Aaron A. Burke is Professor of the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and the Levant in the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department, and a member of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is co-director of the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project. Between 2011 and 2014, with Martin Peilstöcker he resumed excavations of the New Kingdom fortress on the mound of ancient Jaffa. His research examines how climate and environmental changes, among other factors, drove social change in the ancient Near East during the Bronze and Iron Ages. His most recent book, The Amorites and the Bronze Age Near East: The Making of a Regional Identity (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). He is also author of “Walled Up to Heaven”: The Evolution of Middle Bronze Age Fortification Strategies in the Levant (Eisenbrauns, 2008), and co-editor of several volumes on the history and archaeology of Jaffa.

Li Min’s major field of research is the archaeology of prehistoric and Bronze Age China, focusing on state formation, social memory, storytelling, place-making, and religious and social responses to climatic change. He also studies the maritime archaeology of the Asiatic Trade in the Early Modern Era (13-17th centuries), using research on ceramic production and trade in coastal China and Southeast Asia to document the transformations in material culture brought by the inauguration of early global trade. 

He teaches graduate seminars in archaeology theories and several undergraduate courses on anthropological archaeology and ancient civilizations of China. These classes are offered through Anthropology, Asian Languages and Cultures, and the Interdepartmental Program of Archaeology. He is also co-director of the Wen-Si River Basin archaeological survey project, a collaboration between UCLA and archaeologists in China.

 

His most recent book is Social Memory and State Formation in Early China, published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. 

Brooke Shimasaki is a 4th Environmental Science major with a concentration in Environmental Engineering. She is from Lodi, CA however UCLA has quickly become her second home. Outside of SAR, you can find Brooke giving tours of the UCLA campus, napping on top of Bomb Shelter, munching at BPlate and hammocking on Jaans. Brooke was a member of the Urban Nature team in 2018 and led the Transportation team in 2019.  SAR has been such an enriching experience for Brooke and she is great full to have been involved with the organization for the past three years.

Léa Le Rouzo is a fourth year Environmental Science major with minors in Geography / Environmental Studies and Food Studies. Originally from Grenoble, France, she grew up near Sacramento where she came to love over 100 degree weather, rivers, and the noteworthy amount of urban trees. Lea also works for the CalFresh Initiative at UCLA alongside other students to increase food security on campus. Outside of SAR and CalFresh, Lea loves spending time gardening, hiking, floating in the Pacific Ocean any time of year, and eating pita with baba ghanoush. She joined SAR her second year as a member of the Native Landscaping Team and became one of the Resilience Team leads during her third year. Now, she serves as one of the directors of the program and feels lucky to have been part of the program for the last three years. 

As a first-generation college graduate and a US Navy veteran, Tamar is passionate about empowering her students to find their voice and contribute to the academic conversation.  Since earning her Master’s degree in History from CSU Long Beach and joining the Writing Programs faculty in 2010, she has taught the full range of lower and upper division courses offered by the department.  Drawing from the analytical writing textbook she co-authored, Own Your Perspective, Tamar leads thought-provoking classroom discussions and a rigorous revision process to arm students with the ability and desire to both articulate and act on their complicated views. No matter the writing course, Tamar underscores climate crisis issues, including at least one major assignment focused on the topic.  Recently, Tamar developed the Professional Writing Minor course, “Topics in Science Writing: Environmental Awareness to Climate Action,” which helps students translate complicated scientific works (e.g. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5ºC, 2018) into effective op-eds, social media interactions and blogs, personal narratives, and TED Talks with the goal to instigate positive climate action that connects the individual to the collective.  Tamar’s pedagogy is a direct reflection of her personal commitment both in and outside the classroom. She has been an invited speaker for student clubs across campus to help Bruins reimagine their lifestyles, focusing on how she transitioned to a zero waste lifestyle, reduced her consumption habits, changed her diet, and learned to get around LA without a car. In both her lifestyle and pedagogy, her focus on climate action helps students take individual steps that blossom into larger community-driven initiatives and political engagement.  

Tamar is currently working on an article to help other instructors develop climate-related writing assignments that encourage students to consider and change their personal habits while advocating for broader change.  She is also collaborating on a creative non-fiction book about how to reclaim the winter holiday season from capitalism and celebrate in a manner that is simultaneously good for the individual and our biosphere. A few of Tamar’s efforts to build a bridge between classroom pedagogy and individual practices beyond the classroom have been highlighted in the Daily Bruin and by the UCLA Transportation’s, “Be a Green Commuter” program.

 

Publications:

Randall Fallows and Tamar Christensen, “Own Your Perspective: A Concise Exploration into Content and Form.” (2016).

“How Married UCLA Lecturers Lived Happily Ever After Car-Free,” Karen Hallisey, UCLA Transportation, Be a Green Commuter (2020)

“Married lecturer duo hopes to instill a sustainable mindset in students,” Kennedy Hill, Daily Bruin (2019).

Danny Snelson is a writer, editor, and archivist. His research and teaching blend a study of poetry and poetics with work on digital and network cultures, material text studies, and media theory. He is developing a book project tentatively titled “The Little Database: A Poetics of Media Formats,” which reads a contingent media poetics in works of print, sound, and cinema from within new media contexts.

