UC Santa Cruz Social Sciences

From a student film festival at UC Santa Cruz to a cultural institution serving San Diego, Ethan van Thillo's (Merrill '92, Latin American and Latino studies) journey shows how one idea can grow into lasting community impact🎬

While on campus, van Thillo founded UC Santa Cruz's first Chicano Film Festival as a student: an experience that sparked a lifelong commitment to using film as a tool for social change and education. He went on to establish the San Diego Latino Film Festival and Media Arts Center San Diego, which now supports filmmakers and communities through film, education, and digital storytelling.

"During this whole period, I was really learning how the power of film really can be a great tool for social change and education," van Thillo said.
Read more about van Thillo's journey and the UCSC experience that helped shape his work: https://news.ucsc.edu/2026/07/ethan-van-thillo-from-student-film-festival-to-a-cultural-institution/

Social scientists are supporting healthier bees, one urban garden at a time 🐝🌻 A new UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute–funded project is bringing genomics into the garden to better understand what shapes pollinator health.

Environmental Studies researchers Stacy Philpott and Iris Rivera are collaborating with Ecology and Evolutionary Biology researchers Rachel Meyer and Ingrid Parker to investigate how urban garden design, plant diversity, and seasonality influence the spread of viruses and parasites among bees.

By tracking bee movements and testing bees and flowers for pathogens, the team hopes to identify ways to design urban gardens that better support pollinators, creating healthier local ecosystems for the food systems that depend on them.

Learn more about this interdisciplinary project: https://news.ucsc.edu/2026/07/genomics-institute-seed-funding-2026/

Jeremy Demian Marx Award for Cultural Anthropology recipient Everett Campbell (anthropology, environmental studies '27) is driven by a deep curiosity about the connections between people, culture, history, and the natural world.

Drawn to UC Santa Cruz by its redwood forests, mountains, and coastline, he has embraced every opportunity to explore the questions that emerge at the intersection of environment and human experience. This summer, the scholarship will help Everett attend an archaeological field school in Spain, a critical step toward his goal of becoming a professional archaeologist.

Beyond learning archaeological methods, he hopes to better understand how communities relate to their histories. "I am particularly interested in how a person living geographically within their past is affected psychologically by it, and how it affects their approach to life," he said.

At UC Santa Cruz, Everett has combined hands-on research with community engagement. Working in Professor Vicky Oelze's lab, he investigated differences between soil from his community garden and nearby forest ecosystems, gaining new insight into ecological restoration and environmental change.

"Seeing how the quality of earth is altered by composting and active restoration methods was very interesting," he shared, "and it was exciting to see an aspect of my personal life through a more scientific lens."

After graduation, Everett plans to pursue ecological restoration work before attending graduate school in archaeology. His long-term goal is to document and preserve cultural heritage sites threatened by climate change. "Climate change is the largest threat to humanity today, and harms artifacts and cultural history just as it does habitats and humans," he said. "I hope to save a little bit of our shared history and what makes us human."

Congratulations, Everett! 🎉

"California has some of the strongest coastal protections anywhere in the country, and even the world," said Katherine Seto, associate professor of environmental studies. "But the promises of those policies remain unfulfilled while structural inequities continue to create such huge disparities in peoples' ability to benefit from the coast based on their income and identity."

A new study led by UC Santa Cruz researchers reveals how structural barriers, from inadequate infrastructure and transportation to historical exclusion and cultural norms, continue to shape who can fully experience and benefit from the coast. Their research offers a path forward, including improved public transit, equity audits, greater investment in underserved coastal areas, and Tribal co-stewardship to ensure that equitable ocean access.
Read the full story: https://news.ucsc.edu/2026/07/coastal-access-equity/

Some LGBTQ+ experiences have changed across generations, and others have stayed the same 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈

A new study by Professor of Psychology Phil Hammack, published in Psychology & Sexuality, looks at the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ people across the Baby Boomer, Generation X, and Millennial generations. Through in-depth interviews conducted across the United States, the research found that participants across all three generations described experiences with prejudice and stigma, with organized religion frequently identified as a source of exclusion.

At the same time, each generation emphasized the importance of social media in fostering identity, connection, and community. Millennial participants also highlighted how growing up with more expansive language around sexuality and gender provided greater opportunities for self-understanding and identity exploration.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies Justin Perez, who has been awarded the 2026 LASA Flora Tristán Book Prize for Q***r Emergent: Scandalous Stories from the Twilight of AIDS in Peru.

