Welcome!

Our Lab, at UCLA, acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). As a land grant institution, we pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging. Learn more about UCLA’s work here. Learn more about the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples here. Curious about how you can move beyond a land acknowledgment? Check out this resource! See what our lab is doing here.

Our Lab is an intersectional feminist research collaborative. This means that our way of being together, doing science, and teaching is grounded in principles of radical inclusion (find more about that here!). We believe this approach to being in the world, as scientists and educators, allows us to align our practice with our values. Find more about our Lab Values here.

We are actively committed to contributing to science through research and education; we believe that mission cannot happen without an environment that is open, equitable, and inclusive to all. From our day-to-day interactions to our practices as researchers and teachers, we actively engage in discussions and actions that challenge us to create an equitable and inclusive space. We make sustained and conscious efforts to provide a space for all voices to be encouraged and heard; we value each other’s diversity and encourage/challenge each other to continue growing as humans who do science. Being a part of our lab means adding to our culture, not conforming to it. You can find some of our stories here.

We study how having a cell wall impacts growth & success in multicellular organisms; we also pay attention to how can that knowledge be leveraged to better our planet.

Want to know more about cell walls? Check out the iBiology video below! Go to iBiology to see more on plant and algal cell walls!

CCBYPlease note that all images are Creative Commons CC-BY