Research

• Jewish American Writing and World Literature: Maybe to Millions, Maybe to Nobody
  College of Letters and Science: Humanities
  What does it mean to write for the world? And what happens when that writing is named as “Jewish”? Saul Noam Zaritt’s Jewish American Writing and World Literature: Maybe to Millions, Maybe to Nobody (OUP 2020) studies Jewish American writers’ relationships with the idea of world literature.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Yasemin Yildiz
  (Updated: Mar 08 2023)

• Hinda and Jacob Schonfeld Boyle Heights Project
  College of Letters and Science: Humanities
  In the 1930s, Boyle Heights—with its main throughway, Brooklyn Avenue—was home to some 10,000 Jewish households, about a third of the Los Angeles Jewish population and the highest concentration of Jews west of the Mississippi.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Aomar Boum
  (Updated: Mar 08 2023)

• Mapping Jewish Los Angeles
  College of Letters and Science: Humanities
  Developed in collaboration with the UCLA Library and dozens of community archives, the Mapping Jewish Los Angeles project uses digital tools and multimedia technologies to enable a broad audience to discover the complex histories of the Los Angeles Jewish community.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Todd Presner
  (Updated: Mar 08 2023)

• Lutu Chuktiwa: Cutting the Cord
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  This short ethnographic film portrays the Lutu Chuktiwa (Cutting the Cord) ceremony of the Yoeme (Yaqui) Indians. The Lutu Pahko (cord ceremony) is an all night ritual that takes place one year after someone's death in order to release the family and community from mourning.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			David Shorter
  (Updated: Apr 13 2023)

• Mapping Indigenous LA
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  This storymapping project aims to uncover and highlight the multiple layers of indigenous Los Angeles with youth, community leaders, and elders from indigenous communities throughout the city. The website makes visible the rich Indigenous identities and histories that are deeply embedded in the history of Los Angeles.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Juliann Anesi
  (Updated: Apr 13 2023)

• Visualizing Genocide: Indigenous Interventions in Art, Archives and Museums
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  Visualizing Genocide examines how creative arts and memory institutions selectively commemorate or often outright ignore stark histories of colonialism. The essays confront outdated narratives and institutional methods by investigating contemporary artistic and scholarly interventions documenting settler colonialisms including land theft, incarceration, intergenerational trauma, and genocide.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Nancy Mithlo
  (Updated: Apr 13 2023)

• Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC)
  School of Medicine
  The UCLA TREC examines how to expand access to transplant, reduce racial disparities, ensure informed decision-making, promote paired donation, and increase living donation rates. TREC focuses on translating the findings from effective clinical trials into everyday practice through collaboration with healthcare providers, national transplant leaders, and policymakers.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Amy Waterman
  (Updated: Sep 05 2023)

• Healthcare Rationing and the Ethnic Boundaries of Indigenous People: the Making of Californian Indians, the Ainus, and the Manchu People
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  This collaborative project seeks to identify the historical factors that established the role of medical policies relating to drawing and enforcing the ethnic and cultural boundaries for indigenous people within the state, and further analyzing such boundaries as to their effect on conditional and/or customized healthcare, especially in preventive medicine.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Chien-Ling Liu
  (Updated: Nov 03 2023)

• Vachiam Eecha
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  As an indigenous group of the Americas, many Yoemem have been misrepresented by non-Yoeme people. The project is a result of numerous visits to Yoeme communities and contributing to religious rituals, particularly in Potam Pueblo. The project not only provides viewers access to cultural practices but also protects communal privacy.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			David Shorter
  (Updated: Apr 23 2024)

• Determinants of Migration and Economic Integration
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  Changes in global labor markets and economic conditions, as well as individual circumstances can alter migration patterns in unanticipated ways. This project investigates the causes of the dramatic decline in Mexico-U.S. migration over the past decade and the associated changes in the profile of migrants arriving in the U.S.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Andrés Villarreal
  (Updated: Jul 01 2024)

• Migrants’ Health and Well-being
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  This NICHD-funded project follows cohorts of Filipino non-migrants and migrants to the U.S. to examine how emigration affects economic success and health outcomes.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Gilbert Gee
  (Updated: Jul 01 2024)

• Picturing Mexican America
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  This cluster of digital humanities projects focuses on the history of Mexican Los Angeles and includes a mobile app that displays archival images of 19th-century Mexican Los Angeles based on the user's location. The team comprises students, educators, volunteers, journalists, researchers, activists, and developers.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Marissa López
  (Updated: Oct 02 2024)

• Field Biology Quarter
  Institute of the Environment and Sustainability
  Dr. Daniel Blumstein's Field Biology Quarter has taken highly-motivated undergraduates to Australia, Kenya, Ecuador, Belize, and other countries for a bout of intensive research and learning. Students write proposals while in the US, then, working collaboratively in groups of three, have 3 weeks in-country to conduct the research.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Daniel Blumstein
  (Updated: Oct 25 2024)

• Canadian Studies Program
  International Institute

  The program's ambition is to train a new breed of policy-makers knowledgeable about Canadian society and well-versed in Canada-U.S. relations and affairs. With their Canadian counterparts, these young professionals will make wise and thoughtful decisions for the sustainable and long-term development and well-being of the North American community.

