Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Thanks to a generous gift, 46 seminars focused on innovation and entrepreneurship were offered throughout the 2025-26 academic year.

For the purposes of this program, innovation was defined broadly as a new method, idea, product, technology, etc. that has significant meaning or consequences for particular groups, geographic regions, or society as a whole; and entrepreneurship was defined broadly as problem-solving, development and implementation of solutions, ideas, products or technology that serve a need or problem, or that build, change, or disrupt culture. Faculty were encouraged to interpret these terms expansively and connect them meaningfully to their fields of study or interest, creative practice, or community engagement.

UCLA faculty offered a wide array of seminars that explored the broad topic of innovation from historical, sociopolitical, cultural, scientific, or medical perspectives. Many seminars considered how innovation and entrepreneurship intersect with equity, ethics, sustainability, or global transformations.

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Fall 2025 Winter 2026 Spring 2026

Archiving Black LA: Community Memory and Innovation

Instructor: Justin Dunnavant

Subject Area: African American Studies

Course Description: This one-credit class examines the evolving landscape of archiving within the African American community of Los Angeles, highlighting the innovative methods Black communities use to preserve, reinterpret, and share Black histories. Through a combination of lectures, case studies, and hands-on activities, students will explore how digitization strategies?such as those employed by the Black Image Center and the Los Angeles Public Library’s Memory Lab?enable individuals and families to reclaim and safeguard their personal and collective memories. The course also investigates the creative possibilities of remixing archives, sampling, collage, and multimedia storytelling. Additionally, students will engage with the vibrant tradition of zine-making as a form of self-archival activism, reflecting on its role in amplifying marginalized voices and fostering community dialogue. By the end of the course, students will understand how these approaches challenge conventional archival paradigms and empower communities to document and narrate their own histories.

Faculty Biography: Dr. Justin Dunnavant is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology who specializes in the archaeology of Africa and the African diaspora. He does terrestrial and underwater archaeology and more recently has taken an interest in understanding how memories are conserved and shared through material objects, culture, and archives.

Public Universities: An American Innovation

Instructor: Monica Smith

Subject Area: Anthropology

Course Description: UCLA has consistently been ranked the nation’s number 1 public institution, but how did the concept of “public” universities emerge at all and why are they so numerous? Today in the U.S. there are least 1,500 other public colleges and universities, more than any other country in the world. In this seminar we’ll explore the history, meaning, importance, financing, and image of public universities as a key component of American life. We’ll examine the internal workings of public universities within state and federal systems of financial support, the ways in which American public colleges and universities are viewed from abroad, and how they compare with public university systems elsewhere in the world.

Faculty Biography: Monica Smith is a professor in the Anthropology Department and in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, as well as serving in the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. Her research includes work on the role of institutions in early cities and states and the role of heritage in modern societies. Her books include Cities: The First 6,000 Years and A Prehistory of Ordinary People. She holds a BA from UC Santa Barbara, an MA degree from UCLA, and a PhD from the University of Michigan, and is proud to be a faculty member in a public university!

Innovations in Biotechnology

Instructor: Irene A. Chen

Subject Area: Chemistry Engineering

Course Description: Innovations in biotechnology labs power a growing number of biomedical products in our lives. From the first applications of molecular cloning to produce insulin to modern-day gene therapies, this seminar will examine the process of discovery and translation from bench-to-bedside. This course will introduce fundamental concepts in biotechnology and specific applications in biomedicine. Students will present case studies, discuss how pivotal decisions are made, and join interviews with guests from academic and industry labs.

Faculty Biography: Irene Chen is a professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Faculty-in-Residence at UCLA. She received a B.A. in chemistry and an M.D.-Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard, and was a Bauer Fellow in systems biology at Harvard. Her laboratory studies life-like biochemical systems and emerging challenges in biotechnology.

Motorsports in Society: Disability, Innovation, and Adaptive Technologies in Motion

Instructor: Sharon Traweek

Subject Area: Disability Studies

Course Description: In this course we ask how motorsports both reflects and resists broad social and cultural shifts in access, inclusion, embodiment, and innovation, using ideas from Disability, Entrepreneurial, Innovation, Intersectional, and Media Studies perspectives. Neurodivergent drivers and those with physical disabilities (like Alex Zanardi, Robert Kubica, Frederic Sausset, Lando Norris, and George Russell) can show us what combinations of changing technologies, techniques, strategies, images, representations, society, and people make a difference in high performance racing. Motorsports include many activities (racing, strategizing, coaching, building, maintaining, designing, researching, testing, writing, imaging, marketing, reporting, attending, regulating, measuring), at many sites (factories, garages, studios, labs, offices, tracks, and grandstands), with many kinds of materials and devices. What happens when people with physical and cognitive differences engage with that world? What changes? Where is the innovation and entrepreneurship in that ecology? What are the catalysts and obstacles?

Faculty Biography: Seminar co-taught by Prof Sharon Traweek, UCLA Gender Studies, Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies, Center for the Study of Women, who does research on collaborative knowledge making practices, WWII-present, in Japan, Switzerland, and US universities and STEM fields; Dr Fred Ariel Hernandez, Lead Scientist, Sports & Society Lab, UCLA Disability, and visiting researcher, Waseda University in Tokyo, who studies youth coaching, sports, and pollution in Japan and the US.; and Steven Meckna, Motor Sports Historian, Long Beach.

Artificial Intelligence for Future CEOs

Instructor: Achuta Kadambi

Subject Area: Electrical Engineering

Course Description: No math required, but critical thinking a must. For students of all majors. Prepares students for intuitive understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it is applied to societal problems affecting innovation. UCLA is birthplace of inventions (such as Internet) that have shaped modern AI landscape. As future leaders, students should aim for understanding in three topic areas: capabilities of AI; limitations of AI; and exploration of how AI will shape the process of innovation.

Faculty Biography: Achuta Kadambi is a UCLA Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He is an expert in innovation, particularly in the field of spatial AI that deals with how AI moves objects in space. Since receiving his PhD from MIT in 2018, he has started and sold 2 robotics companies in AI and filed over 70 US patents.

Tools, Tricks and Talents: Animal Innovation in Literature, Law and the Sciences

Instructor: Arvind Thomas

Subject Area: English

Course Description: When we think about innovation, we think about what makes us unique as a species. Are animals that we consume as food or consider “pests” also capable of innovation? We hardly think of chickens, cows and fishes as intelligent, let alone innovative. But as scientists have discovered, chickens are much more than “bird brains”: they can add and subtract numbers. Cows have spatial intelligence whereas pigs have used mirrors to find hidden items. Likewise, not only can rats navigate mazes but they can also imagine places they have never visited. Such animals, as recent scientific research has been uncovering, demonstrate that their innovations are more about reflexive intelligence than about reactive instinct. What, if any, are our ethical obligations to innovative animals that many of us within both the humanities and the sciences tend to treat as less worthy of respect than fellow humans? More generally, to what extent does animal innovation challenge and complicate our long-cherished beliefs about human innovation?

