Shining the Light on Mexican Scholars and Scientists
The University of California, Davis has played a vital role in cultivating Mexican scholars and scientists though the Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS).
On March 23, 2012, the University of California, Riverside hosted the institute’s annual Doctoral Fellows Symposium for third, fourth and fifth year fellows from the 10 UC campuses. "The primary goal of the symposium is to provide an opportunity for students to meet their counterparts and to build binational collaborations that will extend beyond the University of California," said Exequiel Ezcurra, director of UC MEXUS.
The day's events included keynote addresses by Cristina Puga Espinosa and José Sarunkhanán Kermez from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, followed by panels on post-graduate employment and building an international research career.
UC MEXUS has helped train and produce the future’s leading scholars and scientists. Since 1998, the institute has served over 250 fellows at all 10 UC campuses.
Established in 1960, UC MEXUS has seven objectives. Among those include increasing the quantity, visibility, effectiveness of Mexico-United States projects in the University, as well as supporting and coordinating interdisciplinary and inter-campus projects. The institute promotes education, research, public service, and other scholarly activities in five principle areas: Mexican Studies, United States-Mexico Relations, Latino Studies, Critical Issues and UC-Mexico Collaboration.
Meet a UC MEXUS Student
Every year, the UC MEXUS symposium is made available to upper level fellows in UC MEXUS. Among them a few years ago was Sharada Balachandran-Orihuela.
Balachandran-Orihuela uses literature as a window for the examination of social life. As a migrant and person who has called India, Mexico and the United States home, she has focused her work on the ways in which marginalized groups in the Americas affirm their positioning within the socioeconomic and political context. In her dissertation "From Flags to Freeways: Hemispheric Routes if Exchange, Marginalized Economies, and Liberal Rights," she examines how individuals from these groups move through social categories to gain power and validate their rights.
After receiving her bachelor’s of arts degree from Mills College in Oakland, Calif., Balachandran-Orihuela became one of 46 fellows that have conducted research at UC Davis. Since her introduction to UC Davis, Balachandran-Orihuela has been actively involved on the Davis campus. She has used her influence as a student to sit on the Internal Advisory Committee whose primary goal is "to recommend an overarching strategy for international engagement that will best serve the excellence and mission of UC Davis."
A doctoral candidate in English, she was also a fellow in the Professors for the Future program during the 2010-2011 academic year. Balachandran-Orihuela's projects were aimed to support graduate and doctoral students seeking development in teaching their own courses.
She participated in the 2011 Interdisciplinary Graduate and Professional Student Symposium at UC Davis as a respondent for "Uneasy Remains: A Community/Interdisciplinary Documentary Film Project"; she was featured in the UC MEXUS-CONACYT Doctoral Fellowship Newsletter, La Monarca; and she received the Marilyn Yarbrough Dissertation and Teaching Fellowship at Kenyon College (where she is also a Visiting Instructor).
In 2012, Balachandran-Orihuela accepted a position with the University of Maryland, College Park.
Balachandran-Orihuela is one example of the excellence produced within the University of California-Mexico collaboration.