From left are new faculty members Ojmarrh Mitchell, Mercy Romero and Dominic J. Bednar. Photos by Han Parker
Meet Ojmarrh Mitchell, Mercy Romero and Dominic J. Bednar
The UC Irvine School of Social Ecology welcomes three new faculty members this fall: a professor and associate professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society and an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy.
Ojmarrh Mitchell
Professor of criminology, law and society
Professor Mitchell’s route to CLS was a circuitous one. Originally from Seattle, he received his bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Washington. Mitchell moved to College Park, Maryland, to get his master’s and doctorate degrees in criminology and criminal justice, followed by assistant professorships at the universities of Nevada-Las Vegas, Cincinnati, and South Florida.
Mitchell was later an associate professor at the latter university and then Arizona State University, his final stop before starting as a full tenured professor at UCI this fall quarter.
His research is largely focused on the effectiveness and fairness of the criminal justice system, with a particular interest in the way drug policy effects communities and individuals.
“I also look at racial disparities and the sanctions doled out by the criminal justice system, and whether they work to achieve their goals and are fair,” says Mitchell, who adds he is excited about continuing that work at UCI.
“I think the first thing that really jumps out at me is the quality of the School of Social Ecology, the Department of Criminology, Law and Society and, particularly, the faculty,” he says. “They do amazing research. It's always methodologically rigorous and theoretically, informed policy. There are lots of people in the department to potentially collaborate with, and I really am excited about working with UCI students.”
The reputation of his new department’s students precedes them.
“I've met many CLS graduates in the field over the years, and they've been consistently fantastic,” Mitchell says. “So, I'm interested in working with these students, helping them become their best selves and them helping me with my research.”
Mitchell will need the assistance given that he was recently elected vice president of the American Society of Criminology and an incoming co-editor-in-chief of Criminology and Public Policy, the ASC journal.
In what little spare time he has, he enjoys spending time with his German Shorthaired Pointer “who I absolutely adore,” working out and playing tennis. In fact, he says he has been “a serious tennis player for most of my life,” and he has worked matches as a chair umpire and roving umpire. “I would love to see the tennis team here,” Mitchell says of the Anteater squad, “assuming I have time.”
Mercy Romero
Associate professor of criminology, law and society
Mercy Romero joins the university as an associate professor through UCI’s Black Thriving Initiative and Faculty Cluster Hiring in Poetic Justice.
The goal of the Poetic Justice cluster hire is to attract researchers innovating how the racial effects of slavery, segregation and mass incarceration are studied, and are leading community-based activities that support the economic and cultural well-being of black communities in Southern California and beyond.
“I’m interdisciplinary trained: I lean into poetry, memoir and creative nonfiction to think about communities of color,” Romero says. “This Poetic Justice cluster hire is an opportunity to kind of spread my wings and bring the work that I do to the Department of Criminology, Law and Society and deepening relationships with African American students and the community in particular. I’m really excited about that.”
Originally from the East Coast, Romero came west to obtain her doctorate in ethnic studies from UC Berkeley. She raised her family in the Bay Area, and she was an associate professor of American literature and American studies in the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies at Sonoma State University.
In 2021, Romero was accepted into the inaugural cohort of Letras Boricuas Fellows, established through a partnership between the Mellon Foundation and the Flamboyan Foundation’s Arts Fund.
“This cohort is comprised of 20 Puerto Rican writers whose dynamic work spans genres including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and children's literature,” reads the Mellon Foundation’s announcement. “A first of its kind fellowship, Letras Boricuas was created to identify, elevate, and amplify the voices of emerging and established Puerto Rican writers on the island and across the United States diaspora.”
Romero’s first book, the award-winning Toward Camden (Duke University Press, 2021) centers on the largely African American and Puerto Rican Cramer Hill neighborhood in New Jersey. “I think about the city where I was raised, and how people make relationships to vacant spaces in particular,” she explains.
Revisiting lost and empty houses — her family’s house, the Walt Whitman House, and the landscape of a vacant lot — Romero engages with the aesthetics of fragment and ruin, resisting narratives of the city that are inextricable from crime and decline, traveling between what official reports say and what the city’s vacant lots withhold.
Perhaps a new muse awaits Romero in Orange County.
“What excites me about coming to UCI is really the opportunity to try something different,” Romero says. “Let’s see another part of California.”
Dominic J. Bednar
Assistant professor of urban planning and public policy
Dominic J. Bednar’s research interest on infrastructure equity fits squarely within his new department, producing significant work on energy, housing and transportation equity.
“My research primarily looks at the field of energy justice but mostly examining energy poverty,” Bednar explains. “Mainly, we’re looking to understand, How do we recognize energy poverty and how do we respond to it? Ultimately, the goal is to think about, How do we ensure that everyone has adequate access to affordable, sustainable household energy?”
His area of study emerged by happenstance while he was a graduate student in the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability, which he entered after training as a carpenter and civil engineer. He always wanted to be a professor and shared that he was introduced to energy justice by his advisor and mentor, Tony Reames, who is currently on leave as an associate professor of environment and sustainability while he serves as Deputy Director of Energy Justice with the U.S. Department of Energy.
Exploring energy justice, Bednar says, “helps us better understand the world we currently live in and reimagine the world we want and need to create.”
Considering our energy system, Bednar says, “energy justice invites us to ask ourselves, Who gets the benefits and who gets the burdens of how we generate energy?” He emphasized the need to “cultivate, understand, and explore these questions through several different community perspectives and across a number of different countries.”
With climate change creating challenges all over the planet, Bednar says, “it’s important for us at least from an energy standpoint to really recognize and understand how we might take more transformative approaches to designing the energy future that we need.”
Thinking about his future at UCI gives him a jolt.
“I’m excited about working with a number of different people across different divisions and different schools. I’m particularly excited to engage and thrive off the energy from the students,” Bednar says. “But really, to be in a truly interdisciplinary program, I think is what really excites me.”
His love of house/afro-house music, deejaying, and dancing blends his energy justice scholarship with the joy and praxis that an energy just world enshrines.
— Matt Coker