  
  

  Project website

  (Updated: Apr 18 2025)

• Global Chinese Philanthrophy Initiative (GCPI)
  International Institute

  The Global Chinese Philanthropy Initiative (GCPI) is a unique bilateral research project that examines the contributions of Chinese and Chinese American philanthropists in the U.S. and Greater China. This study shows dramatic increases in charitable giving among both Chinese and Chinese American philanthropists.

  
  

  Project website

  (Updated: Apr 18 2025)

• Center for Mexican Studies
  International Institute
  The UCLA Center for Mexican Studies is dedicated to organizing and sponsoring research on Mexico, faculty and student exchanges with Mexican universities, and Mexico-related events at UCLA. The Center promotes collaborative and bilateral research on Mexican social, cultural and economic issues, relations between the U.S. and Mexico.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Rubén Hernández-León
  (Updated: Apr 28 2025)

Education/Training

• UCLA Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center
  School of Medicine
  Pacific AETC works to expand the number and ability of healthcare professionals and organizations in the Pacific region to provide high-quality HIV-related services to increase access to healthcare and decrease health inequities.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  Tom Donohoe

• Carrying our Ancestors Home
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  A working group of tribal practitioners, tribal members, museum professionals, and academics, have worked to create this project as an educational tool for people seeking to understand the process and diversity of returning ancestral remains and cultural items, and the impact of repatriation on Indigenous communities around the world.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  Wendy Teeter

• Wiki for Indigenous Languages (WIL)
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  WIL aims to help tribal communities and individual members who want to revitalize their languages and access linguistic resources. The website offers the options of learning about Yoem Noki and Quechua. Anyone can search for a word in the dictionaries, access the language learning materials, and contribute to the site.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  David Shorter

• Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC)
  School of Medicine
  The UCLA TREC examines how to expand access to transplant, reduce racial disparities, ensure informed decision-making, promote paired donation, and increase living donation rates. TREC focuses on translating the findings from effective clinical trials into everyday practice through collaboration with healthcare providers, national transplant leaders, and policymakers.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  Amy Waterman

• Archive of Healing
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  The project aims to provide an approach to wellness that democratizes knowledge about wellness and health. The data contained spans over 200 years, and draws from 7 continents, six university archives, 3,200 published sources, and both first and second-hand information from folkloric fieldnotes.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  David Shorter

• Vachiam Eecha
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  As an indigenous group of the Americas, many Yoemem have been misrepresented by non-Yoeme people. The project is a result of numerous visits to Yoeme communities and contributing to religious rituals, particularly in Potam Pueblo. The project not only provides viewers access to cultural practices but also protects communal privacy.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  David Shorter

• Field Biology Quarter
  Institute of the Environment and Sustainability
  Dr. Daniel Blumstein's Field Biology Quarter has taken highly-motivated undergraduates to Australia, Kenya, Ecuador, Belize, and other countries for a bout of intensive research and learning. Students write proposals while in the US, then, working collaboratively in groups of three, have 3 weeks in-country to conduct the research.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  Daniel Blumstein

• Canadian Studies Program
  International Institute

  The program's ambition is to train a new breed of policy-makers knowledgeable about Canadian society and well-versed in Canada-U.S. relations and affairs. With their Canadian counterparts, these young professionals will make wise and thoughtful decisions for the sustainable and long-term development and well-being of the North American community.

  
  

  Project website

• Global Chinese Philanthrophy Initiative (GCPI)
  International Institute

  The Global Chinese Philanthropy Initiative (GCPI) is a unique bilateral research project that examines the contributions of Chinese and Chinese American philanthropists in the U.S. and Greater China. This study shows dramatic increases in charitable giving among both Chinese and Chinese American philanthropists.