Faculty Biography: Arvind Thomas is a medievalist who works on the intersection of law, literature, and the sciences in Latin, German, and English. He teaches courses in medieval law, saints’ lives, and Latin. He has also been working on food studies, critical animal studies and its relevance to questions of human rights and environmentalism.

Learn through Play: Cantonese Opera, Poetry, and Song

Instructor: King-Kok Cheung

Subject Area: English

Course Description: This seminar promotes the learning of and preservation of Cantonese through Cantonese opera, “The Ballad of Mulan,” and popular songs. It reveals the impact of Cantonese culture on Chinese Poetry, American History and literature. Students learn Cantonese by studying “The Ballad of Mulan 木蘭辭,” watching the performances of Cantonese opera excerpts (“Purple Hairpin Pickup 拾釵” from Purple Hairpin Saga 《紫釵記》and “Fragrant Sacrifice香夭” from The Flower Princess《帝女花》), and reading Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976), which resounds to Cantonese cadence and idioms. Cantonese Opera is listed by UNESCO as an Immaterial Heritage of Humanity. The work to preserve the Cantonese language has engaged community partners such as Asian Pacific Community Fund, Save Cantonese Organization, Perfect Harmony Cultural Exchange Association, Chinese New Life Women’s Club, Southern California Cantonese Association, and the Lion’s Club (all non-profit organizations) to be innovative and entrepreneurial to ensure its survival.

Faculty Biography: King-Kok Cheung is UCLA Research Professor of English, Professor Emeritus of English and Asian American Studies, and Special Advisor of the US-China Education Trust. She is author of Articulate Silences and Chinese American Literature without Borders (both monographs have been published in Chinese), An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature, Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography, and co-editor of The Heath Anthology of American Literature, and the 2023 recipient of the Association of Asian American Studies Lifetime Career Achievement Award.

Our Tectonic Landscape and Earthquakes: A Geology Field Trip

Instructor: William Newman

Subject Area: Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences

Course Description: Natural disasters have shaped landscape of human history for millennia. Exploration of science underlying question of why natural disasters occur. Focus on how to develop resilience and essential preparedness to minimize impacts of natural hazards. Through California landscape sites, students learn about plate tectonics and how it contributes to state’s vulnerability to earthquakes. Focus also on how earthquakes have driven innovation: from Chang Heng’s 132 CE seismoscope, to Gutenberg and Richter’s 1954 modern seismometer developed at Caltech, to California Integrated Seismic Network that sent first-ever statewide alert in April 2025. Includes full-day geology field trip on November 9 to 1973 Sylmar earthquake site; Vasquez Rocks County Park and its spectacular display of tectonic uplift; and Lamont-Odett Vista Point, to view part of San Andreas fault including sag pond it created, known as Lake Palmdale. Trip transportation arranged by instructor. Class meets once before and after field trip.

Faculty Biography: Professor Newman first presented a Fiat Lux 20 years ago in response to the Indian Ocean Tsunamis that caused nearly 250,000 individuals in India and East Africa to perish. He then created the GE and DEI satisfying course EPS SCI 13 Natural Disasters. Among his research interests, he has published research papers and edited books on natural hazards including earthquakes, avalanches, forest fires, the greenhouse effect, and climate change. Previously, he was elected to serve on the executive of the American Physical Society Topical Group on the Physics of Climate.

Creative Critters: Exploring Multispecies Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Instructor: Vetri Nathan

Subject Area: Fiat Lux

Course Description: Why are animals never understood or valued as innovators?experts that turn necessity into the mother of invention? Why are plants, mushrooms or viruses not considered by us humans as expert entrepreneurs?

This Fiat Lux seminar explores how multispecies collaborations have been some of the most successful problem-solving units in human history. Incubated within a new humanities lab at UCLA (www.multispeciesfutureslab.org), this interdisciplinary seminar takes us beyond the restrictive and deeply damaging human/nonhuman and nature/culture cultural divides in order to bring back value to multispecies life and its immense capacity for ethical innovation (both with and without human collaborators). By adapting a humbler approach to understanding our multispecies ecocultural systems, us human learners will examine the immense yet deeply undervalued creative capacities of “more-than-human” multispecies life, including that of animals, plants, fungi and micro-organisms. Three total class meetings, including two “multispecies field trips” off-campus in the greater-L.A.

Faculty Biography: Professor Vetri Nathan is Associate Professor in the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies. He is founder and director of the new Multispecies Futures Lab at UCLA (www.multispeciesfutureslab.org). He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and undertakes research and teaching in the Environmental Humanities, Mediterranean Studies, Digital Media Studies, Food Studies and Italian Cinema.

Italian Progressive Rock--An Art of Radical Innovation

Instructor: Thomas Harrison

Subject Area: Italian

Course Description: The late 1960s were a time of great social upheaval and artistic revolution in Italy, producing some of the most radical innovations in the budding idiom of classical rock that had been launched by the U.S. and U.K. “Progressive Rock” as it came to be known (or for our purposes RPI–“Rock Progressivo Italiano”), pushed popular music to the most extreme political and aesthetic ambitions. To the standard ensemble of guitar, bass, and drums, it added a time-warped amalgam of flutes, saxes, violins, symphony orchestra, Moog Synthesizer, and Mellotron. RPI also turned music away from the traditional service of “love and romance” to political engagement. The heated Italian “decade of bullets” of the 1970s saw the country almost broken by civil war, divided between Marxist uprisings, on the one hand, and neo-Fascist law and order, on the other. RPI changed the very nature of youth music forever. Corporate recording, too, has never again been as independent, enterprising, daring, and embracing of novelty as it was in that landscape of guns and roses.

Faculty Biography: Professor Thomas Harrison, half Italian and half American, is a dedicated fan of rock and jazz music in several incarnations, both international and American. An amateur musician (bass and flute), he spent his formative years in Rome, Italy. In addition to his regular UCLA course assignments in European literature and film, he has taught several Freshman Seminars on British and Italian progressive rock, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, and rock lyrics. He may, indeed, be one of the few people still around who saw both The Beatles and Hendrix perform live.

