About Us

Welcome to the UCSB Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy

The UCSB Blum Center aims to foster interdisciplinary, socially engaged research and learning about poverty and inequality, and to contribute to collective action that advances intersectional economic and environmental justice regionally, in the United States, and abroad. Established with funding from UC Regent Richard C. Blum and the UC Office of the President, it is part of a campus-wide network across a number of UC campuses system.

This year the Blum Center is focusing on three core initiatives:

The Central Coast Regional Equity Initiative (CCREI) was launched in 2021 in partnership with The Fund for Santa Barbara. Building from the Central Coast Regional Equity Study, conducted in collaboration with USC’s Equity Research Institute, the initiative documents widening inequality in California’s increasingly diverse central coast counties of Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo with trend data on employment and wages, housing, health, education, political representation, and environmental risk, among other indicators. In addition to funding collaborative community-engaged research, the CCREI has set out to foster a collective, region-wide conversation and to advance a research-informed action agenda to improve the lives of all, and especially of the increasingly multi-racial working class communities who live, work, learn and contribute to the vitality of the region. 

Our initiative on Cooperative Economics encompasses a broad spectrum of collaborative endeavors, from the communal practices and empowerment strategies of indigenous communities to the support and exchange networks developed within the contemporary mutual aid movement. There is a rich tradition of cooperative endeavor in movements for racial and intersectional justice. Thanks to generous support from the family of Dr. U.S. Awasthi, UCSB faculty and students are eligible for funding opportunities. 

Our most recent efforts, the Central Coast Community Labor Project & Labor Summer initiative, will provide UCSB students with opportunities to learn about community and labor organizing and research practices. As part of the immersive Labor Summer internship experience, Central Coast unions and allied organizations will support UCSB students in paid internships to advance labor causes and achieve social and economic justice. 

We invite you to join us in the work and to stay informed about up-coming events and programs. We can be found on InstagramFacebookTwitter, and YouTube, and we also distribute a regular newsletter to our audience. Sign-up to join our listserv!

Blum Center Staff

  • Assistant Director
  • Cooperative Economics Graduate Student Assistant
  • PISJ Minor Student Peer Advisor
  • Internship Coordinator & Lecturer in Global Studies

Blum Center Faculty Affiliates

Advisory Group, Minor in Poverty, Inequality and Social Justice.

  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Political Science
  • Professor and Chair
  • Department of Chicana & Chicano Studies
  • Faculty Director UCSB Labor Center
  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Sociology
  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Economics
  • Associate Professor and Chair
  • Department of Black Studies
  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Global Studies
  • Professor and Chair
  • Department of Feminist Studies

Central Coast Regional Equity Steering Committee

  • Professor
  • Department of Sociology
  • Associate Professor
  • Department of Communication

Cooperative Economics Advisory Committee

  • Professor
  • Department of Asian-American Studies
  • Professor and Chair
  • Department of Anthropology

Blum Student Leaders

  • Blum Student Assistant
  • Global Studies Major
  • German Minor
  • Ph.D. Student
  • Department of Communication
  • CCREI Graduate Student Assistant
  • Graduate Student
  • Department of Sociology
  • CCREI Graduate Student Assistant
  • Blum Student Assistant
  • Communication Major

Blum Center Alumni

  • Blum Student Assistant (2021-22)
  • Bio-psychology
  • Class of 2022
  • Blum Student Assistant (2019-20)
  • Musicology
  • PhD Candidate
  • Blum Student Assistant
  • Communication Major
  • Spanish & Labor Studies Minor
  • Class of 2023
  • Blum Student Assistant (2019-20)
  • Political Science
  • Class of 2020
  • Blum Student Assistant
  • Sociology & Art Major
  • Labor Studies Minor
  • Class of 2023
  • Blum Student Assistant (2019-20)
  • Environmental Studies
  • Class of 2022
  • Blum Student Assistant
  • Global Studies
  • Class of 2021
  • Blum Student Assistant
  • 4th Year Economics
  • Class of 2023
  • Blum Student Assistant
  • 2021 Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering
  • Blum Student Assistant (2021-22)
  • Communication
  • Class of 2022