2024-25 Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellows

Mayra Cortes earned her doctoral and master’s degree in Literature from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She completed her bachelor’s degree in English Literature at UCLA. Her academic career and love for literature and writing began at Cerritos College. At UCSD, Cortes worked as a literature and writing instructor, mentor, and graduate teaching consultant. She was previously awarded the UC-President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship (PPPF). As a UCLA Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Cortes will continue her research on early modern colonial Spanish and English travel writings, plays (including those of Shakespeare & Sor Juana), and other types of fictions that address or allude to the “New World” to examine how sonic encounters, listening practices, and imagined acoustic technologies inform central topics of her research, including racialization and resistance, as they appear scripted on page and stage. Cortes will be mentored by Dr. Barbara Fuchs, distinguished professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Department of English. Cortes’s fellowship appointment will be in the Department of English.

Katherine Maldonado Fabela is from South Central Los Angeles and holds a PhD in sociology from UC Santa Barbara. Her research interests include critical criminology, health, inequalities, and visual methodology. Her dissertation examined the experiences of Latina/Chicana mothers within the carceral system, focusing on their interactions with the child welfare system. The study highlights the violence and grief these mothers face, the impact on their mental health, and mechanisms of recovery and healing through motherwork strategies. As a UCLA Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Maldonado will work on the book project entitled “System-Impacted Motherwork: How Latino/a/x Families Navigate Criminalization, Health, and Healing”. She will be mentored by Leisy Abrego, professor in the Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies, and Menjívar, distinguished professor in the Department of Sociology. Maldonado Fabela’s fellowship appointment will be in the Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies.

Paula Winicki Brzostowski earned her PhD in sociology from UC Berkeley in 2024. Her dissertation is titled Organizing Despite Precarity: Immigrant, Formerly Incarcerated, and Temp Workers on Strike. She holds a BA from UC Berkeley and a master’s in city planning from MIT. Throughout her professional life, Winicki Brzostowski has been heavily involved in various campaigns on behalf of labor and immigrant right issues, both as a worker and as a union organizer and a researcher As a UCLA Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Winicki Brzostowski will extend her current research project by completing additional follow-up interviews with workers about the outcome of a campaign to organize precarious warehouse workers. In particular, she will investigate the impact of a failed labor campaign: how this outcome shapes the workers’ trust in labor organizations, collective action, and labor rights, as well as the implications for their future involvement in the labor movement. Winicki Brzostowski’s mentor will be Chris Zepeda-Millán, chair of the UCLA Labor Studies Program and professor in the Department of Chicana/o & Central American Studies and Department of Public Policy. Winicki Brzostowski’s fellowship appointment will be in the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.