Laura Díaz, MPH

I am thrilled to share our publication in Environmental Justice (Journal)- 

“Transforming the University into a Public Good for Environmental Justice Action: Our Experience from a Decolonial and Latinx Community–Academic Partnership”.

liebertpub.com/doi/epdf/10.10…

#EJ

ISSI is proud to announce the recipients of this year’s FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Prize: ‪@lauramardiaz.bsky.social‬ from ‪@berkeleypublichlth.bsky.social‬ & Clara Pérez Medina from ‪@ucbgeography.bsky.social‬. Learn about their social change scholarship on our home page!

Our org, Educator Collective for Environmental Justice, will be co-sponsoring the workshop. Please share with educators!

AND Samrat Pathania (co-director of our org) will be speaking on decarbonization and our on-going EJ/decarb Educator cohort!
#professionaldevelopment
#ej

I am eternally grateful those academics who have encouraged my own academic free thought and expression. And as we embark on these dangerous times, I will continue to support fellow liberatory practitioners. #freedomepistemologies

Radio silence for supporting PhD students - with our academic future most certainly uncertain (more likely impossible at this point).

Decolonial Conference | Join to Organize & Fight for Liberation Engage with activists, movements, and politically committed scholars at the Decolonial Conference. Register now to challenge oppression and support liberation movements.

If you’re tired of complicit academic organizations/conferences and want to organize and fight alongside concrete struggles, check out the Decolonial Conference, which emerged from a People’s Assembly.
www.decolonialconference.org

I'm grateful to have been awarded the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues Thomas I. Yamashita Prize! They award a "person whose work transforms the existing social landscape - often in subtle and previously unappreciated ways - and serves as a bridge between the academy and the community.”

Normally, I use my social media to highlight inequities in academia but right now, it all feels like one huge mess.

I do want to point out though that some people (many of them trainees) are suffering doubly or triply so in the current funding environment, and we should not lose sight of that.

Grateful that our team is presenting on Environmental Justice and Climate Resistance at the We the Future Conference tomorrow!

We will continue to build power within the #EJ movement. Unafraid, empowered, moving progress towards more just environments.
wethefuture.santarosa.edu/conference-s...

Interesting what **some** (not all) academics/ institutions will stand up for— and what they will stay silent for.

Faculty members should always assume there are first-generation students in their classrooms, because there almost always are.

First-generation students have unique needs, which can be amplified when they enter graduate programmes. A Comment article in Nature Reviews Psychology argues that faculty members need to be aware of the needs of this population and how to support them. https://go.nature.com/3FkQDs1 #Academicsky 🧪

Grassroots college leader group resists anti-DEI legislation Education for All, a grassroots network of mostly community college leaders, is spreading strategies for how to resist anti-DEI bills and rhetoric.

An inspiring article on courageous community college leaders who are *publicly* organizing and standing up against DEI attacks.. www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

White academics, if you REALLY want to disrupt academia and dismantle the imbalances that exist within it, start taking Black, Brown, Indigenous, queer/trans, and disabled scholars' work seriously.

Fly us out for interviews. Cite us. Pay us for talks.

Treat us like colleagues.

Good morning from NBA All-Star Friday where former Wazzu standout Jaylen Wells had some custom shoes made in honor of his former D-II school Sonoma State for the events of this weekend.

GULF OF MEXICO
GULF OF MEXICO
GULF OF MEXICO
GULF OF MEXICO
GULF OF MEXICO
GULF OF MEXICO

Expecting a school of public health program to prioritize student wellbeing while training shouldn’t be radical.

Op-ed: Why funding for the environmental justice movement must be anti-racist We must prioritize minority-serving institutions, BIPOC-led organizations and researchers to lead environmental justice efforts.

NEW: Why funding for the environmental justice movement must be anti-racist.

"We must prioritize minority-serving institutions, BIPOC-led organizations and researchers to lead environmental justice efforts." @lauramardiaz.bsky.social @agentschangeej.bsky.social

www.ehn.org/environmenta...

And yet, the actual structural, procedural and pedagogical changes necessary to address the root cause will never be put in place. And faculty will scoff this off as a rite of passage, enabling the academic training hazing…

Screenshot of the article. Title: The Color of Ideas: Racial Dynamics and Citations in Economics. Authors: Marlene Koffi, Roland Pongou, and Leonard Wantchekon. NBER Working Paper No. 33150. Published November 2024. JEL No. A14, I23, J15. Abstract reads: This paper investigates the existence of racial disparities in the dissemination of ideas using the paper citation network in economics. Exploiting a comprehensive dataset of over 330,000 publications from 1950 to 2021, combined with manually collected data from the CVs of thousands of economists, we document that papers authored by non-White scholars (Black, Hispanic, or Asian) receive 5.1% to 9.6% fewer citations than those authored by White scholars. The citation gap remains or even amplifies with increasing author seniority and conventional quality indicators and is especially pronounced for Black authors. Moreover, papers authored by non-White scholars are less likely to serve as citation bridges and are less often cited by highly cited papers as measured by the centrality indexes, limiting both their direct and indirect influence. Our analysis indicates that this disparity is not attributable to differences in research quality, author ability, or visibility. Rather, it is largely driven by homophily in citation patterns and racial clusters in networks, where scholars tend to cite authors from their racial group. These findings can be rationalized by a simple theoretical model where citation costs and peer-review preferences influence citation behavior. Then, we provide suggestive evidence that reducing information friction—thereby lowering the cost of citing—could reduce the racial citation gap by up to 50%. Finally, using natural language processing, we highlight the complementarity across racial groups in research and discuss potential losses from racial barriers to idea diffusion.

When people ask me why I don't care about my h-index, citations, etc., I point out that racism means that's a losing game. Cause this ain't just in economics.

www.nber.org/papers/w33150

Hot off the press✨ 📣

A coalition of trans- and interdisciplinary #HWC professionals have come together to pose the idea of constellations of coexistence

We are advocating for HWC mitigation strategies that are grounded in local and global connected realities

@pelonquin.bsky.social

Denver gave people experiencing homelessness $1,000 a month. A year later, nearly half of participants said they had housing. Participants in Denver's basic-income program reported having more-secure housing, though results were similar in the trial and control groups.

Denver gave people experiencing homelessness $1k/month. A year later, nearly half had housing.

They also had fewer ER visits, nights spent in a hospital, and jail stays.

The report estimates that this reduction in public service use SAVED the city $589k.
www.businessinsider.com/denver-basic...

Want to join of a community of Latinx/a/o Scholars broadly throughout academia?
Please reply to this post if you want to be added!! Shout out to @larrylafountain.bsky.social for bringing us together!

go.bsky.app/NrJs1Hr

I would love to be added!

Hi- I would love to be added!

It was a privilege to talk w/Brian Bienkowski on the @agentsofchangeEJ.bsky.social and @EHNewsroom.bsky.social podcast about growing up in an #EJ community and how that has shaped my research.

www.ehn.org/social-and-e...