Alumni Dr. Steven Lopez (Left) and Dr. Crystal Valdez (Right) will accept the Stan Israel award on behalf of OCDS in November. Members of the OCDS with advisor Professor and Chair Miguel Garcia-Garibay (Front, Center) .
Founded in 2006, originally as OCDC (Organization for Cultural Diversity in Chemistry) a graduate student led group that operates under the advisement of departmental chair and long-standing advisor Professor Miguel Garcia-Garibay. Recently, OCDC has expanded its efforts to all physical and life sciences and to reflect this change, OCDC has been rebranded as The Organization for Cultural Diversity in Science (OCDS). With departmental support, OCDS has a history of showcasing diverse new science as well as promoting diversity through a special seminar series. OCDS will soon officially join the national non-profit organization Alliance for Diversity in Science and Engineering (ADSE), a graduate student run national non-profit organization founded by Lopez and Valdez when they were at UCLA. ADSE’s mission, like OCDS’, is to increase the participation of underrepresented groups (Women, Latinos, African-Americans, Native Americans, the LGBTQA community and persons with disabilities, etc.) in academia, industry, and government.
To learn more about OCDS visit their website here or contact co-Presidents Alex Mendoza or Tejas Shah at amendoza@chem.ucla.edu or tshah@chem.ucla.edu. The next UCLA OCDS meeting will be on September 11, 2015, at 2:00 pm in Young Hall 2033.