Empathy, Grit, and Storypower

Instructor: Rana Khankan

Subject Area: Life Science

Course Description: How do people build solutions when formal systems fall short? How can storytelling spark innovation, connect people, and change how we think and feel? In this seminar, we will use the acclaimed TV series “Reservation Dogs”, UCLA’s 2025-26 Common Experience selection, to guide our exploration of empathy as both a social force and a neurological process that can be understood, cultivated, and applied in everyday life. Students will examine how cultural narratives shape community responses to real-world challenges and how authentic storytelling can drive ethical innovation and entrepreneurial thinking. We will investigate how empathy functions in the brain, why it matters for leadership and collaboration, and how creativity and culture intersect in the development of responsive, community-centered solutions. Through discussions, reflective writing, and hands-on activities, students will discover how storytelling builds meaningful connections, supports problem-solving, and develops skills that can be applied across personal, academic, and professional contexts.

Faculty Biography: Dr. Rana Khankan earned her PhD in Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology at UCLA and aims to empower students to explore the interplay between the basic and social sciences.

Medicine and Technology: A New Era of Innovation

Instructor: Arash Naeim

Subject Area: Medicine

Course Description: This seminar explores how innovation and entrepreneurship are reshaping modern medicine through emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), wearable devices, and software as medical devices (SaMD). Students examine how these tools are transforming diagnosis, treatment, health monitoring, and preventive care, while also analyzing the startup ecosystems, regulatory pathways, and business models that bring them to market. Topics include AI in clinical decision-making, digital therapeutics, mobile health in global settings, and ethical challenges such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and health equity.

Through a combination of case studies, student-led discussions, and guest speakers from the health-tech and medical sectors, students gain insight into the forces driving digital health innovation. This course is ideal for students curious about the intersection of medicine, technology, and entrepreneurship, and for those eager to think critically about how healthcare advances can be designed and deployed to serve diverse communities around the world.

Faculty Biography: Arash Naeim, MD PhD is a Professor of Medicine and Bioeingineering and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for AI & SMART Health and the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Brennan Spiegel, MD, MSHS, is director of Health Services Research for Cedars-Sinai, Director of the Cedars-Sinai Master’s Degree Program in Health Delivery Science, and the George and Dorothy Gourrich Chair in Digital Health Ethics. He directs the Cedars-Sinai Center for Outcomes Research and Education (CS-CORE), a multidisciplinary team that investigates how digital health technologies.

Behind the Breakthrough: Innovation, Funding, and Science in Society

Instructor: Jennifer Silvers

Subject Area: Psychology

Course Description: Scientific breakthroughs don’t happen in a vacuum. Behind every major advancement-from vaccines to climate tech-is a system of funding agencies, public needs, and researchers navigating constraints and opportunities. This seminar explores the hidden infrastructure behind scientific innovation in the U.S., focusing on how federal funding influences what discoveries are made, who benefits, and which problems are prioritized. Through case studies and discussions, students will examine how science moves from labs to society, how equity and ethics intersect with innovation, and how funding structures shape the pace and direction of progress. We’ll also explore alternative models of innovation led by communities and nontraditional scientists. In the final week, students will propose bold, creative ideas for building a more inclusive and impactful science ecosystem. This course invites students to think critically-and optimistically-about the future of innovation.

Faculty Biography: Dr. Jennifer Silvers is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology. Her laboratory conducts neuroscience and psychology research on childhood adversity as well as emotional and cognitive development, and is funded generously by the NSF and NIH. Dr. Silvers teaches courses on developmental psychology and neuroscience and is also a faculty in residence on campus.

New Frontiers at the Intersection of AI and Public Health

Instructor: Warren Scott Comulada

Subject Area: Public Health

Course Description: Exploration of how artificial intelligence is reshaping public health disciplines from biostatistics and community health sciences to health policy and management. Students examine how AI powers digital health interventions like chatbots, AR/VR (immersive) experiences, and social robots-and the analytic methods that inform and guide their development. Through interactive demos and case studies, students learn ethical and practical strategies for incorporating AI into public health research and practice. Discussion focuses on AI benefits and challenges, including automation, improved disease prediction and management, personalized interventions, algorithmic bias, data privacy, explainability, fairness, and trust. Designed for students interested in the evolving intersection of AI technology and public health.

Faculty Biography: W. Scott Comulada is Professor-in-residence at the David Geffen School of Medicine and Fielding School of Public Health (FSPH). He received his Dr.P.H. in Biostatistics from UCLA. He directs the Semel Institute Center for Community Health and the AI-Scientific Working Group through the UCLA-CDU Center for AIDS Research. He also chairs the UCLA Extended Reality Initiative (XRI) Health and Wellness Subcommittee. In 2024, he served on the FSPH Committee on AI and Public Health. His research develops digital health interventions that incorporate chatbots, XR, and other AI-driven technologies.

Community-based Innovation to Improve Health Equity

Instructor: Angie Otiniano Verissimo

Subject Area: Public Health

Course Description: This seminar explores how communities confront health disparities through Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) and the Promotor (Community Health Worker) model, both of which are innovative methodologies that empower communities to serve as agents of change. Both redefine public health research by centering community leadership and disrupting traditional top-down models of intervention. Students will explore how to directly address health equity, social justice, and cultural humility by incorporating promotores as educators and co-researchers, embodying ethical and respectful engagement with marginalized communities. The course includes real-world case studies and a mini community-driven research project that allows students to practice collaborative methods and witness grassroots leadership as a transformative force in public health. Students will also have the opportunity to explore emerging technologies, such as virtual reality, as tools for storytelling, healing, and public health interventions. No prior public health or research experience required.

Faculty Biography: Dr. Angie Denisse Otiniano Verissimo is an Associate Professor of Teaching at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health where she earned her PhD and MPH. Her research examines (1) how discrimination contributes to health disparities, particularly among the Latine community, (2) the health and social advantages of engaging community members in research and intervention processes, such as through the Promotor Model, and (3) interventions that incorporate virtual reality as a means of storytelling and healing.

Leveraging International Human Rights Law to Advance Reproductive Health

Instructor: Paula Tavrow

Subject Area: Public Health

Course Description: This seminar focuses on how international human rights law can be employed as an innovative framework to advance reproductive health. Denial of abortion and contraceptive services, inadequate maternal care, or lack of trauma counseling after sexual violence can be construed as reproductive injustices that are violations of international human rights conventions and treaties. Rather than relying solely traditional legal and policy mechanisms, students will examine how these human rights conventions and treaties can be used in creative ways, such as categorizing denial of abortion as a form of torture, or upholding a positive right to trauma care. This novel approach for influencing policy at state and national levels ultimately disrupts previous strategies for achieving more equitable reproductive healthcare, and can also catalyzes broader social change. Students will learn about the legal and policy dimensions of sexual and reproductive autonomy through readings, discussions, and case studies to identify solutions that extend beyond traditional judicial remedies.

