Research

Awards, Honors, Grants

Awards/Honors

2022 Koret Mentor Award, Koret Scholars Undergraduate Research Program, UCSC

2019. Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Teaching, UCSC Division of Social Sciences

2017. Community Hero, United Way of Santa Cruz County, Community Assessment Project

2015. Community Game Changer Award, Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County

2012. UC Santa Cruz Chancellor's Achievement Award for Diversity.

2011. Visiting Senior Research Fellowship at the National University of Singapore, Asia Research Institute, Migration Studies Cluster.

2010. Teaching: Award for Universal Design in Instruction from the University of California – Santa Cruz’s Disability Resource Center.

Grants

2023-24. National Endowment for the Humanities, Public Humanities Projects, Exhibition Planning Grant - project: "Sowing Seeds: Filipino American Stories from the Pajaro Valley" - co-PI K. Gutierrez, $75,000

2023-34. UC Humanities Research Institute Engaging Humanities Grant. Project: "Watsonville is in the Heart: Mapping a Recuperative History of Filipino Farmworkers" -co-PI K. Gutierrez - $20,000

2022-23. Co-Principal Investigator - University of California Workers Rights Policy Initiative – State of California Project: “UCSC Center for Labor and Community.” $500,000

2022-23. Co-Principal Investigator - UC Community Links Grants Program Project: "We Belong Too." $25,000

2022. Co-Principal Investigator  - Seed Funding for Early Stage Initiatives -UCSC Office of Research Project: "Lost Stories of Asian American Labor." $38,000

2021. Collaborative Projects Grant, Arts Research Institute, UCSC. Project: "Watsonville is in the Heart: Art & The Oral History Archive." $5,000

2021. Co-Principal Investigator, Sprout Grant. Institute for Social Transformation, UCSC Project: "We Belong Too: Youth Voices for Action and Equity. " $10,000

2021. Co-Principal Investigator, Valuing Open and Inclusive Conversation and Engagement (VOICE) Initiative UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, Project: "We Belong: Transformative Literacies for Civic Engagement." $5,000

2020. UC Collaborative to Promote Immigrant and Student Equity. Project: "We Belong: Collaboration for Community-Engaged Research and Immigrant Justice." $10,000

2019. Student Fee Advisory Committee, UCSC, Project: "We Belong: Collaboration for Community-Engaged Research and Immigrant Justice." $45,000

2018. Co-Principal Investigator, Collaborative Research Grant, Service Employees International Union, Local 251 - Project: "Affordable Housing Research Project" $15,000

2017. Principal Investigator, Summer Research Grant - Gary Spires & Ensemble, Inc. - Project: "No Place Like Home" $18,500

2016. Co-Principal Investigator, Student Success Initiative Grant, University of California Office of the President - Project: "Community Engaged Research Practicum" $100,000

2016. Co-Principal Investigator, Engaging Humanities Project Grant, University of California Humanities Research Institute - project: No Place Like Home: Voices and Visions of the Housing Crisis in Santa Cruz County $27,000

2015. Co-Principal Investigator: John E. Sawyer Seminar on the Comparative Study of Culture, Andrew Mellon Foundation. project title: "Non-citizenship". CO-PIs: C. Ramirez, J. Poblete, S. Falcon and F. Amaya Shaeffer (all at UCSC). $178,000.

2015. Co-Principal Investigator, Collaborative Solutions for Poverty Competition, UCSC Blum Center.  project title: "Give Me Shelter: Experiencing the Housing Crisis in SC County."  CO-PI: M. Greenberg. $10,000.

2015. Principal Investigator: Research Award, UCSC Blum Center on Poverty, Social Enterprise, and Participatory Governance. project title: "Working for Dignity: the Santa Cruz County Low-Wage Worker Survey." $4,400.

2014-2015. Principal Investigator: Engaging Humanities Public Humanities Project Grant, University of California Humanities Research Institute Project: “Working for Dignity: Rural-Urban Stories in a Changing California.” $20,000.

2012. Principal Investigator: Working Group on the Humanities and the Changing Conceptions of Work, for "Changing Work, Changing Workforce: Immigrant and their Impact on the Meaning of Work." $25,000.

2012-2013. Principal Investigator: Labor and Food Program, UC Santa Cruz Center for Labor Studies, for "Labor Across the Food System. Funded by the Webster Foundation. $15,000.

2011. Principal Investigator: Visiting Senior Research Fellowship, National University of Singapore, Asia Research Institute, Migration Studies Cluster. 3 month residential writing fellowship used to complete one book chapter and work on book manuscript. $22,000.

Presentations

Public Lecture or Forum Participation

2017. "No Place Like Home: The Affordable Housing Crisis in Santa Cruz County" - Presentation to Homeless Services Center, Board of Directors

2017. "No Place Like Home: Community-Engaged Research Tackles the Santa Cruz Housing Crisis" UC Santa Cruz Division of Social Sciences Research Frontiers Presentation, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History 

2017. No Place Like Home: Affordable Housing Crisis Study Report - Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium

2017. No Place Like Home: Results of the Beach Flats Neighborhood Survey

2016. No Place Like Home: The SC Affordable Housing Crisis - Community Dialog, Arts Exhibit, Digital Project Launch

2016. Working for Dignity: A Conversation on the Art, Meanings and Voices of Low Wage Santa Cruz - Santa Cruz Downtown Library 

2016. "The Santa Cruz County Puzzle: Poverty Amidst Affluence", Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, Board of Directors Retreat 

2015. Working for Dignity: A Community Discussion on Raising the Minimum Wage - Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History

2015. Wage Justice: Fighting Wage Theft in Our Community - Watsonville Civic Plaza, Watsonville, CA

2015. Economic and Social Justice in SC County - Human Care Alliance Presentation to Santa Cruz County Supervisors

2015. Working for Dignity: The SC Low Wage Worker Study - Photo Exhibit, Community Dialog and Website Launch

2015 Working for Dignity: Low-wage Worker Study of Santa Cruz County - UCSC Blum Center Launch Event - SC Museum of Art and History

2015. “Power in Motion: Approaching Filipino Labor Migration as a Diasporic Social Field,” presented at the Philippine and Filipino Studies: 40 Years Hence, An International Symposium, University of Hawaii – Manoa.

2013. "Transnational Social Fields of Masculinity – Theorizing Gender through Migration," presented at the Transnationalism, Gender Hierarchies and Masculinity in Asia Conference, at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore.

2013. “Intersectionality Panel" at the Low Wage Workers and Organizing Conference, at the Unviversity of California- Los Angeles.

2012. "Re-masculinizing the Hero: Filipino Migrant Men and Merchant Shipping", for the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore.

Papers Presented at Professional Meetings

2018. "Community-based and Worker-engaged Research: Lessons from the Field of Participatory Action Research", United Association of Labor Educators Annual Conference, Seattle, WA

2014. “Migrant seafarers and transnational workplace ethnography,” presented at the Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting.

2008. "Our Little Brown Sailors: Colonial Constructions of Race and Labor," presented at the Race, Labor and Empire Mini-Conference at Northeastern University.

2006. "Race Politics Afloat: American Imperialism and the Taming of Filipino Maritime Labor," presented at the American Studies Association Annual Meeting in Oakland.

2006. "Men at Sea: Migration and the Performance of Masculinity," presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting for the Regular Session on Immigration and Gender in Montreal.