At a reception held at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art on Nov. 5, the Office of Advancing Mentoring and the Professoriate welcomed a new cohort of UC Davis faculty into two programs that epitomize the university’s commitment to inclusive excellence.
These programs are the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science, or CAMPOS, and the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, or CAMPSSAH.
The nine new faculty scholars’ research spans fields and areas of focus, including identity-based discrimination, rare cancer research, wildfire impacts, California Native American history and more.
Programs continue making strides
This year marks the 11th cohort in CAMPOS’ history. The program emerged out of UC Davis ADVANCE, a National Science Foundation-funded program aimed at increasing the participation of women in academic science and engineering careers, which began in 2012. The first class of CAMPOS scholars joined UC Davis in 2014. With this year’s cohort, there are 54 CAMPOS Faculty Scholars with appointments across 37 departments in eight colleges and schools.
CAMPSSAH aims to recruit, integrate and retain faculty who bring multicultural perspectives to the social sciences, humanities and the arts. CAMPSSAH builds on the Impact Recruitment Initiative that began with calls for faculty focused on the experiences, contributions and aspirations of African American and African Diaspora students and communities. There are now 33 CAMPSSAH Scholars with appointments in 19 departments and four colleges and schools.
Induction ceremony honors scholars
Luis Carvajal-Carmona, associate vice chancellor for Inclusive Excellence and professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, kicked off the ceremony by acknowledging many campus partners, including Chancellor Gary S. May, Provost Mary Croughan, the Inclusive Excellence staff and Renetta Garrison Tull, the department’s vice chancellor, whom Carvajal-Carmona praised as “a tremendous leader” for the department.
Chancellor May delivered pre-recorded video remarks that credited the department and faculty leaders of CAMPOS and CAMPSSAH and welcomed this year’s scholars.
“Faculty members like these, with their diverse perspectives and backgrounds, are the very essence of our academic community,” May said. “Their varied experiences and insights are crucial in sparking creativity and discovery.”
Highlighting both programs’ impact, May also emphasized how “no fewer than seven of the 12 UC Davis faculty selected as Hellman Fellows — a UC-wide program that recognizes and bolsters the innovative work of early career faculty — were drawn from the ranks of CAMPOS and CAMPSSAH faculty.”
Providing mentorship
Juan Diego Díaz, CAMPSSAH faculty director, associate professor of music and director of the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, noted that eight previous scholars had since been promoted from assistant to associate professors with tenure, including Díaz, an alum of the program.
“We know that minoritized scholars in higher education face numerous challenges — from inequitable expectations to biases in how their work is evaluated,” said Díaz. “CAMPSSAH represents one of our university’s most intentional and intangible responses to those challenges.”
Verónica Martínez Cerdeño, CAMPOS faculty director and professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, described the program as “a supportive environment that encourages collaboration and innovation allowing faculty to connect with colleges across fields and expand their impact.”
“We are here today to celebrate our new faculty,” said Martínez Cerdeño. “They are excellent professors, teachers and researchers.”
Each scholar received a commemorative plaque honoring their induction by their respective faculty directory. Videos of the scholars describing their work in their own words were also shown and are available to watch below.
Qianjin Montoya, academic liaison for the Manetti Shrem Museum, emphasized collaboration opportunities between campus faculty and the museum. Christopher Nguyen Pheneger, director of Strategic Partnerships and Community Engagement, noted how the ethos of the scholars programs echoed the campus Principles of Community, the 35thanniversary of whose signing will be commemorated Friday, Nov. 14.
Meet the newest scholars
The 2025-2026 CAMPOS and CAMPSSAH faculty scholars, all assistant professors, are:
CAMPOS
- Jeanette Cobian Iñiguez, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
- Luis Armando Parra, Psychology
- Antonio Serapio-Palacios, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
- Maxine Umeh Garcia, Hematology and Oncology
- Breanna Mockler, Assistant Professor, Physics & Astronomy
CAMPSSAH
- Athia Choudhury, Asian American Studies
- Stephanie Lumsden, Native American Studies
- Brittani R. Orona, Native American Studies
- Tye Rush, Political Science
- Aamer Ibraheem, Anthropology