Programs

Mental Health Workshop Series

The objective of the School of Physical Sciences mental health workshop series is to create an open dialogue across the school focused on mental health awareness. Our hope is that by engaging in critical conversations about different mental health topics guided by licensed professionals, then we may encourage our school community to prioritize their well being and ultimately work together to create a more equitable, inclusive and mindful environment within the School of Physical Sciences.

Advancing Inclusive Excellence Award

The AIE Award has been developed to offer modest financial support to SoPS students, staff, postdocs and faculty who plan to develop an activity, event or project that will support the advancement of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts and initiatives across the UCI SoPS community.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Graduate Leader Fellowships

The DEI Graduate Leaders Fellowship provides funding to graduate students who have a passion for an commitment to improving DEI efforts within their department. Fellows will receive full support for one academic quarter during the academic year. Fellows will spend the year working on a DEI related project/initiative in their department collaborating with their Vice Chair for DEI and Inclusive Excellence Committee.

Clubs & Organizations

The following clubs and organizations are dedicated to advancing inclusive excellence in STEM fields.

ChemUNITY
The ChemUNITY Peer Mentorship Program, is a grad-to-grad volunteer-based mentoring program where two graduate students will be paired with three incoming first-year students to acts as mentors throughout the year.

MAES: Latinos in Science and Engineering
MAES was assembled by the Latinx engineers and scientists in order to create a sense of community, or “familia”, on campus. The sense of a “familia” is one of the things that truly separate MAES from other academic clubs. MAES is the home away from home that offers networking opportunities, student-alumni relations, academic mentoring, and social events.

PACE (Physics & Astronomy Community Excellence)
PACE is a graduate student led mentoring organization that focuses on peer-mentoring programs by students for students.

QT STEM
QT STEM is an organization at UCI for queer and/or trans people who are part of the STEM fields. With this group, we hope to create a more visible LGBTQ+ community what an be an underrepresented area of academia.

Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS)
SACNAS is a society of scientists dedicated to advancing Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in science. It is a national nonprofit organization of individuals and organizations interested in quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research, teaching, leadership, and policy.

Underrepresented Genders in Physics & Astronomy (UNITY)
UNITY at UC Irvine is a representative body for all folks whose gender identities and/or experiences of gender have been historically marginalized in physics and astronomy at the undergraduate and graduate levels and beyond. Our overarching goal is to create a more diverse community and a supportive environment.

Undergraduate Mathematics Committee (formerly FACES in Mathematics)
The UMC mission is to foster and sustain an inclusive community for all undergraduates interested in pursing mathematics at UC Irvine.

Conferences

APS CUWiP - The American Physical Society (APS) Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) helps undergraduate women pursue physics by providing them with the opportunity to experience a professional conference, information about graduate school and professions in physics, and access to other women in physics of all ages with whom they can share experiences, advice, and ideas. UCI was the APS CUWiP 2020 host.

NSBP- The National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP) Conference is the largest academic meeting of minority physicists in the United States.  The goal of the conference is to provide mentorship opportunities, increase participant access to recruiters, offer networking opportunities and inform the broader physics community on best practices that will be gleaned during and after the meeting. The School of Physical Sciences has funded students registrations fees in recent years, to find out more contact Mu-Chun Chen muchunc@uci.edu.