Community Engaged Scholarship

The American Cultures Engaged Scholarship (ACES) Program offers students and faculty the opportunity to work with community organizations to develop cutting edge research projects associated with some of the nation's most pressing social issues.

The following are a collection of our growing ACES course offerings and previous student projects from these community-learning classes.

Fire is a part of the California landscape, and while many have come to dread fire season, this has not always been the case. “Fire: Past, Present and Future Interactions with the People and Ecosystems of California” (Anthropology C12AC / Environmental Science, Policy, and Management C22AC) joins the expertise of Anthropology professor Kent Lightfoot and Environmental Science, Policy, and Management professor Scott Stephens. Jointly, they prompt students to investigate how our interactions with wildfires in California have changed dramatically over the centuries, and to learn from...

Building on the groundwork of the Antiracism Winter Institute, the CDF Program co-sponsored and co-facilitated a follow-up seminar in late April centered on contract grading. The two-day workshop, The Problem(s) with Grading: Making a Case for Contract Grading, invited participants to explore two models of contract grading, Specifications Grading and Labor-based Contract Grading. On the first day, participants engaged in current research that explores how traditional grading methods structure...

Emily is a Ph.D. candidate in environmental engineering, working under Lisa Alvarez-Cohen in collaboration with David Sedlak. Emily researches methods to remediate groundwater contaminated with per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of highly fluorinated, persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic compounds. Beyond her interest in and passion for environmental microbiology, water chemistry, sustainability, and engineering as a form of stewardship, Emily is highly motivated to build communities within...