CCRE 2025–26 Awardees
Community-engaged research revealing how infrastructure, labor, and policy shape inequality across the Central Coast
Amy Gonzales
Reducing Technology Anxiety and Encouraging Digital Literacy for Low-Income Latino Residents
In collaboration with Partners in Education, a local digital equity nonprofit, Dr. Gonzales is designing and testing a message-based intervention to reduce technology anxiety, increase computer engagement, and improve digital literacy among low-income, minimally educated, non-native English-speaking individuals in the region.
Carson Kopper
Mobile Broadband Performance and Access Trends in the Central Coast
Kopper is evaluating the quality of mobile broadband coverage in the tri-county area using speed test data from the California Public Utilities Commission. His research examines changes in download speed, upload speed, and latency over the past decade, comparing results to provider-reported maps to identify where coverage is overstated and investigating whether socioeconomic variables influence mobile broadband performance.
Ben Olguin
Historias: Latina/o Oral Historiography, Community Theater, and Expanding the Latina/o Digital Commons
Based in UCSB's Global Latinidades Center, this project recovers and features neglected resident stories in Isla Vista and Goleta. Students and community members will conduct oral history interviews that form the basis of 10-minute theatrical profiles and politically-resonant performances. All materials will be housed at UCSB and digitized for a bilingual, public-facing interactive archive.
Şeyma Özdemir
Invisible Childhoods of Farmworkers' Children: Child Labor and Educational Outcomes
Özdemir's dissertation examines how U.S. child labor law produces unequal childhoods and its educational consequences. Drawing on historical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork in three elementary schools and a regional advocacy organization, the project explores how labor regimes shape schooling, how families balance economic need and education, and how policy might better protect vulnerable children.
Lisa Parks
The Satellite Coast: Community Impacts of Commercial Satellite Launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base
As commercial satellite launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base accelerate in frequency, Dr. Parks examines their impacts on historically underrepresented communities living and working adjacent to the base. Working with Chumash community members, farmworkers, and incarcerated individuals, the project centers lived experiences and local knowledges to understand how communities interpret, navigate, and respond to expanding satellite infrastructure.
Haven Parker
Voices of the Transition: A Worker-Centered Just Transition Strategy for Santa Barbara County's Oil and Gas Workforce
Parker's project addresses the urgent need to ensure a just transition for people employed in the oil and gas sectors as Santa Barbara County moves to phase out all new and existing operations. With the County Board of Supervisors' resolution to initiate this transition, the project focuses on uplifting the voices of Latinx fossil fuel workers and developing community-informed pathways to comparable employment in the clean energy economy.
Daniela Sarmiento Hernández
Feasibility, Acceptability, and Effectiveness of Digital HEROES: An Online Resilience Program with Latinx Families
Sarmiento Hernández evaluates the Digital HEROES family resilience program with Latine caregiver-child dyads at the local Boys & Girls Club. Grounded in Community Based Participatory Research, the study uses a mixed-methods approach to measure changes in resilience, mindfulness, family relationships, and wellbeing, with findings aimed at informing culturally responsive, evidence-based prevention strategies that promote health equity.
Yuyang Wu
Understanding the Spatiotemporal Evolution of Local Labor Market Areas in California's Central Coast
Wu investigates the evolution of Local Labor Market Areas in California's Central Coast and their implications for commuting equity, job-housing balance, and regional economic growth. Using LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics and a modularity-based community detection algorithm, the project examines how labor market structure and boundaries have evolved over time, revealing distinct commuting inequalities across income, race, and industry groups.
