Faculty and Staff Honored for Role as Diversity Champions

Ioana Patringenaru | February 19, 2008

Chancellor Marye Anne Fox congratulated award recipients for their efforts to further diversity.

Click here to read more about this year's award recipients.

One taught more than 400 low-income, minority students how to work in a laboratory. Another helped students learn about global warming and become familiar with research work at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Many others allowed UCSD to reach out to the underserved through mentoring, outreach and research.

All were recognized during UCSD’s 13th annual Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action and Diversity Awards Thursday at the Price Center Ballroom. Seven departments and 18 individuals received awards this year for their contributions to diversity inside and outside the UCSD community. A review committee comprised of representatives from each vice chancellor area evaluated nominations and recommended recipients for approval by Chancellor Marye Anne Fox.

Recipients include Jorge Huerta, the campus’ former chief diversity officer. During Thursday’s ceremony, Fox called Huerta a leader. He and the other recipients represent a wide range of disciplines and have all been creative in their goal of furthering diversity, Fox said.

“That’s a very, very important job,” she also said. “Diversity does matter at UCSD.”

Several recipients remained humble about their award. Anita Williams, a staff research associate at the UCSD School of Medicine, said she felt honored. But she added she believes her boss, Dr. Percy Russell, deserves the award. “He just has this real passion for helping underserved students,” she said.

Staff member and master teacher

Anita Williams received a universitywide award for her work in the Research Methodology Training Laboratory at the UCSD School of Medicine.

Russell’s vision brought a wide range of grants to the school’s Research Methodology Training Laboratory, Williams said. The funds allowed Williams to work with more than 400 students over the past 20 years, including high school students, undergraduates and graduate students. When they first come into the lab, she teaches them the basics, including how to use equipment to make a solution. She also talks about Russell’s research and helps students put together a project. The goal is to get their work included into a published paper, which will give them a significant boost when they apply to college or graduate school, Williams said.

“It is just so rewarding to see the students’ progress,” Williams said.

She particularly remembers one student, Bianca Watson, who worked in Russell’s lab for a quarter through a grant from the National Institutes of Health. She came back to do research as an undergraduate, then went to medical school at UCLA. “She’s just this really motivated student and really has a heart for serving the underserved,” Williams said of Watson.

She added students like Watson have kept her on the job at UCSD for the past two decades. A UCSD alumna, she took an unconventional path to go to college. She graduated high school and worked as a secretary until she gave birth to her first child, a girl. She then felt the urge to earn a college degree, she said, and applied to UCSD. After she graduated, she found a job in Russell’s lab and has been there ever since.

“I really appreciate education and what it has meant to my whole life,” she said.

Lihini Aluwihare’s life also took a sudden turn that eventually led her to a faculty position at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Aluwihare was born in Sri Lanka, but lived in Southern Africa from age 8 until she graduated high school. She moved to the United States for college, where she majored in chemistry at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She then became an intern at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, while waiting to start graduate school. Woods Hole was a revelation, she said. She decided she wanted to work in the field. After earning her doctorate, she came to Scripps as a post-doc. She is now an assistant professor and the principal investigator in her laboratory, focused on the chemistry and biology of oceanic organic matter. She also is the only woman of color holding a faculty position in her department.

Diversity through internships

Lihini Aluwihare was recognized for creating an internship program for high school students at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Aluwihare was recognized Thursday for securing a National Science Foundation grant, which allows Scripps to bring two high school students to her lab every year to work on hands-on research. She wanted to give students a leg up in applying for college; to give their confidence a boost; and to help them become informed citizens, she said. During their internship, students learn how to run samples through instruments. They analyze data and attend lab meetings. They also learn how important it is to be able to write and communicate ideas, Aluwihare said.

She started recruiting candidates with the help of a friend who teaches at Torrey Pines High School. At that campus, she focused on female students. One of her success stories is a student who went on to study at Yale and do field work in the Amazon. Aluwihare also forged a partnership with Hoover High School, where two-thirds of students are Hispanic or Latino. She still thinks about Rudy Vargas, one Hoover student who worked in her lab, and wasn’t sure he would apply for college. “Rudy was very special, he was a great kid,” she said, adding she hopes his stint in the lab would convince him to pursue higher education.

“I want people to have as equal a chance as possible,” she said. “Everybody has the right to be in this kind of environment.”   

Thursday’s recipients are doing things that come from the heart, concluded Tom Leet, assistant vice chancellor of Human Resources.

“It’s been a truly amazing display of positive energy today,” he said at the end of Thursday’s ceremony.