Faculty Biography: Paula Tavrow, PhD, MSc, MALD, Adjunct Professor in Community Health Sciences Department. Former Director of UCLA Bixby Program in Population and Reproductive Health and founding Co-Director of Center of Expertise in Women’s Health and Empowerment at UC Global Health Institute. Current research interests on adolescent reproductive health, coerced sex, abortion, female genital mutilation, and contraceptive access. Winona Xu, UCLA undergraduate student who has written on human rights law, will be a guest lecturer.

Modern Cosmology and Scientific Innovation

Instructor: Steven Furlanetto

Subject Area: Astronomy

Course Description: Our conception of the Universe has changed dramatically over the last century, driven by new discoveries in astronomy and particle physics. In this seminar, we will closely examine several such breakthroughs in order to interrogate the processes through which innovative scientific discoveries emerge. For example, we will consider the role played by new technologies and methods, the balance of “genius” physical insights against dogged persistence in pursuing problems, and the role of interdisciplinary work. We will also consider how (if at all!) these breakthroughs differ from “normal” scientific investigations and why some innovative insights are only impactful long after their publication. Each class, we will closely examine one or two such breakthroughs, including discussion of the scientific and historical context, the impact, and analysis of the factors enabling the discovery.

Faculty Biography: Steven Furlanetto is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Harvard University. His research focuses on building theoretical models of the “Cosmic Dawn,” the era during which the first stars, black holes, and galaxies formed and transformed the Universe. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and recipient of the Helen B. Warner Prize from the American Astronomical Society.

Pathways to Longevity: History, Innovation, and the Future of Aging Study

Instructor: Feng Gao

Subject Area: Environmental Health

Course Description: This seminar explores how human’s understanding of aging has evolved from ancient myths to modern discoveries about the biology of life and longevity. Students will examine key milestones in aging research, from the study of age-related diseases to the development of medical and technological innovations that promote healthy living. The seminar highlights how aging has become a major scientific field and how new discoveries and technologies are shaping the future of aging research. Topics include comparative biology of longevity, cellular and molecular processes of aging, disease prevention, and interventions that may slow or reverse age-related decline. Through lectures, discussions, and case studies, students will gain a broad understanding of how science and innovation facilitate human ongoing pursuit of healthy aging.

Faculty Biography: Feng Gao is Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at UCLA. He obtained his PhD in Environmental Toxicology and Computational Science from Michigan State University. His research interests include computational toxicology, environmental health, aging, and children’s health.

Cyberpunk Legacies

Instructor: Julia Powles and Noopur Raval

Subject Area: Fiat Lux

Course Description: Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, or “moral art,” from the 1980s and ’90s that explores themes of technological advancement and societal destruction. As author Bruce Sterling writes, for the cyberpunks “technology is visceral – pervasive, utterly intimate. Not outside us, but next to us. Under our skin; often, inside our minds.” In this DataX seminar, students will see the iconic 1982 film “Blade Runner,” live-scored with an 11-piece ensemble at the Dolby Theatre. They will tour the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ exhibition “Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema,” and examine the connections and disruptions between cyberpunk, futurisms, and the contemporary tech ecosystem. The class will jointly produce digital materials on the themes of the seminar, building practical and analytical skills as part of their own contribution to cyberpunk legacies. Class meets on Wednesdays (tbc), 1/7 (4-6pm), 1/21 (7.30-10.30pm, offsite), 2/4 (2-5pm, offsite), 2/18 (4-6pm). Attendance at all sessions is required.

Faculty Biography: Seminar is co-taught. Prof Julia Powles, UCLA School of Law and Samueli School of Engineering, Institute for Technology, Law & Policy, received her Ph.D. in Law from the University of Cambridge and researches digital privacy, intellectual property, and the law and politics of data, automation, and artificial intelligence. Prof Noopur Raval, UCLA Information Studies, received her Ph.D. in Informatics from UC Irvine and researches histories of technology, digital infrastructures, and hi- and low-tech workers and AI in education, creative fields, and platform work.

Innovating Interactions

Instructor: Ankur Mehta

Subject Area: Fiat Lux

Course Description: In this class, we will work together to collaboratively design and build a real-life escape room! We will partner with the Olympic Hall Makerspace and other designers to take a narrative storyline driven by the participants’ emotional arc and realize it as an engaging user-centered experience. We will explore the role of human senses in driving emotional responses, and develop physical activities and artifacts to authentically evoke those feelings. Along the way we will learn and apply methods for brainstorming, design iteration, prototyping and rapid manufacturing, and robust design-for-failure. In the end, we expect to integrate the results of the quarter into an immersive interactive experience open to visitors!

Faculty Biography: Prof. Mehta has been solving puzzles for as long as he can rememeber, participating in interactive and immersive puzzly events since before escape rooms were thing, and creating such events for at least the past15 years. He designs and builds things in real life just for fun, even though (and especially when) not everything works out as planned.

Sensing the Story

Instructor: Rana Khankan

Subject Area: Life Science

Course Description: How do we design experiences that make people feel something real? Students will explore the art and science of designing immersive experiences that engage the senses, evoke emotion, and inspire connection. Drawing from psychology, design thinking, and storytelling, we will examine how sound, light, texture, narrative, and interaction work together to shape human perception and emotion. Working collaboratively and partnering with the Olympic Hall Makerspace and other designers, students will ideate, storyboard, and prototype an interactive immersive experience that fuses story and sensation. The final showcase will transform a campus space into a small-scale immersive installation, Escape room, demonstrating how narrative and sensory design can merge to create powerful, community-centered experiences.

When Science First Met Entrepreneurship and the Birth of the Biotech Industry

Instructor: Kenneth J. Dery

Subject Area: Medicine

Course Description: This seminar explores the extraordinary race to develop the first genetically engineered treatment for diabetes. In the process, academic curiosity was transformed into one of the most powerful economic and medical forces in the world. We will follow the scientists and their different methodologies in their race to be the first to produce human insulin using recombinant DNA technology. Their efforts not only changed the course of medicine but also redefined the relationship between science, business, and ethics. We will use readings, media clips, and discussion to consider how this historic pursuit of a medical breakthrough was shaped by the burgeoning molecular revolution. No prior science background is required, only your interest in discovery, history, and entrepreneurship.

Faculty Biography: Dr. Kenneth J. Dery is an Associate Adjunct Professor in the Department of Surgery at UCLA, where his research explores how molecular discoveries translate into new therapies for liver disease and transplantation. Trained in molecular biochemistry and biotechnology, he combines a passion for teaching with an interest in how scientific innovation moves from the lab to real-world impact.

