UC Santa Barbara selects inaugural Public Voices Fellows

From the classroom to the newsroom. Twenty faculty thought leaders have been selected to participate in the 2024 cohort of the newly launched Public Voices Fellowship at UC Santa Barbara, in partnership with the OpEd Project.

This fellowship promises to elevate the voices of campus experts by placing their research-based opinion pieces in national and international publications. Over the next year, fellows will meet to examine how to build consensus, how ideas spread, when and why minds change, and how ideas can shape the future. 

“When I participated in this fellowship program as a professor at the University of Texas, it changed my career,” said Michael Douglas Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts Daina Ramey Berry, who was instrumental in bringing the program to UCSB. “I am so excited for our faculty fellows to go on this journey and emerge with even more confidence in their ability to impact the world through public-facing scholarship.”

The 2024 fellows are:

• Felice Blake, English
• Nicole Cerpa Vielma, Global Studies
• Daniel Conroy-Beam, Psychological & Brain Sciences
• Iman Djouini, Art
• Erika Felix, Counseling, Clinical and School Psychology
• Amanda Joyce Hall, History
• Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky, Global Studies
• Jeffrey Hoelle, Anthropology
• Maryam Kia-Keating, Counseling, Clinical & School Psychology
• Zoe Liberman, Psychological & Brain Sciences
• Mireille Miller-Young, Feminist Studies
• Holly Moeller, Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology
• Helen Morales, Classics
• Trisalyn Nelson, Geography
• Giuliana Perrone, History
• Susannah Scott, Chemistry & Biochemistry
• Laila Shereen-Sakr, Film & Media Studies
• shola shodiya-zeumault, Counseling, Clinical & School Psychology
• France Winddance Twine, Sociology
• Sara Pankenier Weld, Germanic & Slavic Studies

Fellows will benefit from mentorship, coaching and editing, as well as access to a large group of former fellows from peer institutions. Overall, the fellowship aims to impact personal, professional and public outcomes by helping UC Santa Barbara faculty amplify their expertise.