THE MARCIE ROTHMAN CENTENNIAL SCHOLARS UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIP
The Food Studies Minor is pleased to announce the establishment of the Marcie Rothman Centennial Scholars Undergraduate Scholarship available for students pursuing the minor in Food Studies.
The Marcie Rothman Centennial Scholars Undergraduate Scholarship was established to support students in the Food Studies minor with their academic interests and endeavors at UCLA. This scholarship is awarded annually to Food Studies minors and aims to support the expansion of food in the world as an area of interdisciplinary study, including research and practice as it relates to culture, public health, nutrition, sustainability, the environment, food activism, and justice.
ABOUT MARCIE ROTHMAN
Marcie H. Rothman grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by good cooks, fresh seasonal produce, and hundreds of restaurants full of the ethnic cuisines that have inspired her throughout her career. She studied cooking with such notables as Wolfgang Puck and Ken Hom, and was a longtime member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, the San Francisco Professional Food Society and Toastmasters International. She continues to support the International Slow Food Movement. During her career, Rothman took great interest in the notion of creating healthy and delicious meals that are also affordable and accessible to all. This led to the development of the “The $5 Chef,” a weekly television show where Rothman impressed viewers with her uncanny ability to put seasonal foods together into quick, delicious $5 meals. She is the author of two cookbooks as “The $5 Chef.”
Rothman received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from UCLA and later completed the Executive Program at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management. She has extensive experience on the boards of non-profit organizations and is extremely excited to help foster the academic advancement of the field by supporting Food Studies minors in their studies. With this generous gift to UCLA’s Food Studies program, students are able to share Rothman’s passion for food, and dedicate themselves to understanding and improving its production, preparation, sharing, access, consumption, and disposal.
FOOD STUDIES SCHOLARSHIP
THE MARCIE ROTHMAN SCHOLARSHIP (download pdf)
Award Amount: $8,650 (one award or split into two awards)
Eligibility Criteria:
Recipients of the Marcie Rothman Centennial Scholars Undergraduate Scholarship are Food Studies minor students who demonstrate passion for their interests and pursuits and academic achievement in the field of Food Studies and/or financial need.
To be eligible for the scholarships, students must have:
- Be in good academic standing and;
- Be admitted to the UCLA Food Studies minor.
- Note to non-Food Studies minors: Students who are not yet admitted to the minor may submit their application to the minor at the same time as their application for the scholarship—but their scholarship application will only be reviewed once admission to the minor is confirmed.
Application instructions:
1. In a single PDF document, submit the following items before or on the deadline:
- A complete scholarship application form
- A current resume that highlights professional experience and extracurricular activities as well as community service and/or volunteer experiences
- A short essay of 500 words or less that answers the following question:
- Describe your experience in the Food Studies Minor and how it has informed your passions and interests in cultivating a healthier, more sustainable, and equitable world. Include how the knowledge and tools learned in the Food Studies Minor contribute to the direction of your academic career, future plans, and to the field of food studies.
Save the PDF in the following format:
- LastName, FirstName.pdf
- Ex. Frenk, Julio.pdf
2. Obtain a copy of your unofficial transcript and save it in the following format:
- LastName_FirstName_Transcript.pdf
- Ex. Frenk_Julio_Transcript.pdf
3. Email both files to the Marcie Rothman Scholarship Committee*. Your application materials will be automatically uploaded to a drive once they are received.
Confirmation email:
You will receive a confirmation email for each file when your application materials have been successfully uploaded. Important: If you do not receive a confirmation email or if you are having issues uploading your application, please send application materials to Nicole Chavez at nchavez@college.ucla.edu.
*Your application materials should be sent directly to the committee via the following email address: 2025_20.ushj2vakvstbxrle@u.box.com
If selected as a scholarship recipient, your accomplishment will be announced via email to the food studies community, including the Rothman family, faculty, and staff. Nicole Chavez will be in touch to confirm pronouns and announcement details prior to it being shared. Please let her know if there is anything that was shared in the scholarship application that should be remain confidential.
Application Deadline: Monday, October 27, 2025, 11:59pm
2025-2026 SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS
Thanks to the generosity of Ms. Marcie Rothman, the Food Studies Minor is pleased and excited to announce the recipients of the 2024-2025 Marcie Rothman Centennial Scholars Undergraduate Scholarship. This year Lumina Chan and Ingrid Leng will each receive a $4,325 scholarship. Devon Clark is recognized with an honorable mention.
Scholarship Awardee – Lumina Chan
Photo of Chiu Yu Lumina Chan. She has long brown hair and brown eyes and is wearing a light blue short-sleeved top over a white camisole. Lumina is holding a red umbrella while standing on a city street.
