The outstanding work that UCLA School of Law professors Sharon Dolovich and Aaron Littman have completed since the start of the pandemic to highlight health and safety concerns in the nation’s prisons was celebrated at a June 2 event where they were presented with UCLA Public Impact Research Awards.

A team of student researchers from UCLA School of Law’s Prison Accountability Project have published a report that details incarcerated individuals’ experiences in California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) facilities during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before Shiu-Ming Cheer ’00 made her way to the halls of UCLA Law, she was already involved in the pursuit of social justice as an undergraduate activist at UC Berkeley. Her activism came to a head in 1995 when she, along with other student organizers, was arrested after performing a sit-in during a UC Regents’ meeting to protest the UC system’s plans to eliminate its affirmative action policy.

UCLA School of Law and its nationally renowned program in public interest law and policy solidified its position as the home of the country’s most promising public interest lawyers in 2023, as six graduating students in the David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy earned prestigious fellowships to serve communities across the United States.