The 2026 Central Coast Regional Equity Symposium gathered eight UCSB researchers on May 19 to share work shaped by deep community partnership. The Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy hosted the event, which featured projects funded through the Central Coast Regional Equity Initiative.
Session 1: Digital Access and Community Empowerment
- Dr. Amy Gonzales, Associate Professor, Communication — Reducing Technology Anxiety and Encouraging Digital Literacy for Low-Income Latino Residents
- Carson Kopper, Graduate Student, Computer Science — Mobile Broadband Performance and Access Trends in the Central Coast
- Dr. Ben Olguin, Professor and Robert and Liisa Erickson Presidential Chair, English — Historias: Latina/o Oral Historiography, Community Theater, and Expanding the Latina/o Digital Commons
- Daniela Sarmiento Hernandez, Graduate Student, Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology — Digital HEROES: An Online Resilience Program with Latinx Families
Session 2: Labor, Land, and Environmental Justice
- Seyma Ozdemir, Graduate Student, Sociology — Invisible Childhoods of Farmworkers’ Children: Child Labor and Educational Outcomes
- Dr. Lisa Parks, Distinguished Professor, Film and Media Studies — The Satellite Coast: Community Impacts of Commercial Satellite Launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base
- Haven Parker, Graduate Student, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management — Voices of the Transition: A Worker-Centered Just Transition Strategy for Santa Barbara County’s Oil and Gas Workforce
- Yuyang Wu, Graduate Student, Geography — Understanding the Spatiotemporal Evolution of Local Labor Market Areas in California’s Central Coast
What connects this work is a refusal to study communities from a distance. Each project asks questions community partners helped shape, and each centers the people most affected by the structural conditions under examination. The Central Coast remains understudied, and these scholars are building a foundation of research that can inform local policy and action.
We invite you to join us for next year’s symposium, and to follow CCREI for updates on the projects featured this year.
Follow the Central Coast Regional Equity Initiative to stay up to date with all the latest updates!