His books include Full Bleed: A Mourning Letter for the Printed Page (Sync, 2019), Apocalypse Reliquary: 1984-2000 (Monoskop, 2018), Radios (Make Now, 2016), EXE TXT (Gauss PDF, 2015), Epic Lyric Poem (Troll Thread, 2014), and Inventory Arousal with James Hoff (Bedford Press/Architectural Association, 2011).

Maja Manojlovic is a Lecturer and Faculty Advisor for Writing II Pedagogy at the UCLA Writing Programs. She holds a Ph.D. in Cinema and Media Studies from UCLA School of Theater, Film, and TV, specializing in phenomenology, aesthetics, and cultures of digital film and emerging media. Her research focuses on immersive and interactive media aesthetics and cultures. 

She is currently working on a manuscript Interval/Interstice: The Aesthetics of Digital Cinema, where she considers how filmmakers in the early 2000s deploy digital tools to reimagine space-time in cinema, and how this affects our sensorium, affect, and sense-making. Her work on the aesthetics of XR environments deploys the concept of the intervallic/interstitial to delve deeper into the effects the technologies of VR/AR/MR have on our feeling and perception of the self and its relationship to the world.

Dr. Manojlovic teaches courses spanning from Trends in Multimedia Environments: Videogame Rhetoric and Design in the Professional Writing Minor to Emerging Media: XR Technologies, Immersive Environments, and Embodied Experience in the Digital Humanities Minor. She is also developing a course Trends in Multimedia Environments: Interactive and Immersive Environmental Storytelling. 

She is currently putting into practice her experience from the 2018 Oculus Launch Pad program for VR developers, where she developed Reconnect! The Amazon Medicine Garden. This is a VR experience in support of the Amazon Yawanawá peoples’ efforts to preserve medicinal plants as a part of their natural and cultural environment. At UCLA, she is working on two VR projects. Tongva VR/AR aims to develop 3-D models of two indigenous Gabrielino/Tongva villages, and is supported by the UCLA Digital Research Accelerator. Scribe VR, is developing a VR writing app, and is supported by the UCLA Technology Development Group and Startup UCLA’s Faculty Innovation Fellows Program. She has also kick-started, and is a part of the UCLA XR Initiative core group.

Publications:

“Extended Reality (XR) Series: Interview with Maja Manojlovic.”

“Dream is Destiny: Waking Life and the Digital Aesthetics of the In-between.” In Waking Life: Kino zwischen Technik und Leben, edited by Lisa Åkervall, Adina Lauenburger, Sulgi Lie, Christian Tedjasukmana. Berlin: b_books, Spring 2016

“Cas 3-D podob: Dimenzionalna estetika casa in prostora v izkušnji sodobnih stereoskopskih 3-D filmov, prvi del” (“Time for 3-D: Dimensional Aesthetics of Time and Space in the Experience of Contemporary 3-D Cinema, Part One”). Ekran: Revija za film in televizijo (Screen: Magazine for Film and Television, November-December 2013)

“Demonlover: Interval, Affect and the Aesthetics of Digital Dislocation.” In Cinema and Technology: Cultures, Theories, Practices. Edited by Bruce Bennett, Mark Furstenau, Adrian Mackenzie, 142-156. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Annika Karody is a recent graduate of UCLA, where she majored in Human Biology and Society and minored in English. She has hopes of being a writer, and in her spare time she plays guitar, performs stand-up comedy, and incorporates environmental awareness into her work and daily life. 

Maddy is a third year Environmental Science major, planning to double minor in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geographic Information Systems and Technology. She is passionate about finding sustainable alternatives that maintain bottom lines through scientific exploration and technological innovation. Currently, she is working with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability’s Corporate Partners Program to research the potential of various renewable energy options in urban commercial buildings, including grid-friendly buildings and photovoltaics. Additionally, with UCLA Sustainability Action Research,  Madeleine serves on the Lawn Management team, investigating ways in which different fertilizers impact soil health and water retention, with the goal of advising the Custodial and Grounds Department on best sustainable practices. On campus, she co-chairs the UCLA Student Giving Committee, an organization dedicated to supporting yearly fundraising campaigns, such as Blue and Gold Week, and educating the student body about the important role that philanthropy plays on campus. Additionally, she works as a Peer Learning Facilitator with the Academic and Student Services Department, providing academic support to students in a variety of subjects. In her free time, Madeleine loves reading (she’s currently enjoying a collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury), hiking, and spending time with friends and family. Madeleine always looks forward to new opportunities to gain experience in sustainability, renewable energy, and GIS mapping and analysis.

Mingyi Chen is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UCLA, double majoring in Mathematics/Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Economics. Originally involved in oceanography research, she found her passion for corporate sustainability after several internship experiences. Following graduation, she aspires to work at the intersection of sustainability and business, and eventually pursues a Master’s degree in this area. As part of the Corporate Partners Program, she is investigating various technologies that incorporate unique and essential methods for renewable energy generation and storage, particular in an urban setting. On-campus, she has been on the UCLA Sailing Team for all four years and enjoys being on the water to connect with nature.