Presented annually by the Peru Section of the Latin American Studies Association, the award recognizes the book that makes the most significant contribution to academic knowledge about Peru, honoring exceptional rigor, originality, and impact. 🇵🇪

The award was announced at the 2026 Latin American Studies Association Congress in Paris, recognizing Perez's groundbreaking research and its contribution to advancing scholarship on Peru, LGBTQ+ histories, and the lasting social and political legacies of the AIDS epidemic.

They escaped the slave trade to an island in the middle of the ocean. Almost two centuries later, science is revealing their life histories.🔍

In a new Science study, UC Santa Cruz Anthropology Professor Vicky Oelze and an international team combined archival records, strontium isotope analysis, geographic modeling, and ancient DNA to reconstruct the likely childhood origins of 152 Liberated Africans buried on the island.

Their findings reveal that many individuals came from western Central Africa, while others were forcibly displaced from regions hundreds or even thousands of miles inland before ever reaching the coast. Part of this work was possible through previous mapping efforts by Oelze.

This research offers new insight into the human impact of the transatlantic slave trade and deepens our understanding of one of the world's greatest humanitarian tragedies. It also supports ongoing community-led efforts on Saint Helena to honor and commemorate the lives of those who endured it.

"The strength of this study lies in bringing together evidence that speaks to different parts of a person's life history," said Oelze.

Benjamin Quaye Memorial Award for Social Justice recipient Jesus Vargas (intensive psychology and Latin American and Latino studies '27) is passionate about building connections across disciplines to better understand and address the challenges facing marginalized communities.

As a first-generation college student and the first in his family to attend a University of California campus, Jesus says receiving this award is especially meaningful. Throughout his time at UC Santa Cruz, Jesus has combined creativity, leadership, and social justice advocacy.

One of his favorite experiences was organizing a campus rave as Lead Programs Assistant for the Cowell and Stevenson Programs Office. The event connected students with campus resources while highlighting harm reduction, the history of club culture, and its Black and Q***r roots. "It was so much fun curating the playlist and mixing each song like a DJ set," he said. "Performing each song by hyping the crowd up and lip-syncing was so much fun and allowed me to let my creativity shine."

After graduation, Jesus plans to pursue graduate studies in counseling or clinical psychology, focusing on q***r Latine mental health and expanding access to culturally responsive care. "I want to push the field to be more culturally cognizant of the issues that impact our communities the most," he said.

Millions of acres of U.S. farmland prepare to change hands over the next two decades. The decisions made today will shape who has access to land tomorrow.

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Madeleine Fairbairn and co-author Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern examine this pivotal moment in their new review article in Geography Compass, "Contemporary Land Transitions in the United States: Critical Questions of Concentration and (Re)Distribution."

Their work explores the forces driving land concentration, the barriers facing new and historically excluded farmers, and the policies and movements working toward more equitable land access. The authors offer insights into one of the most pressing questions facing the future of U.S. agriculture: who will own, steward, and benefit from the land in the decades ahead? 🌱

Professor of Environmental Studies Sikina Jinnah is advancing research and leadership at the intersection of climate justice, public engagement, and interdisciplinary collaboration. As Jinnah steps into her new role as Associate Vice Provost of Academic Affairs, she will help lead campus efforts to strengthen the recognition of public scholarship in faculty merit review and expand mentoring opportunities for early-career faculty.

Jinnah recently co-authored the new open-access book, Building Capacity for Public Engagement on Solar Geoengineering (Cambridge University Press), which explores how to build meaningful and inclusive public engagement around one of the most complex scientific, political, and ethical challenges facing society today.

She also published two new articles that center justice in climate research and collaboration.

In the journal Climate Policy, Jinnah examines carbon dioxide removal through a justice-centered lens, offering pathways toward more equitable and effective climate action. For the journal Futures, she introduces a feminist-of-color framework for "radical interdisciplinarity." She provides a new model for addressing complex societal challenges, which is now being applied through the Center for Reimagining Leadership's Climate Justice program.

Learn more about her work bridging research, policy, and public impact: https://envs.wordpress.ucsc.edu/publications/professor-jinnah-co-authors-new-book-publishes-two-articles-on-social-justice-and-steps-into-new-role-as-avp-of-academic-affairs/