URC-HASS Staff and Faculty Advisory Board
Staff
Jacquelyn Ardam
Director
Jacquelyn Ardam joined URC-HASS in 2019 as Assistant Director and became the Director in 2022. She runs URC-HASS’s research scholarship programs, including the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program (with Dr. Muriel McClendon) and the summer Writing and Research Training Program for visiting Mellon Mays students from across the country. She founded the Summer Research Incubator, which has grown into a collaboration with Morgan State University as part of the UC-HBCU Initiative. She is particularly interested in increasing the accessibility of research experiences in the humanities, arts, and social sciences for undergraduate students.
Jacquelyn holds a BA in English from Tufts University and an MA and PhD in English from UCLA. She is a specialist in modern and contemporary literature, especially poetry, and her book Avidly Reads Poetry was published in 2022 by NYU Press. She has written about literature, art, culture, and higher education in academic journals and the popular press. You can reach Jacquelyn at jardam@college.ucla.edu.
Silveria Alvarado Luna
Student Services Advisor
Silveria Alvarado Luna grew up in Southern California and received their BA in History & Chicana/x/o Studies from UCLA. Silveria can be contacted at salvarado@college.ucla.edu.
Jon Bassinger-Flores
Administrative & Program Coordinator
Jon Bassinger-Flores is a committed higher education professional with over two decades of student service and office management experience. He was born and raised in Texas and received a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree from Texas A&M University. He later completed a Master of Divinity degree at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and began his higher ed career in the McCormick Student Affairs Office. Prior to joining the URC-HASS staff, Jon worked for Ithaca College’s Los Angeles Program and at the Arizona State University California Center. He can be reached at jbflores@college.ucla.edu.
Yvonne Carrillo
Graduate Research Mentor
Yvonne Carrillo was born and raised in the Coachella Valley of Southern California. She moved to Houston, Texas to attend Rice University, where she studied sociology and French studies. As a Mellon Mays Fellow, Yvonne completed a senior honors thesis studying the housing and well-being of day laborers in Houston under the guidance of Dr. Sergio Chávez. After graduating from Rice, Yvonne immediately began a doctoral program in sociology at UCLA, where she completed a Master’s thesis on the housing strategies of migrant farmworkers in the Eastern Coachella Valley. She is now a doctoral candidate studying the housing conditions and strategies of Latino immigrants in rural communities using qualitative methods. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Mellon Foundation, UCLA Institute of American Cultures, UCLA Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship, and the Social Science Research Council, and has policy implications concerning immigration, housing, labor, and health. In her free time, Yvonne loves playing tennis, painting, and reading.
Greg Kyle
Graduate Research Mentor
Greg Kyle grew up in Atlanta, GA, went to undergrad in Nashville, TN, and attended graduate school in Chapel Hill, NC. After receiving his BA, Greg founded a business that provided executive function coaching to students with learning needs, taught a broad range of subject matter as a homeschool teacher, and worked as a primary research analyst for two psychology labs at Vanderbilt University. While studying at UNC Chapel Hill, he worked as the Lead Teaching Assistant for Global Studies, as well as the Phillips Ambassadors Graduate Teaching Fellow. After receiving my MA, Greg performed contracted research for the United States Agency for International Development, Varieties of Democracy Institute, Digital Societies Project, and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. He also part-timed as a bartender and stand-up comedian in the wonderful town of Carrboro, North Carolina. Greg is passionate about public-facing scholarship, community advocacy, teaching, and creative expression.
Julieta Rico
Graduate Research Mentor
Julieta Rico is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Urban Schooling Division at UCLA. Before her time at UCLA, she studied at UT Austin in the Educational Policy & Planning Masters Program. During her program she worked in the Office of Student Success where she split her time between high school and internal student recruitment and undergraduate academic advising. Bringing in her own past experience as a middle school teacher in South Texas, Rico focuses her doctoral studies on the understanding of how teachers of color navigate safety or danger on their school campuses.
Sydney Triola
Graduate Research Mentor
Sydney Triola (she/her/hers) is a current PhD student in UCLA’s Information Studies Department. Sydney assumes an abolitionist lens when examining the description, and classification practices of political records, both formally and informally recognized. Sydney is also interested in the ways in which identity is commodified in political/public memory. Prior to beginning the PhD Program at UCLA, Sydney earned her Master’s in Library and Information Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Sydney also has 9 years of teaching experience and is passionate about making education accessible to her students.
Faculty Advisory Board
Muriel McClendon, Chair
Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Graduate Affairs, Department of History
Associate Dean, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Division of Social Sciences
Leisy Abrego
Professor and Chair Core Faculty
César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies
Aomar Boum
Professor and Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies
Departments of Anthropology, History, and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
Adam Bradley
Professor
Department of English
Jesse Harris
Associate Professor
Vice Chair of Undergraduate Studies
Department of Linguistics
Tama Hasson
Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Research
Director, Undergraduate Research Center – Sciences
Alice Ho
Director of Research, Assessment & Evaluation
Director, McNair Research Scholars Program
Academic Advancement Program
Louise Hornby
Associate Professor and Anne K. Mellor Presidential Chair in Women’s Writing
Department of English
Scott James
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
Sean Metzger
Professor
Department of Theater, Film & Television
Catherine Sandhofer
Professor
Department of Psychology
