Abel Valenzuela Jr. was appointed dean of social sciences effective May 2024. A member of the UCLA faculty since 1994, Valenzuela is a professor of labor studies, urban planning and Chicana/o and Central American studies and the most recent past director of UCLA’s Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, working with colleagues to build labor studies and enhance research and engagement through the newly named James Lawson Worker Justice Center.

Valenzuela is a leading national expert on day labor (itinerant workers) and precarious labor markets, and he continues to publish and frame public and policy conversations on immigrant and low-wage workers. His research interests include precarious labor markets, worker centers, immigrant workers, environmental equity, just transitions, neighborhood change and Los Angeles.

At UCLA, he has held several administrative leadership positions, including chairing Chicana/o and Central American studies for two terms, directing the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty for more than a decade and serving as special advisor to the chancellor on immigration policy for four years. During UCLA’s Centennial Celebration, Valenzuela led the exhibit “UCLA: Our Stories, Our Impact,” an effort to recognize and uplift alumni of color who have dedicated their work to social justice and change.

Valenzuela earned his B.A. from UC Berkeley (social science field major) and his M.C.P. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nesha Ichida is a marine conservation scientist working as a program manager for an Indonesian NGO called Thrive Conservation. Ichida has been primarily focused on shark and ray research and conservation, marine protected area management, and community-based conservation initiative in eastern Indonesia. She is running both a community-based marine conservation project at Rote Island and ReShark’s StAR Project, an ambitious initiative to repopulate Raja Ampat with zebra sharks through conservation translocation, involving more than 75 multinational partners.

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez is executive director of Geoversity: Nature’s University. Geoversity’s main campus is the Mamoní Valley Preserve, a 12,800-acre rainforest corridor of life, which have successfully prevented the fragmentation of the largest remaining stretch of contiguous rainforest in the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena eco-region — one of the world’s top 25 biodiversity hotspots. Previously, Monterrey served as director of Geoversity’s School for Biocultural Leadership, vice-chair for implementation of the UN Climate Convention, as well as chair and deputy chair of negotiating blocs such as the Independent Alliance of Latin America and the Caribbean (8 countries) and the Coalition for Rainforest Nations (50+).

At 28, he became Panama’s lead climate negotiator and at COP26 led the youngest delegation to represent a country at UN Climate Negotiations. In 2018, President Obama named Monterrey an inaugural Obama Foundation Scholar. His work has been covered by the Washington Post, TIME, Forbes, Reuters and Deutsche Welle. Monterrey’s passion is propelled by his upbringing in El Pajaro de Pesé, a rural community in Panama’s Dry Corridor impacted by the climate crisis. TVN, Panama’s leading newsgroup, named him a 2023 Héroes por Panamá. President Cortizo of Panama commissioned Monterrey to perform a reading of the Act of Independence to commemorate the Bicentennial of the Republic in 2021; and the Aspen Institute selected him as an Ideas Festival Fellow in 2022.

Juan Carlos co-authored decrees to establish Panama’s national carbon market and consults for the World Bank on carbon pricing and climate lending operations in Panama. He previously worked at UN Environment and the Ministry of the Environment and co-founded Fund 17, a microfinance NGO in New Orleans. He holds degrees from UChicago, Tulane and Northwest Missouri State University. Monterrey attended José Daniel Crespo High School and the Missouri Academy of Science Mathematics and Computing.

Jessie Turner is the executive director of the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification. A voluntary initiative of national and subnational governments, the OA Alliance works to raise ambition for climate action and transform the global response to climate-ocean change.

As executive director, Turner sets the strategic direction of the OA Alliance and develops and carries out annual programming, including contributions to international convenings. She also establishes partnerships across a variety of disciplines and coalitions, deploys communications strategies across multiple scales, and supports members in the development of practicable ocean acidification adaptation and resilience strategies.

Turner served as lead facilitator to the Pacific Coast Collaborative’s Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Working Group between 2014 and 2023. The PCC is a collaboration between the U.S. states of California, Oregon and Washington, and the Canadian province of British Columbia working together on climate issues that impact the North American West Coast region.

Turner has 15 years of experience working in public policy development, advocacy and stakeholder engagement at local to international scales. She has worked on wide-ranging issues, including affordable homeownership, healthcare, energy efficiency, food waste, climate and marine policy.

Sébastien Philippe is a research scholar at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security within the School of Public and International Affairs. His work combines technical research and policy analysis with a the goal of creating a safer and more peaceful world. His research interests include issues of nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, disarmament and related environmental justice issues.

Philippe is the co-author of “Toxique” (French University Press, 2021), both a technical and journalistic investigation into the environmental impact of French nuclear testing in the Pacific, which was a finalist for the 2021 Albert Londres Prize (the French equivalent of the Pulitzer) and won a 2022 Sigma Award for best data journalism in the world among other accolades.

Philippe is an associate editor of the peer-reviewed technical journal Science & Global Security, and a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, an independent 16-country group of experts working to end the world reliance on weapon-usable uranium and plutonium. In 2023, he was appointed as an inaugural member of the newly created Scientific Advisory Group of the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, to advise member states on nuclear test victim assistance and environmental remediation.

Philippe holds a Ph.D. (2018) in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton, was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom and the International Security Program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and has served as a nuclear weapon system safety engineer in France’s Ministry of Armed Forces.

Darnell Hunt began serving as UCLA’s executive vice chancellor and provost — responsible for administering campus operations and the academic enterprise — in September of 2022. A celebrated scholar of race and media whose work has focused largely on the entertainment industry, EVCP Hunt is also well known for his longstanding commitment to high-quality public education, support of interdisciplinary research for the common good, and vision for inclusive excellence.

