Nathan Lacy, UCI Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) student, received the American Planning Association – Orange Section (OC-APA) Academic Award of Merit for his capstone project, a professional report titled, “Stormwater Design as a Guiding Principle: an exploration of stormwater infrastructure performance in Orange County.” Nathan’s client was Orange County Public Works (OCPW) in the Watersheds Division, and he worked with Jennifer Nowaczewski who ensures OC National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) compliance. His Faculty Advisor was Dr. Nicholas Marantz.

As California continues to build more infrastructure and expand its urban development areas, there exists a great need for innovative approaches to stormwater management. The implementation of these approaches stem from many different sources, each with its own management priorities. There is no exact guidance for how stormwater should be managed when a new project or development is constructed, allowing for greater flexibility throughout the process. These exist as recommendations within the separate regulatory regions that comprise California’s water resources landscape. Nathan’s report provides more insight into the performance of local stormwater infrastructure best management practices (BMPs).

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Irene Aceituno, UCI Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) student, received the Malancha Ghosh Memorial Fellowship for her public service, academic achievements, and capstone professional report on homelessness. Subir and Susnata established the Malancha Ghosh Memorial Fund to honor the memory of their daughter who passed away from complications due to H1N1 flu virus at the young age of 27. Malancha, who received her UCI MURP degree in 2009 had a true impact on all those who were privileged to know her.

As part of the nomination for this fellowship, Dr. Karna Wong describes Irene’s successful journey to graduating from the UCI MURP program. “Irene has a strong commitment to promote equity and inclusion in planning,” Wong said. “Her professional report was on the topic of food and service provision for persons experiencing homelessness in the streets and public spaces in South Central Los Angeles. She completed an analysis of ordinances, fieldwork observations, and case study comparisons of other organizations providing assistance to unhoused persons. This document included an overview of contentious regulations regarding the unhoused, original photographs by Irene, and comprehensive and compassionate recommendations. She is an activist planner that advocates for marginalized and communities of color. As a former foster youth, she has achieved so much personally and professionally and deserves to be commemorated for her achievements.” (Photo by Patricia DeVoe, 2019)

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Photo by Karna Wong, Muir Woods National Monument California, 2016

Photo by Karna Wong, One World Trade Center, New York City, 2018

SE 194W Naturalistic Field Research

Marshmallow Challenge Winter 2019

In Dr. Karna Wong’s Social Ecology (SE) 194W Naturalistic Field Research course, teams of teaching assistants attempted to build the tallest structure with spaghetti sticks, tape, string, and a marshmallow on top. Each team had approximately 15 minutes to build the structure, while students took notes to practice naturalistic field observation. For more information about the Marshmallow Challenge, view this 2010 TedTalk, “Build a tower, build a team” with Tom Wujec: https://youtu.be/H0_yKBitO8M

UPPP 101 Urbanization & Social Change

Poster Presentations Fall 2018

In Dr. Karna Wong’s Urban Planning and Public Policy (UPPP) 101 Urbanization & Social Change course, students created posters on U.S. and international cities. Students researched the city’s history, socioeconomic data, and a social change event or movement. Cities are dynamic, innovative places of social change driven by cultural, religious, economic, scientific, and technological forces. This course provides a historical overview of cities from around the world. Through various theoretical frameworks, students analyze cities and their successes, failures, problems, and solutions. Students evaluated and voted on the top 20 posters, which were on display in the Science Library 2^nd floor Lobby from Dec. 2018 to Jan. 2019.

 

Dr. Karna Wong and Dr. Maura Allaire meet Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, whose research on children’s lead levels helped to uncover the Flint, Michigan water crisis.

Mengdi Li, UCI Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) student, received the 2018 Orange County-American Planning Association (OC-APA) Student Award for her Capstone Project Professional Report on “Urban Heat Island Effects Mitigation Strategies in Southern California.” Her client was the Planning Division of Community Development Department, City of Newport Beach, California, and her faculty advisor was Dr. Maura Allaire. This report quantifies the influence, the spatial and temporal characteristics, and the heat reduction ability of mitigation strategies of urban heat island effects in Southern California.

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Aya Elalami and Francisco Meza, both UCI undergraduate Criminology, Law & Society (CLS) majors, received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Field Study in June 2018. Aya completed her field study at Knowles & Vacca, Inc. court investigators and the Law Firm of Higbee and Associates. Francisco completed his field study at Wayfinders dispute resolution services. These two students were nominated by their field study community partners and Dr. Karna Wong.

 

Aya Elalami, UCI undergraduate Criminology, Law & Society (CLS) major, received the award for the 2017-2018 Excellent Upper-Division Academic Writing award, and was nominated by Dr. Karna Wong. Aya’s final paper was titled, “Revolutionizing the Criminal Justice System: Reducing the Recidivism Rate for Drug Offenses Away from Incarceration.” The purpose of her study was to evaluate programs that can effectively reduce the drug recidivism rate of narcotic offenders, as well as decrease the amount of people incarcerated for drug offenses in the United States. This study examined how drug recidivism rates can be reduced in the court system through drug courts, drug addiction programs, and employment-focused programs. Analyzing, comparing, and evaluating data from these three programs, there was a lack of solid evidence that employment-focused programs reduce drug reoffending. However, there was compelling evidence that drug courts and addiction programs can effectively reduce reoccurrence rates as well as decrease the number of individuals incarcerated for drug offenses.