Intellectual Property Strategies and Financing of Startups

Instructor: George Abe

Subject Area: Management

Course Description: Innovations and entrepreneurial startups typically require some form of intellectual property protection (IP) to protect the interests of inventors and their investors. This Fiat Lux seminar will provide an overview of how innovations are protected and then financed. Seminar will cover basics of IP protection, namely patents, trade secrets, copyrights, and trademarks. Seminar will also explore how capital for companies are raised and learn about a Series A term sheet, that provides provisions for startup companies. Course will review fundraising histories of companies such as Uber, SIRI, and Chobani yogurt. Consideration of the role of Founders, the person(s) who originally developed the product or service, and why they are replaced. Students expected to demo an elevator pitch and offer tips on how to present a case to potential investors.

Faculty Biography: George Abe is an adjunct assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. From 1976 to 1991, he had various technical roles at Computer Sciences Corp (CSC). From 1992 to 2000, he was business development manager at Cisco Systems. At Cisco, he published Residential Broadband, a guide to internet technologies used in the home. After Cisco, he was a venture partner with the VC firm of Palomar Ventures in Santa Monica. In 2003 he joined the faculty at Anderson. He is author of a textbook on startups called Entrepreneurship: A Tools-Oriented Approach.

Energy Innovation

Instructor: Henry Friedman

Subject Area: Management

Course Description: The world faces increasing energy demands, with significant implications for the environment and society. Novel methods of generating, storing, and distributing energy are crucial in meeting demand while mitigating harm. In this course, we will explore innovation in the energy space. We will explore issues related to evolving energy demand, new technologies being developed and implemented, and economic and political factors that facilitate or impede energy innovation. The first meeting of the class on January 16 will involve a broad overview of the energy landscape, categories of innovative technologies, and business models. Class on January 30 will focus on diving deeper into specific energy innovations and related issues. The class on February 13 will be replaced by the UCLA Anderson Energy Innovation Conference. Students will be expected to attend the conference in lieu of class. In the last class, February 27, discussions will focus on examples brought in by students.

Faculty Biography: Henry Friedman is a professor of accounting. His research relates broadly to how information is produced and used in firms and capital markets. Using theoretical models and archival data, he studies issues involving corporate governance, regulation, disclosure, lobbying, investor preferences for corporate social responsibility, audit quality and non-audit services, executive compensation, entrepreneurship and common ownership. At UCLA Anderson, Friedman teaches core and elective classes in accounting and sustainability-related topics.

Practical Immunology-- Science, the Self, and Society

Instructor: Liliy Yang

Subject Area: Microbiology Immunology & Molecular Genetics

Course Description: The only reason we are alive right now is because of a complex system of cells trained by billions of years of evolution working overtime to protect us from bacteria, viruses, parasites, and cancers– and itself. Understanding our immune system has revolutionized the science of medicine and changed our world forever, but the links between immunology and the world around us aren’t always clear and are very often misunderstood. Through the lens of immunology, this class looks at cutting edge therapies, global issues that have arisen from a lack of scientific understanding or a lack of foresight, the role that special interest plays in communication, source evaluation, and the long history of the symbiotic relationship between humans and animals.

Faculty Biography: Dr. Lili Yang is an immunology professor and principal investigator of the Yang Engineering Immunity Lab at UCLA, where she investigates the therapeutic potential of unconventional CAR T cell products and novel immune checkpoints for tumor immunotherapies. As a tumor immunologist, Dr. Yang is invested in the many ways the immune system impacts our daily lives and how a better understanding of this relationship can inform transformative discoveries in therapies across a wide range of diseases.

Creative Coding, Generative Art, and the Blockchain

Instructor: Aaron Blaisdell

Subject Area: Psychology

Course Description: In this seminar, students will explore how artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies are reshaping creative expression, authorship, and value in the digital age. Through hands-on creative coding projects and guided discussions, students will learn to use AI tools such as ChatGPT to generate, refine, and iterate on creative code to develop interactive generative artworks using p5.js, a creative coding library. Course explores Juno, an AI-assisted generative art platform on Transient Labs, and compare human-machine creative collaboration. Students will understand the fundamentals of blockchain technology, including tokenization, smart contracts, and decentralized storage for art. Learn to mint (publish) digital artwork as an NFT on networks such as Ethereum, Base, and Tezos, with an emphasis on long-term preservation. Course reflects on how digital art, AI, and blockchain innovation intersect with broader issues of entrepreneurship, authorship, ethics, and equity in the creative economy.

Faculty Biography: Professor Blaisdell is a professor in the Psychology Department and Chair of the Behavioral Neuroscience area. Professor Blaisdell also directs the Pigeon Art Project, including releasing pigeon art as NFT collections. He also has personal experience utilizing ChatGPT and other LLMs to code p5.js generative art, is a collector of art by other artists, and has experience using publicly available platforms to curate NFT artwork collections.

Critical/Racial Approaches to Capitalism: Origins, Development, and Prospects

Instructor: Rebecca Emigh

Subject Area: Sociology

Course Description: This class reviews critical/racial approaches to capitalism. We explore the origins of our current capitalist economic system and what its future and alternatives may be. In recent history, the vision of capitalism has changed. In the 1990s, with the market transition in Eastern Europe, it was hailed as a way to correct the failures of socialism. With the “Great Recession” of 2008, however, this view changed. Now, in many quarters, capitalism is widely seen again as an oppressive system, harmful to wide swaths of society and inherently creating climate disaster. On a theoretical level, the approaches changed as well. In the past 20 years, the ideas of “racial capitalism” and “critical approaches to capitalism” have spread. These perspectives suggests that capitalism developed only because it derived labor power from enslaved persons, mostly of African descent (and secondarily, Indigenous descent). A further line of thinking links the development of capitalism to the inherent overuse of resources, and thus, climate change and all its detrimental effects.

Faculty Biography: Rebecca Jean Emigh is a professor in the Sociology Department. She authored numerous prize-winning books and articles on comparative and historical sociology, focusing on long-term processes of social change in topics such as capitalism, knowledge, music, news, and censuses. She focuses on providing a “view from below,” that is, how ordinary social actors are important in creating social change. She recently published, How Everyday Forms of Classification Survived Imperialist Censuses in Puerto Rico, with Patricia Ahmed and Dylan Riley.

"Pop-UP Records": Participating in the Functions of a Modern Record Label

Instructor: Scot Brown

Subject Area: African American Studies

Course Description: This Fiat Lux seminar offers students hands-on entrepreneurial training through participation in a student-run record label activities. Designed for both musicians and music enthusiasts, the course immerses students in the real-world tasks performed by contemporary record labels. Without contracts, ownership transfers and the legal dimensions of the music business, students in this class will work to directly support the release and promotion of original music by UCLA student artists. Working in collaborative teams, students will engage in core label functions such as digital marketing, blogging, audience development, promotional artwork, and content strategy. Musicians will gain practical experience launching and distributing their own independent music, while music lovers will develop industry-relevant skills in branding, marketing, and creative project management.