Since joining UCLA in 2001, EVCP Hunt has served as dean of the UCLA College’s Division of Social Sciences, chair of the Department of Sociology, and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies. He currently holds faculty appointments in the departments of sociology and African American studies. EVCP Hunt received his Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology from UCLA, an M.B.A. from Georgetown University and an A.B. in public relations from USC.

Iroro Tanshi is a multiple award-winning African woman conservationist who focuses on saving Afrotropical biodiversity in the lower Guinean Forest and coastal forests of the Gulf of Guinea islands.

Tanshi employs a “local agency” approach to conservation, building trust and identifying mutual benefits among communities, government organizations and NGOs while training a new generation of young West African conservation scientists. The approach creates networks that draw on international expertise while maintaining local leadership — building on a shared belief that healthy environments are essential for healthy communities.

Tanshi’s approach to conservation research fills knowledge gaps using field-generated data. For nearly a decade, she has worked to save Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary and Cross River National Park, Nigeria’s last primary forests that have survived since ancient times. They are currently threatened by wildfires that have intensified rapidly under climate change.

Tanshi also co-founded and leads the Small Mammal Conservation Organization (SMACON), which adapts evidence-based conservation methods to local contexts. She is committed to strengthening and raising in-country capacity in Africa, which is pivotal for sustainable action. Working with local and international partners, Tanshi’s NGO has trained 15 West African students, some of whom continue to be supported for the long term.

Leadership Counsel fundamentally shifts the dynamics that have created the stark inequality that impacts California’s low income, rural regions. Based in the San Joaquin and Eastern Coachella Valleys, we work alongside the most impacted communities to advocate for sound policy and eradicate injustice to secure equal access to opportunity regardless of wealth, race, income, and place.

Through community organizing, research, legal representation, and policy advocacy, we impact land use and transportation planning, shift public investment priorities, guide environmental policy, and promote the provision of basic infrastructure and services.

Support community strength and co-powerment.

We pursue the development of healthy and sustainable communities by supporting residents to take ownership of their advocacy ability and by leveraging the strength of other organizations to build strong, lasting, and mutually supportive organizations.

The council ensures the inclusion of and respect for historically excluded communities and co-empowers allies to engage in decision making processes.

The council raises awareness of needs and opportunities for investment in and protection of historically neglected communities and to ensure inclusion of rural, low income communities in key discussions, policies, and programs.

Veronica Garibay and Phoebe Seaton co-founded and co-direct Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability, a community-based advocacy organization headquartered in Fresno, California, with offices in Coachella, Bakersfield, Merced and Sacramento. Garibay and Seaton launched Leadership Counsel in 2013 with the goal of using a variety of tactics including organizing, community engagement, local policy advocacy, state policy advocacy and legal advocacy to work in partnership with community leaders to address some of the most intractable barriers to health, well-being and opportunity including discriminatory land-use patterns, exclusion from municipal services including safe drinking water and wastewater service, inadequate and unsafe housing, and outdated and inequitable transportation systems. Since their launch, Garibay and Seaton have overseen the expansion of the organization from a team of four to a team of 35 and have led the organization’s growth into new substantive areas including climate, public finance, clean energy, agriculture and groundwater sustainability.

Garibay and Seaton started working together five years prior to launching Leadership Counsel when they led California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.’s Community Equity Initiative. Garibay was born in Michoacán, Mexico and grew up in Parlier, California. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a master’s degree in public administration at Fresno State while working at California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. Seaton grew up in Berkeley, California and earned her bachelor’s degree at University of California, Berkeley and her J.D. at UCLA.

Caressa Nguyen is tribal citizen of the Ione Band of Miwok Indians, as well as being Vietnamese and Filipino. She promotes the sovereignty of tribal nations, advocates for marginalized communities and fosters Asian American and Indigenous solidarity.

Nguyen focuses her efforts on amplifying Indigenous and marginalized voices through various avenues, including policy, design, social entrepreneurship and land stewardship. She has conducted climate change research in countries such as Bolivia, Morocco, Peru, United States, Vietnam and Nepal, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous rights. Her research sheds light on international case studies that highlight Indigenous resistance to natural resource extraction. Additionally, she has delved into the United Nations program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program.

She is the co-founder of Sacred Lands, Native Hands (SLNH), a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring homelands to Indigenous communities and reviving traditional stewardship practices. Leading by example, SLNH has initiated a compelling campaign to reclaim Miwok lands in the Sierra Nevada Foothills of California. This effort directly confronts the political landscape of California, addressing unratified treaties that left Nguyen’s tribe landless until 2020. SLNH actively supports other initiatives centered around land back and tribal co-management, including the expansion of the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument. SLNH also aims to strengthen tribal fishing rights in California.

Nguyen was awarded a US State Department grant to pilot a zero-waste shop model in the Cham Islands of Vietnam, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Recognizing the importance of collaboration, she worked closely with the local Marine Protected Area staff to develop this experimental initiative. Nguyen also works to amplify community-led solutions and empower local women with entrepreneurial skills. Through the establishment of the zero-waste shop, the initiative seeks to reduce the environmental impact and foster a circular economy within the community.

Nguyen is committed to environmental justice, outdoor equity, the protection of Indigenous rights, the strengthening of tribal sovereignty and the fostering of Indigenous solidarity. Her multifaceted background and diverse range of accomplishments position her as a leader in these pursuits. Through her work, she blends research, grassroots initiatives and international collaborations to drive positive change, forge meaningful connections, and advocate for a sustainable and inclusive future.