UCLA School of Law Professor Emeritus Gary Blasi is among the winners of UCLA’s 2024 Public Impact Research Awards.

The awards were created in 2019-20, in honor of UCLA’s Centennial Celebration, “to recognize faculty whose research or other creative work has had a significant beneficial public impact, where such benefit has been achieved in part through the efforts of those same faculty to bring their research or creative activity into the public arena.” That impact could “include scientific, social, cultural, artistic, political and other forms of public benefit that may be local, national or global.”

Blasi, an eminent authority on issues involving homelessness and poverty, was part of a team of professors from across the university who were honored for developing the free Tenant Power Toolkit, an online eviction-defense application for California tenants, in response to stresses from lost wages due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other Public Impact Research Award honorees include members of the UCLA community who engaged in projects that range from protecting the incarcerated and those in police custody to support for people with HIV and substance use issues. “One of UCLA’s highest priorities is to demonstrate to the community that our research and creative activities have a positive public impact,” says Roger Wakimoto, UCLA’s vice chancellor for research and creative activities. “Indeed, the Public Impact Awards are strongly aligned with both goals one and three in the UCLA strategic plan.”

This is the second straight year in which members of the law school faculty have won this award. In 2023, professors Sharon Dolovich and Aaron Littman were honored for their efforts in highlighting health and safety concerns in the nation’s prisons from the start of the pandemic.

This article includes contributions from a story in the UCLA Newsroom, which features more information about the 2024 awards and this year’s winners.