Faculty Biography: Scot Brown is a Professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a leading scholar of African American history and popular music and culture. He is the author of “Fighting for US” and numerous scholarly articles. Brown has frequently appeared as an expert commentator for television and radio programs as well as documentaries on NPR, Sirius/XM, BET, PBS, TV One, VH1, HBO/Cinemax, and OWN/Discovery. Finally, Dr. Brown is a recording artist, songwriter, and producer with music featured on most digital music platforms.

From Apollo to Mars

Instructor: R. Michael Rich

Subject Area: Astronomy

Course Description: Review of history of Project Apollo and other crewed space flight including Skylab, Space Shuttle Program, and International Space Station. Consideration of plans to return to the Moon with Artemis, and prospects/challenges of crewed mission to Mars.

Faculty Biography: R. Michael Rich is Research Astronomer and Adjunct Professor, emeritus. He earned has his BA from Pomona College and Ph.D. from Caltech. He has been at UCLA since 1998. Rich has over 500 refereed research papers and was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. Rich is an active researcher using Keck Observatory, HST, and JWST telescopes. Rich was the doctoral thesis adviser of Neil Tyson. Rich’s research interests include the Galactic bulge and center, and high redshift galaxies.

Rethinking Innovation: Race, Power, and the Futures We Build

Instructor: Laura Chavez-Moreno

Subject Area: Chicana/o and Central American Studies

Course Description: Innovation is often celebrated as neutral and universally progressive, but who defines what counts as “innovative”? This seminar interrogates how colonial, racial, and capitalist logics shape innovation and explores counter-narratives emerging from Indigenous, Black, and Latinx thought. We will examine what it means to decolonize innovative storytelling, looking to community resistance, radical imagination, and alternative ways of knowing and creating. This fiat lux seminar will feature award-winning guest speakers and connect with the Common Experience, Reservation Dogs (2021). Students are expected to complete the assigned films and readings before class in order to participate meaningfully in discussion.

Faculty Biography: Laura Chávez-Moreno is an award-winning scholar, qualitative social scientist, and assistant professor in the Departments of Chicana/o & Central American Studies and Education at UCLA. She is the author of the award-winning book “How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America,” published by Harvard Education Press. The book has been featured on several podcasts and in popular media, including the New Books Network, Forbes, and Ms. Magazine. She received the 2025 Emerging Scholars Award from the Critical Race Studies in Education Association. Visit LauraChavezMoreno.com

Rewriting Taste: Innovating Food Systems Through Oral Health Science

Instructor: Yan Wang

Subject Area: Dentistry

Course Description: Over the past decade, the U.S. population has experienced profound shifts in diet, driven by the rapid rise of dietary supplements, prebiotics and probiotics, ultra-processed foods, artificial sweeteners, high-sugar products, and excessive sodium intake. These changes are not only reshaping what we eat, but also how we taste. Emerging evidence suggests that modern food environments are altering the oral microbiome, influencing taste receptor function, and ultimately modifying eating behaviors and preferences across the life course. This seminar explores how food acts as both exposure and intervention?reframing “food as medicine” through the lens of oral and dental public health. We will examine the evolving ecology of the oral microbiome, its bidirectional relationship with diet and taste perception, and the downstream implications for metabolic health, chronic disease, and health equity. Drawing from food science, microbiome research, and public health dentistry, this seminar highlights food science in promoting sustainable, equitable dietary futures.

Faculty Biography: Yan Wang, PhD, is an Assistant Adjunct Professor in Public and Population Health at the UCLA School of Dentistry. She received her PhD from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and food studies certificate. Her research integrates dental public health, oral microbiome science, maternal and child health, and data-driven approaches to examine how diet, stress, and social environments shape oral and systemic health across the life course. Dr. Wang leads NIH-funded studies focused on oral microbiome development, salivary biomarkers, and advancing health equity among vulnerable populations.

The Post-AI Slow Classroom: Re-Imagining Learning, Thinking, and Creativity

Instructor: Cindy Nguyen

Subject Area: Digital Humanities

Course Description: In 1926 Henry Ford famously declared that technological advancement would liberate humanity from drudgery and tedious labor, creating time for leisure, art, and play. In past history, similar ‘dreams’ were promised by global communications, automation, the internet, and now AI. As research and news reports already expose, the ‘liberation’ of human potential comes at the expense of exploitative labor exported to other parts of the world and the extraction of natural resources. Furthermore, AI has completely shifted the knowledge and creative industry, homogenizing culture, shifting language and writing practices, and changing human thinking. The time that was usually dedicated to ‘tedious’ work (searching for answers, thinking about questions, struggling through a writing or creative prompt) are the moments in which creativity and entrepreneurship happens. This fiat lux confronts the contradiction of AI liberation and human creativity, by taking the classroom as a space for re-imaginination of how to learn, think, and be creative in a post-AI world.

Faculty Biography: Cindy Anh Nguyen is Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles with appointments in Information Studies, Digital Humanities Program, and Asian Languages & Culture. Her transdisciplinary research examines the historical and socio-technical production of knowledge in Southeast Asia through libraries (Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam, UC Press 2026), encyclopedia, visual media, and language through feminist and critical approaches. She is also a public scholar and community artist. See her work cindyanguyen.com

Takkyu Volley: Universal Sports in Practice

Instructor: Leigh Harris

Subject Area: Disability Studies

Course Description: Learn a new sport with us! Takkyu Volley (Table Tennis Volleyball) is an innovative sport from Japan, promoted as a “universal sport” designed to be playable across disability, age, and prior athletic experience. This seminar uses Takkyu Volley, an emerging sport in the U.S., as a hands-on way to explore how sports are socially designed: how rules, equipment, pacing, communication, and space shape who can participate and how. Across four meetings, students move between in-class discussion and on-court engagement, learning the sport’s history, rules, and inclusive norms while actively playing and rotating player roles. The course situates Takkyu Volley within broader comparative conversations about disability sport and inclusive recreation in Japan and the United States, culminating in a friendly tournament that highlights sport as a shared, community-building practice.

Faculty Biography: Leigh Harris is Asst Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Initiatives. Leigh has expertise in interdisciplinary program building, pedagogy, writing, and assessment. She received her PhD in English from Yale University and has received a UCLA Distinguished Teaching award. Dr. Fred Ariel Hernandez, Lead Scientist at UCLA’s Sports & Society Lab, researches Olympic/Paralympic sports, Title IX history, and environmental justice in sports.

