | Ph.D., Ecology and Evolution | Maria Jose Navarrete is an Ecuadoran doctoral student in the integrative biology program at the University of California, Berkeley. She is interested in elucidating the genetic and environmental mechanisms underlying the evolution of novel traits that characterize instances of phenotypic diversification and convergence, particularly in Andean ecosystems. |
Yvonne Zhang | Film. M.F.A., Directing | Yvonne Zhang is a filmmaker with focus on magical realist stories that centre diaspora communities and explore identity, belonging and power. Yvonne holds a Foundation in Fine Art from Central St Martins School of Art and Design, and a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh. She is currently a Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute Conservatory, with support from AAUW, Fulbright, BAFTA Los Angeles, and P.E.O. International. |
October 10, 2020 Presenters:
| American Fellowship | Project Name | Description of Project |
|---|---|---|
Jamelia Harris | ‘Hidden Roses’: Navigating, Resisting, and Reclaiming Geographies of Misogynoir Violence Among Black Girls at Desert Rose High School | Jamelia Harris questions how antiblackness, sexism, power and space/place perpetuate the hyper-punishment and domination black girls face in school. She explores the daily experiences of misogynoir violence on black girls in a “ghettoized” high school. Using a black feminist group-storytelling methodology, she examines how these young women self-define black girlhood and co-construct knowledge. |
Jane Hu | Generic Bodies: Mediating Asias in the Global Anglophone Imaginary | Jane Hu's project examines the rise of Asian Anglophone media in the post-1970s economic era of US decline and East Asian ascendence. Her work is rooted in Marxist aesthetics and studies racialization in popular culture during moments of capitalist crisis. |
Elizabeth Kopacz | Molecular Longing: Adopted Koreans and the Navigation of Absence through DNA | Elizabeth Kopacz’s research examines the relationship between popular genetic science, transnational and transracial Korean adoption, and the structures informing kinship, identity, memory, narrative and loss. Through an analysis of state archives, digital communities and the emergence of the “DNA cousin” relationship, she explores the ways in which adult Korean adoptees reckon the unknown and unknowable in personal and community histories. |
Holly Okonkwo | Liberatory Code: Black women and the Politics of Computing | Holly Okonkwo explores the material and cultural practices of scientific knowledge production and technology development in the United States and West Africa, with a focus on the politics of race, gender, class and coloniality. Her current book project explores the experiences of black women technologists, their technical innovations and how they navigate and negotiate complex issues of race, gender, community and marginalization. |
Maro Youssef | Women’s Movements During Democratic Transitions: The Case of Tunisia | Maro Youssef’s research on women’s movements seeks to integrate women into the study of democracy and democratization. In her current research, she focuses on religious and secular women’s activism during the ongoing democratic transition in Tunisia, following the Arab Spring. |
| Career Development Grant | Discipline | Description of Project |
Alison Huynh | Psychology - Clinical | Allison Huynh is pursuing a master’s degree in psychology to become a marriage and family therapist. Her area of interest is health psychology with a focus on providing counseling services to cancer survivors and caregivers. Her goal is to serve clients of all backgrounds with humility and compassion to work toward narrowing the disparities that occur far too often in mental-health care. |
Tracey Quezada | Communications. M.J. Journalism | Tracey Quezada is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. She has produced and edited documentaries that address the school-to-prison pipeline, immigration and race in America. Her current documentary examines one of the most taboo issues of our time—child sexual abuse—an issue that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has called a “public health crisis.” Her research investigates the fundamental systemic and structural issues that contribute to society’s failure to grapple with intergenerational sexual abuse. |
| Community Action Grant | Project Name | Description of Project |
Frances Rozner - Long Beach AAUW | Energizing Potential: The Effectiveness of the AAUW Long Beach STEM Career Conference on LBUSD Middle School Girls | Energizing Potential will determine the outcomes of the 2.5-hour AAUW Long Beach STEM Career Conference, which more than 2,690 Long Beach Unified School District middle-school girls have attended since 2003. The expected outcomes —the taking of more STEM courses in high school and attending college—will be able to assist both AAUW LB and other organizations as they seek funding to continue their STEM projects and to improve upon their existing programs. |
| International Fellowship | Project Name | Description of Project |
Rachel Huang | Ph.D., Polymer, Energy Materials, battery | Rachel Zhuojun Huang received her bachelor of science in materials science and engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2014. She is currently a Ph.D. student in materials science and engineering. |