Chiu Yu Lumina Chan is a fourth-year Physiological Science major with a Food Studies minor who transferred to UCLA to deepen her passion for food, health, and sustainability. She quickly found an intellectual home in the Food Studies minor. Through different Food Studies courses, she discovered that Food Studies sits at the intersection of social justice, food systems, and scientific inquiry, giving her a framework to connect biology with equity and community well-being.Lumina is a research assistant at the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, where she supports a clinical trial on daily pecan intake, skin aging, and the gut microbiome and has co-authored a textbook chapter on dietary polyphenols. As a summer research intern at Westlake University in Hangzhou, China, she analyzed fish intake and gut microbiome profiles in large Chinese cohorts. On campus, she serves as an intern at the Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies, a Semel HCI Community Garden Coordinator, an EatWell Undergraduate Pod Assistant, and a Co-Director of Research for Student Wellness Commission’s Health, Nutrition, and Fitness organization. These experiences have shaped her goal of becoming a Registered Dietitian and nutrition researcher who advances sustainable, just food systems and uses food as a tool to improve metabolic and community health.
Scholarship Awardee – Ingrid Leng
Photo of Ingrid Leng. She has medium length black hair and wears a brown blazer over a black dress top. Ingrid is smiling and standing in front of a bush of flowers.
Ingrid Leng is a third-year Public Health major with a minor in Food Studies. She is passionate about everything food-related: from its production and distribution, to the ways it affects health systems, political systems, nutrition, and consumption. She first became interested in food deserts and food insecurity in the Food: Lens for Sustainability Cluster. This later led her to assist with research on food and nutrition insecurity and diet-related diseases at the Los Angeles Department of Public Health. Currently, Ingrid is an undergraduate research scholar working with Deputy Director Diana Winters at the Resnick Center for Food Policy. She is conducting research on policies related to antibiotic regulation in agriculture, agricultural contaminants, and dietary guidelines to help update Director Winters’ article, American Foodralism, which discusses the roles federal and state governments play in food regulation. Ingrid is also the social media manager for the Teaching Kitchen at UCLA, a program that teaches students to cook affordable and nutritious meals for free. She creates social media content to increase student access to healthy, inexpensive, and delicious recipes. After graduation, Ingrid intends to continue her education by pursuing graduate programs in food policy, nutrition, and dietetics. She hopes to apply the knowledge she gained through the Food Studies minor to help create a more equitable and sustainable food system.
Honorable Mention – Devon Clark
Photo of Devon Clark. She wears a black shirt in front of the US Capitol building on her first day of work as a Congressional Intern in Washington DC.
Devon Clark is a fourth-year political science student whose interest in food policy grew from witnessing her own family navigate a range of health challenges. As a result, Devon became determined to understand and improve the systems that shape our health.
Transferring to UCLA and discovering the Food Studies confirmed that food held the tools to make systemic change to our physical, mental, and environmental health. These academic foundations were strengthened by work with the Garden School Foundation and LA Food Policy Council, where Devon saw how local nonprofits reshape the city’s food systems. This blend of theory and practice solidified her belief that food is not just a basic need, but a powerful path for cultural connection, political cooperation, and long-term social progress.
Devon’s mission now centers on reconnecting Americans to their food through policy reform in Washington DC, with hopes of returning to the House of Representatives after completing her internship. There, she hopes to strengthen connections between small/mid-sized farms and urban communities to bolster local economies and encourage a nationwide shift to prioritize regenerative agricultural practices. At the end of the day, she views the dinner table as the symbol of unity needed in a polarized world, where the meals reconnect Americans to their food sources and to the communities that sustain them.
Emily Cheng – 2024
Major: Physiological Science
Minor: Food Studies
Meileen Taw – 2024
Major: Human Biology and Society
Minor: Food Studies
Cali M. Perez Chavez – 2023
Major: Psychology
Minor: Food Studies
Leilani Barnes – 2022
Major: Environmental Studies and Geography
Minor: Food Studies
Sarah Schecter – 2022
Major: Theater
Minor: Food Studies
Laila Adarkar – 2021
Major: Global Studies
Minor: Food Studies
Kristida Chhour – 2021
Major: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Minor: Food Studies
Desiree Felix – 2020
Major: Environmental Science
Minor: Environmental Systems and Society and Food Studies
Ikuko Nakano – 2020
Major: Civil Engineering
Minor: Food Studies
Carlene Francis – 2019
Major: African American Studies
Minor: Food Studies
Tierney Sheehan – 2019
Major: Communication Studies
Minor: Film, Television, and Digital Media
Saraí Ramos Gonzalez – 2018
Major: Chicanx Studies
Minors: Food Studies, Education Studies and Labor and Workplace Studies
Hannah Valenzuela – 2018
Major: Gender Studies
Minor: Food Studies
Pamela Lin – 2017
Major: Human Biology and Society
Minors: Food Studies and Geography/Environmental Studies
PAST HONORABLE MENTIONS
Tammy Shen – 2024
Major: Physiological Science
Minor: Food Studies
Grace Wu – 2023
Major: Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics
Minor: Food Studies
Kassandra Gooch – 2022
Major: Anthropology
Minor: Food Studies
Lauren Barette – 2020
Major: Dance
Minors: Entrepreneurship and Food Studies
Juanyi Tan – 2019
Major: Psychobiology
Minors: Food Studies
Chiara Phillips – 2018
Major: Geography/Environmental Studies
Minors: Food Studies, Geospatial Information Systems and Technologies
Jesse Garcia – 2017
Major: Anthropology
Minors: Food Studies, French, and Global Health