Let’s Thrive Together: Building Mental Health Education Curriculum

Instructor: Leigh Harris and Erin Sanders O’Leary

Subject Area: Education

Course Description: Let’s Thrive Together: Innovating Mental Health Education at UCLA invites students to help design innovative strategies to enhance mental health support on campus. This seminar will explore mental wellness through hands-on activities, presentations, and discussions to learn why mental-health literacy matters and pilot ways to enrich mental health education in the undergraduate experience. Our seminar introduces students to campus resources and practical tools for managing stress and strengthening self-care while engaging them in the development and potential implementation of inventive approaches that address how students can help themselves and others thrive at UCLA. For students interested in pioneering ways to boost resilience, support a friend, learn more about mental health education as a career interest, or engage in educational program building — this class is for them as we collaborate as Bruins to empower one another with the knowledge, skills and drive to make a difference.

Faculty Biography: Leigh Harris is Asst Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Initiatives. Leigh has expertise in interdisciplinary program building, pedagogy, writing, and assessment. She received her PhD in English from Yale University and has received a UCLA Distinguished Teaching award. Erin Sanders O’Leary is Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, guiding UCLA’s educational innovation efforts. She is also an Assoc Professor of Education in the School of Education & Information Studies. Erin received her PhD in Biological Chemistry from UCLA and has received a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion award.

Learn through Play: Cantonese Opera, Poetry, and Song

Instructor: King-Kok Cheung

Subject Area: English

Introduction to Space Humanities: Culture, Ethics, and Exploration

Instructor: Felipe Cervera

Subject Area: Fiat Lux

Course Description: This course introduces students to the expanding field of space humanities, an area that examines how ideas about space shape culture, identity, ethics, and public imagination. Students will explore how scientific advances, technological ambition, and commercial space ventures shape the stories societies tell about the future, from planetary exploration to the possibility of life beyond Earth. Drawing from anthropology, history, philosophy, media studies, and the arts, the course provides tools for analyzing how images, narratives, and policies guide our understanding of space. Students will investigate how space exploration expresses human hopes, uncertainties, and inequalities, and how it reshapes concepts of governance, responsibility, and belonging. Through discussions, case studies, and creative inquiry, the course encourages thoughtful engagement and invites students to imagine more inclusive and ethical space futures.

Faculty Biography: Felipe Cervera is Director of the Centre for Performance Studies and Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at UCLA. His book project, Celestial Acts: Performance and Planetary Politics, is an ethnography of space artists working within the commercial space industry. Forthcoming work includes ‘Theatre, Ecology, Outer Space’ for The Cambridge Companion to Theatre and Ecology (Carl Lavery, ed.). He facilitates the Planetary Performance Lab at UCLA and serves on the Committee for the Cultural Utilisation of Outer Space (ITTACUS) of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF).

David Bowie: Pop Innovator

Instructor: Brian Kim Stefans

Subject Area: Fiat Lux

Course Description: Focuses on the career of one of popular music’s major innovators starting with his glam persona, Ziggy Stardust, through his late-career masterpiece, Blackstar. In between, Bowie experimented with “plastic soul,” gender-defying fashion, avant-garde music styles during his “Berlin Trilogy” collaborations with Brian Eno, various fusions of Black American music and European trends, and using film and video as a serious tool for an extension of his vision. We’ll also look at some of his major influences, including T. Rex, and some of his regular collaborators such as Carlos Alomar and Robert Fripp. Lastly, we’ll devote a session to Bowie’s unique way of covering others’ songs throughout his career.

Faculty Biography: Brian Kim Stefans is a poet, digital artist and theorist. He is a Professor in the English Department.

Putting Knowledge to Work: Innovation and Student entrepreneurism at UCLA

Instructor: Gene D. Block

Subject Area: Fiat Lux

Course Description: We live in the “start-up state,” where countless new technologies and products have been developed?many in California, often by students and alumni. This course explores what it takes to succeed as a student entrepreneur at UCLA. Students will learn from current student and alumni inventors, as well as from key participants in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, including UCLA’s Technology Development Group and alumni engaged in venture capital and angel investing. The class will also include hands-on, innovative exercises designed to reinforce these concepts.

Faculty Biography: Gene D. Block is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences in the David Geffen School of Medicine and in Integrative Biology and Physiology in the Division of Life Sciences. Prior to coming to UCLA, he was the director of the NSF Science and Technology Center for Biological Timing. His expertise is in the area of chronobiology.

Films of Rebellion and Resistance

Instructor: Celine Parrenas Shimizu

Subject Area: Film and Television

Course Description: Course examines filmmaking of resistance by Third Cinema-a global film movement rooted in the national liberation struggles of the Global South in the 1960s and the LA Rebellion- a UCLA-based movement that transformed American cinema and higher education in the 1970s and 1980s. We will identify and interrogate the socially impactful filmmaking philosophy practiced at the highest levels of aesthetic innovation, and situate our discussion in history and the legacy inherited by filmmakers working at UCLA today. We will also investigate the television series RESERVATION DOGS to interrogate how it ripples from these two cinema and social action movements. As part of the Dialogue Across Difference initiative, the course will promote the development of media and institutional literacy in building bridges across communities. These movements encouraged accountability to communities of a diverse and culturally abundant Los Angeles and collective filmmaking where we learn about each other in order to feel for and include each other.

Faculty Biography: Celine Parreñas Shimizu is Dean of Theater, Film and Television and Distinguished Professor of Film, Television and Digital Media at UCLA. An award-winning filmmaker and film scholar, her latest book is The Movies of Racial Childhoods (Duke, 2024) and her films include 80 Years Later: On Japanese American Racial Inheritance (Women Make Movies, 2022).

African Innovations: From Cashless Economies to Mobile Money Payments

Instructor: Ghislaine Lydon

Subject Area: History

Course Description: When considering sites of revolutionary financial inventions, Africa does not immediately come to mind. Yet, historically, the continent spawned many innovations often taken for granted in today’s modern world. Chief among these is papyrus, the world’s first writing paper from 3200 BCE to the tenth century. Without it there would be no trace of Homer’s Odyssey, Plato’s Republic or even the New Testament. As the first cashless economy, Ancient Egypt relied on papyrus to record transactions based on a silver and gold bi-metal monetary system. More recently, Africans invented mobile cash payments. Kenya became a financial innovator in 2007 when it launched the M-Pesa, enabling users nationwide to send and receive money on their personal mobile devices. Kenya is a pioneer in smartphone-based payment systems, which changed the global financial landscape. This class designed as a forum for students to consider the place of Africa in global financial innovations.

Faculty Biography: Throughout career, Lydon has had a sustained interest in Africa’s financial history. Lydon first researched African banking systems, before publishing a book chapter on Senegal’s first bank established in the mid-nineteenth century. Their first book examined the reliance on writing paper for the management of trans-Saharan caravans. Second book, which is almost finished and also will be published by Cambridge University Press, considers the role of North African paper-making traditions and their place in world history. Lydon is excited to get students interested in African economic history.