  
  

  Project website

• Center for Mexican Studies
  International Institute
  The UCLA Center for Mexican Studies is dedicated to organizing and sponsoring research on Mexico, faculty and student exchanges with Mexican universities, and Mexico-related events at UCLA. The Center promotes collaborative and bilateral research on Mexican social, cultural and economic issues, relations between the U.S. and Mexico.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  Rubén Hernández-León

Service

• Mapping Indigenous LA
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  This storymapping project aims to uncover and highlight the multiple layers of indigenous Los Angeles with youth, community leaders, and elders from indigenous communities throughout the city. The website makes visible the rich Indigenous identities and histories that are deeply embedded in the history of Los Angeles.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  Juliann Anesi

• Carrying our Ancestors Home
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  A working group of tribal practitioners, tribal members, museum professionals, and academics, have worked to create this project as an educational tool for people seeking to understand the process and diversity of returning ancestral remains and cultural items, and the impact of repatriation on Indigenous communities around the world.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  Wendy Teeter

• Visualizing Genocide: Indigenous Interventions in Art, Archives and Museums
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  Visualizing Genocide examines how creative arts and memory institutions selectively commemorate or often outright ignore stark histories of colonialism. The essays confront outdated narratives and institutional methods by investigating contemporary artistic and scholarly interventions documenting settler colonialisms including land theft, incarceration, intergenerational trauma, and genocide.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  Nancy Mithlo

• Wiki for Indigenous Languages (WIL)
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  WIL aims to help tribal communities and individual members who want to revitalize their languages and access linguistic resources. The website offers the options of learning about Yoem Noki and Quechua. Anyone can search for a word in the dictionaries, access the language learning materials, and contribute to the site.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  David Shorter

• Archive of Healing
  College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences
  The project aims to provide an approach to wellness that democratizes knowledge about wellness and health. The data contained spans over 200 years, and draws from 7 continents, six university archives, 3,200 published sources, and both first and second-hand information from folkloric fieldnotes.
  Project Contact:

  Project website

  David Shorter

College of Letters and Science: Humanities

• Jewish American Writing and World Literature: Maybe to Millions, Maybe to Nobody
  Research|
  What does it mean to write for the world? And what happens when that writing is named as “Jewish”? Saul Noam Zaritt’s Jewish American Writing and World Literature: Maybe to Millions, Maybe to Nobody (OUP 2020) studies Jewish American writers’ relationships with the idea of world literature.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Yasemin Yildiz
  (Updated: Mar 08 2023)

• Hinda and Jacob Schonfeld Boyle Heights Project
  Research|
  In the 1930s, Boyle Heights—with its main throughway, Brooklyn Avenue—was home to some 10,000 Jewish households, about a third of the Los Angeles Jewish population and the highest concentration of Jews west of the Mississippi.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Aomar Boum
  (Updated: Mar 08 2023)

• Mapping Jewish Los Angeles
  Research|
  Developed in collaboration with the UCLA Library and dozens of community archives, the Mapping Jewish Los Angeles project uses digital tools and multimedia technologies to enable a broad audience to discover the complex histories of the Los Angeles Jewish community.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Todd Presner
  (Updated: Mar 08 2023)

School of Medicine

• UCLA Pacific AIDS Education and Training Center
  Education|
  Pacific AETC works to expand the number and ability of healthcare professionals and organizations in the Pacific region to provide high-quality HIV-related services to increase access to healthcare and decrease health inequities.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Tom Donohoe
  (Updated: Feb 03 2023)

• Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC)
  Research| Education|
  The UCLA TREC examines how to expand access to transplant, reduce racial disparities, ensure informed decision-making, promote paired donation, and increase living donation rates. TREC focuses on translating the findings from effective clinical trials into everyday practice through collaboration with healthcare providers, national transplant leaders, and policymakers.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Amy Waterman
  (Updated: Sep 05 2023)

International Institute

• Canadian Studies Program
  Research, Education

  The program's ambition is to train a new breed of policy-makers knowledgeable about Canadian society and well-versed in Canada-U.S. relations and affairs. With their Canadian counterparts, these young professionals will make wise and thoughtful decisions for the sustainable and long-term development and well-being of the North American community.

  
  

  Project website

  (Updated: Apr 18 2025)

• Global Chinese Philanthrophy Initiative (GCPI)
  Research, Education

  The Global Chinese Philanthropy Initiative (GCPI) is a unique bilateral research project that examines the contributions of Chinese and Chinese American philanthropists in the U.S. and Greater China. This study shows dramatic increases in charitable giving among both Chinese and Chinese American philanthropists.

  
  

  Project website

  (Updated: Apr 18 2025)

• Center for Mexican Studies
  Research, Education
  The UCLA Center for Mexican Studies is dedicated to organizing and sponsoring research on Mexico, faculty and student exchanges with Mexican universities, and Mexico-related events at UCLA. The Center promotes collaborative and bilateral research on Mexican social, cultural and economic issues, relations between the U.S. and Mexico.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Rubén Hernández-León
  (Updated: Apr 28 2025)

Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

• Field Biology Quarter
  Research| Education|
  Dr. Daniel Blumstein's Field Biology Quarter has taken highly-motivated undergraduates to Australia, Kenya, Ecuador, Belize, and other countries for a bout of intensive research and learning. Students write proposals while in the US, then, working collaboratively in groups of three, have 3 weeks in-country to conduct the research.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Daniel Blumstein
  (Updated: Oct 25 2024)

