Gerardo Marín Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowships

In honor of the late Dr. Gerardo Marín, the Provost’s Office invites scholars from underrepresented ethnic communities to apply for prestigious Gerardo Marín Diversity Fellowships. Gerardo Marín, former Senior Vice Provost and Professor of Psychology, laid the foundation for USF’s current diversity and inclusion efforts throughout academic affairs, particularly through the recruitment and retention of a diverse faculty. Through mentoring faculty and diversifying hiring processes for professors, Dr. Marín changed the landscape of USF’s faculty and national professoriate by advocating for and successfully implementing through grants awarded by the James Irvine Foundation curricular and faculty diversity initiatives which led to the development of the Irvine Dissertation Fellowship. The Irvine Dissertation Fellowship program was later adopted by the university as the Ethnic Minority Dissertation Fellowships and later renamed the Gerardo Marín Diversity Fellowships in 2016. Through the evolution of this program, USF has hosted over forty-five doctoral fellows and Postdoctoral fellows, several of whom have become faculty and senior administrators at USF or at other prestigious universities throughout the country.

Dissertation fellows complete their dissertation and initiate an ongoing program of scholarly or creative work while becoming familiar with the usual service responsibilities of a university faculty member. Fellows are mentored by a senior faculty member to strengthen the development of their independent research program. The Gerardo Marín fellows form a small cohort of scholars university-wide. Each fellow is mentored by a senior faculty member, under the guidance of the Dean in partnership with the Vice Provost for Equity, Inclusion and Faculty Excellence. Fellows teach one course in their discipline each semester and engage in service within their school/college or at the university-wide level, depending on interests.The program provides compensation and limited support for relocation and research-related expenses. Additional support includes access to office space and library privileges, professional development opportunities offered by the USF Tracy Seeley Center for Teaching Excellenceand Center for Research, Artistic, and Scholarly Excellence, and a free membership with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity.

2022-23 Gerardo Marín Diversity Postdoctoral Fellows

Alfonso Aranda
Environmental Studies
College of Arts & Sciences

Alfonso is a Ph.D. candidate in Geography at the University of California at Davis. His current research studies the environmental health risks among residents of an unincorporated farmworker community in Davis. Alfonso co-founded the Knights Landing Environmental Health Project, a highly ambitious community-based, ethnographic-driven interdisciplinary research project to better understand environmental health risks in farmworker communities.

Why USF? Why now?

California leads the nation in environmental justice research and teaching, and USF perfectly aligns with my personal and professional interests as a Chicano activist-scholar. In recent years, universities are responding to the demand for more intentional racial justice efforts through an increased focus on ethnic studies and social justice curricula. I believe my community-based work best exemplifies the effort to enrich the educational experience of all students through the experiences of marginalized groups. As the son of farmworkers, my goal at USF will be to tell the story of what it means to live under agricultural pollution from the perspective of my community. By doing so, I believe my work will strengthen the dialogue around entitling our communities with an environment that is free from harm.

Jayoung Myung
Humanistic Management and Hospitality
School of Management

Dr. Myung completed her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at Rutgers University in Rutgers Business School. Within the broad fields of organizational behavior and human resource management, her interest in voice behavior stems from her professional experience as an assistant manager in the personnel department, where she became curious about the ways in which organizational contexts and practices shape employees’ communication. Dr. Myung's research primarily focuses on complaining behavior in the workplace. 

Why USF? Why now?

USF provides an attractive campus environment and the resources to promote learning, and the wonderful location facilitates outstanding collaboration between scholars and the community of San Francisco. Furthermore, USF supports a diverse student body, allowing students to achieve academic success through a strong educational program and strong leadership. I particularly like the vibe of the Humanistic Management and Hospitality department, which promotes a culture that helps the faculty and the students learn from each other.

Jovita Murillo
Adjunct Faculty
School of Nursing and Health Professions

Dr. Murillo received a Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) from Claremont Graduate University. Her research interests involve exploring the intersectionality between social determinants of health (SDoH) and health disparities.  Her long-term research goals are to develop practical interventions that can address the social needs of minority populations. This includes developing a comprehensive understanding of how social inequities are a product of injustices in SDoH that exist in our society that exacerbate health disparities. She hopes to address the science-practice gap by targeting interventions that can be used to advance policy measures to protect, preserve, and promote the health and safety of minorities.

Lijing (Lily) Ma
Psychology
College of Arts & Sciences

Lily received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology with a concentration in Social Psychology at Saint Louis University, with a minor in Research Methodology. Her research focuses on romantic relationships and health. Broadly, her interests include infidelity in romantic relationships, self-change in romantic relationships, and how romantic relationships affect health. She has taught several courses including General Psychology, a lower-level and an upper-level Research Method & Statistic courses.

Why USF? Why now?

I chose USF because USF puts a lot of emphasis on diversity and inclusion, and the Gerardo Marin Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship will also provide me with a lot of great professional development opportunities.

Rivka Valérie Louissaint
Art + Architecture
College of Arts & Sciences

A graduate of the California College of the Arts BFA program and the University of California, Berkeley's MFA Program in Art Practice, Rivka is a rising Haitian artist who powerfully deals with questions of race, capitalist critique, and social justice in her studio practice and teaching. The recipient of UC Berkeley’s prestigious Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award in 2022, she has already exhibited her mixed-media work in solo and group exhibitions in the Bay Area and New York City, including at the Hubbell Street Gallery, SOMArts Cultural Center, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Her teaching interests include intergenerational pedagogical practices and, in her words, “explor[ing] the multidimensional nature and effects of the world’s present systems of oppression and exploitation.”

Why USF? Why now?

As a cultural worker, educator and community organizer, USF’s dedication to social justice, community engagement, and sustainable development aligns well with my own creative and pedagogical practices and beliefs. Given our global society’s current challenges, overcoming them will require scholars, educators, workers and community members to organize and take action to build the sustainable structures and society that we desperately need and deserve. Given its mission and context, USF provides fertile ground for this.

Sebastián Rubiano-Galvis
International Studies
College of Arts & Sciences

Sebastián is a Ph.D.candidate in Environmental Science, Policy & Management at the University of California, Berkeley.  Sebastián's work studies the relationships between environmental politics and knowledge politics in international and national environmental governance. His current research examines the history and politics of mercury reduction initiatives in South America's small-scale gold mining sector. He collaborates with human rights, environmental, and indigenous organizations in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America.

Why USF? Why now?

All struggles for global justice are connected, and USF's values embody such a critical awareness in unmatched ways. USF is at the forefront of training professionals committed to addressing the global challenges of our times. Our collective responses to the climate crisis and its associated injustices require engaged and rigorous intellectual communities like USF's. There could not be a more timely moment to join this vibrant community in which care, diversity, and solidarity are critical.