Approaches to Engineering Design and Innovation in Pacific Islander Communities

Instructor: Kyle Yoshida

Subject Area: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Course Description: Successful innovations are shaped by both technical performance and alignment with societal needs. This course examines how to approach engineering design through a systems-thinking, human-centered framework that incorporates empathy, relationships, and shared responsibility. Through bi-weekly, hands-on activities, we will practice this framework by designing new tools and technologies to support Pacific Islander communities. We will conceptualize innovations and frame them in terms of their social and cultural impacts, with specific examples from robotics, healthcare, and agriculture. While we focus primarily on Pacific Islander communities, this framework can be transferred to other communities and topics. Students from all backgrounds are welcome. No prior experience in Pacific Islander topics, engineering, robotics, business, or social sciences is required.

Faculty Biography: Kyle Yoshida is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCLA, where he leads the MOHALA Lab (Mechatronics for Outreach, Haptics, Agriculture, and Living Applications). Kyle earned his SB in Bioengineering with an African Studies minor from Harvard and his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford. His work spans robotics, haptic perception, STEM education, and human-robot interfaces. He is the founder of Honua Scholars, a STEM-mentorship non-profit recognized as one of the Top 10 Native STEM Enterprises by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.

Intellectual Property Strategies and Financing of Startups

Instructor: George Abe

Subject Area: Management

Is Aging Good, Bad, Happy, or Sad?

Instructor: Yeonsu Song

Subject Area: Nursing

Course Description: This seminar invites students into an open, interactive conversation about what “aging” really means in today’s world. Aging is just not getting old. It begins the moment we are born and continues throughout our lives. How do we think about aging, happiness, success, and challenges as people grow older, and why do these ideas matter to all of us, regardless of age? In a rapidly changing society shaped by social change, technology, and global events, our views of aging are evolving. Each week, we will explore aging from a different perspective, such as social and political life, psychology, economics, and the environment (e.g., natural disasters), and technology. Through discussion, short readings or videos, and real-life examples, students will examine key issues faced by older adults and consider creative, innovative ways to address them. By end of the seminar, students will reflect on their own beliefs about aging, how these beliefs have changed, and how younger generations can contribute to a more resilient and age-inclusive society.

Faculty Biography: Yeonsu Song is an Associate Professor at the UCLA Joe C. Wen School of Nursing. She earned her PhD from UC San Francisco and completed postdoctoral training in geriatrics at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. She is a registered nurse and a certified family nurse practitioner. Her research focuses on aging, sleep, and the health of older adults and family caregivers. Her notable publications include (1) Relationships Between Sleep Stages and Changes in Cognitive Function in Older Men, published in Sleep, 2015 and (2) a Behavioral Sleep Education for Dementia Care Dyads.

Innovating Kindness into Public Health Practice

Instructor: Julie Elginer

Subject Area: Public Health

Course Description: Public health innovation refers to creating and implementing a novel process, policy, product, program, or system leading to health and equity improvements. “Kindness” is loosely designated as a thought, speech, or action intended to benefit others with no expectation of reward or recognition. Kindness as a structural intervention in public health literature is a relatively new phenomenon, yet central to the human experience. Incorporating kindness as an innovation into public health practice is an emerging opportunity. Students will be able to learn about the social and emotional benefits of practicing kindness as a structural innovation in public health. Sessions will include one case study in public health innovation. Participants will visit and volunteer with Food Forward, an LA-based nonprofit. Teams of students will research a Westwood or UCLA-based entity that provides public health services, recommend how examples of kindness could be implemented into their practices, and present findings to the class to consider scalability to other entities.

Faculty Biography: Julie Elginer is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Fielding School of Public Health. She received her Dr.PH in health services at UCLA, and her MBA in strategy and marketing at the University of Maryland. She holds several state and municipal public appointments as a public health practitioner. She is a member of the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute Faculty Advisory Committee. She received numerous teaching awards from the Public Health Student Association and an Individual Resolution from the California Assembly for a lifetime of meritorious service.

Tai Chi for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Thinking

Instructor: Wong Kee Wong

Subject Area: Public Health

Course Description: Seminar explores how Tai Chi can enhance creativity, resilience, and strategic clarity to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in addition to offering mental and physical health benefits. Tai Chi illustrates the yin-yang principle: the more mindful one is of oneself, the more one can respond to welfare of one’s community. Students engage in weekly movement training with readings and reflective discussions, centered on five principles: 1) Adaptive Thinking & Strategic Flow – how to respond fluidly to change; 2) Embodied Awareness & Decision-Making – cultivating sensitivity and presence sharpens intuition; 3) Energy Management & Resilience – sustainable energy use reduces stress, and builds emotional resilience; 4) Systems Thinking in Motion – holistic awareness aids in seeing connections, feedback loops, and patterns; and 5) Ethical Leadership & Inner Clarity – nurture humility, purpose, and self-awareness. Master Yun will provide Tai Chi training and Dr. Wong will discuss how Tai Chi addresses multiple health needs for all people.

Faculty Biography: Dr. Wong is a UCLA Professor in Biostatistics since 1990. Yun Zhao is an experienced Tai-Chi master. Yun competed in various martial arts styles in both China and Singapore in his school years, and earned multiple championship titles. Since 2008, he has served regularly as a judge in national and international martial arts competitions in the US. He holds positions in LA, Singapore, Japan and Macau and all are aimed to promote traditional Chinese Martial Arts, TaiChi, Xingyi, Yishui and Bagua.

Air Conditioning Conundrum

Instructor: Bharat Venkat

Subject Area: Society and Genetics

Course Description: Air conditioning represents one of most perplexing conundrums in battle against climate change. On one hand, air conditioning is an innovation that saves lives: as temperatures rise, many homes and many parts of world will become uninhabitable (and unsurvivable) without it. On the other hand, using air conditioning contributes to climate change and urban heat-island effect. This conundrum is made harder to unravel because those who most need air conditioning don’t have it (such as those who are incarcerated), or can’t afford it (such as low-income renters)–one example of thermal inequality. Study uses air conditioning to explore simultaneous challenges of climate change and climate justice. Includes readings and lectures on history, politics, and ethics of air conditioning; climate change; incarceration; redlining; and thermal inequality. Central focus is to learn by doing: Working at UCLA Makerspace with Tim Norris, students build their own air conditioners to understand how they work.

Faculty Biography: Bharat Venkat is an associate professor who teaches in the Human Biology & Society major, as well as in the Departments of History & Anthropology. He is also the Director of the UCLA Heat Lab, an interdisciplinary research team focused on understanding the relationship between human health and climate change through the lens of thermal inequality. He is currently writing a book entitled “Swelter: A History of Our Bodies in a Warming World.” His first book, “At the Limits of Cure,” (2021) is about the future of treatment in the face of spreading drug resistance.