College of Letters and Science: Social Sciences

• Lutu Chuktiwa: Cutting the Cord
  Research
  This short ethnographic film portrays the Lutu Chuktiwa (Cutting the Cord) ceremony of the Yoeme (Yaqui) Indians. The Lutu Pahko (cord ceremony) is an all night ritual that takes place one year after someone's death in order to release the family and community from mourning.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			David Shorter
  (Updated: Apr 13 2023)

• Mapping Indigenous LA
  Research, Service
  This storymapping project aims to uncover and highlight the multiple layers of indigenous Los Angeles with youth, community leaders, and elders from indigenous communities throughout the city. The website makes visible the rich Indigenous identities and histories that are deeply embedded in the history of Los Angeles.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Juliann Anesi
  (Updated: Apr 13 2023)

• Carrying our Ancestors Home
  Education, Service
  A working group of tribal practitioners, tribal members, museum professionals, and academics, have worked to create this project as an educational tool for people seeking to understand the process and diversity of returning ancestral remains and cultural items, and the impact of repatriation on Indigenous communities around the world.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Wendy Teeter
  (Updated: Apr 13 2023)

• Visualizing Genocide: Indigenous Interventions in Art, Archives and Museums
  Research, Service
  Visualizing Genocide examines how creative arts and memory institutions selectively commemorate or often outright ignore stark histories of colonialism. The essays confront outdated narratives and institutional methods by investigating contemporary artistic and scholarly interventions documenting settler colonialisms including land theft, incarceration, intergenerational trauma, and genocide.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Nancy Mithlo
  (Updated: Apr 13 2023)

• Wiki for Indigenous Languages (WIL)
  Education, Service
  WIL aims to help tribal communities and individual members who want to revitalize their languages and access linguistic resources. The website offers the options of learning about Yoem Noki and Quechua. Anyone can search for a word in the dictionaries, access the language learning materials, and contribute to the site.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			David Shorter
  (Updated: Apr 13 2023)

• Archive of Healing
  Education, Service
  The project aims to provide an approach to wellness that democratizes knowledge about wellness and health. The data contained spans over 200 years, and draws from 7 continents, six university archives, 3,200 published sources, and both first and second-hand information from folkloric fieldnotes.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			David Shorter
  (Updated: Sep 13 2023)

• Healthcare Rationing and the Ethnic Boundaries of Indigenous People: the Making of Californian Indians, the Ainus, and the Manchu People
  Research
  This collaborative project seeks to identify the historical factors that established the role of medical policies relating to drawing and enforcing the ethnic and cultural boundaries for indigenous people within the state, and further analyzing such boundaries as to their effect on conditional and/or customized healthcare, especially in preventive medicine.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Chien-Ling Liu
  (Updated: Nov 03 2023)

• Vachiam Eecha
  Research, Education
  As an indigenous group of the Americas, many Yoemem have been misrepresented by non-Yoeme people. The project is a result of numerous visits to Yoeme communities and contributing to religious rituals, particularly in Potam Pueblo. The project not only provides viewers access to cultural practices but also protects communal privacy.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			David Shorter
  (Updated: Apr 23 2024)

• Determinants of Migration and Economic Integration
  Research
  Changes in global labor markets and economic conditions, as well as individual circumstances can alter migration patterns in unanticipated ways. This project investigates the causes of the dramatic decline in Mexico-U.S. migration over the past decade and the associated changes in the profile of migrants arriving in the U.S.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Andrés Villarreal
  (Updated: Jul 01 2024)

• Migrants’ Health and Well-being
  Research
  This NICHD-funded project follows cohorts of Filipino non-migrants and migrants to the U.S. to examine how emigration affects economic success and health outcomes.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Gilbert Gee
  (Updated: Jul 01 2024)

• Picturing Mexican America
  Research
  This cluster of digital humanities projects focuses on the history of Mexican Los Angeles and includes a mobile app that displays archival images of 19th-century Mexican Los Angeles based on the user's location. The team comprises students, educators, volunteers, journalists, researchers, activists, and developers.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			Marissa López
  (Updated: Oct 02 2024)

UCLA International Education Office

• Global Governance and the United Nations System
  EducationAbroadProgram
  This program is designed for students who are interested in international diplomacy and politics in areas like human rights, development, human trafficking, the International Criminal Court, war crimes, and the Responsibility to Protect.
  

  Project website

  (Updated: Aug 12 2020)

• Sociology: Cities and Cultures
  TravelStudyProgram
  Hear how the “Big Apple” is dealing with its challenges as the largest public school system in the country, and see first-hand how the city hosts star high-tech companies such as Google and Apple, nurtures thousands of start-ups and is a new media center.
  Project Contact:

  Project website			David Halle
  (Updated: May 11 2023)