August 4, 2025
Luskin Center for Innovation experts uplift the work of about 50 students a year
Our 2025 students shine with research opportunities and mentorship
From left to right, top to bottom: Leo Blain, Emily Cadena, Will Callan, Dana Choi, Chloe Curry, Katie Freiberg, Emma French, Leila Moinpour, Viviana Morales, Ayden Pasebani, Veronica De Santos Quezada, Catherine Ren, Nasir Sakandar, Allison Samsel, Kalani Seymore, Alex Sun, Carley Towne, & Anastasia Vanderpool
Each year, the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation supports about 50 students to conduct environmental policy research, further their professional development, and add capacity to community organizations and other civic partners advancing environmental sustainability and justice. Below are examples of the financial and mentorship our researchers provided this year.
Student Spotlight – Kalani Seymore
Kalani Seymore has been an instrumental member of the center’s communications and events team for three years. From managing our social media presence to hosting events that build community, Kalani always researched and implemented best practices. His work strengthened our efforts to disseminate our research in an accessible way.
Working at the Luskin Center for Innovation has been one of the most rewarding parts of my college experience.
Kalani is graduating from UCLA with a B.A. in Economics and a clear sense of purpose: to pursue a career at the intersection of finance and climate.
Field Fellowships for Environmental Justice
This program provides financial support and professional connections for students to work with environmental justice organizations and other civic leaders to advance goals for more livable places. This year’s fellows include:
- Anastasia Vanderpool will be a fellow for Communities for a Better Environment, helping to analyze hazardous waste plans and policies to protect the communities of Southeast LA.
- Carl de Joya will work with Community Water Center researching and uplifting community-driven water solutions, including informing drinking water policy for vulnerable communities in the San Joaquin Valley.
- Carley Towne will join Physicians for Social Responsibility to support their Environmental Justice Communities Against Plastic coalition, which aims to address plastic pollution across its lifecycle.
Graduate Research Grant Recipients
We also provide financial support for students’ capstone projects, allowing them to expand the scope of their applied environmental justice or sustainability projects. The following are examples from urban and regional planning graduate students’ research for civic partners.
- Advised by Kelly Turner, Katie Freiberg’s report Deconstructing Evaluation to Build a Resilient Future: Best Practices for Measuring Impacts of the Community Resilience Centers Grant Program presents the California Strategic Growth Council with practical recommendations for integrating adaptive indicators, strengthening data infrastructure, and ensuring long-term accountability and learning across diverse resilience strategies.
- Advised by Greg Pierce and Edith de Guzman, a team of students assessed how to improve drought and wildfire resilience for small water systems in LA County, with a focus on consolidation, emergency preparedness, and equitable access to safe drinking water. This research was prepared for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.
Student Spotlight – Viviana Morales
Over the last two years, Viviana Morales has played a key role in the center’s transportation equity projects, which are focused on expanding access to clean transportation in underserved California communities. Among other tasks, Viviana supported bilingual outreach, conducted literature reviews, and analyzed survey data to ensure research findings reflected the real-world experiences of front-line communities.
Viviana was recently awarded the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs’ 2025 Master of Public Policy Student of the Year — an honor for those who exemplify academic excellence, leadership, and a deep commitment to public service and equity.
It means a great deal to me, especially as a first-generation student who arrived at Luskin with a passion for public service, but also with uncertainty about how I would navigate academic and policy spaces. Over the past two years, I’ve grown immensely, both personally and professionally, and a big part of that journey has been my time at the Luskin Center for Innovation.
We are honored and grateful to have been part of each of these students’ journeys, and we look forward to seeing the impact they’ll make in the future.
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