Joshua Swift and UCLA Research: A Multifaceted Exploration

UCLA fosters a vibrant research environment across diverse fields, propelled by innovative faculty and students. This article delves into various research initiatives and academic programs at UCLA, highlighting their impact and significance.

Education 472: Introduction to Philosophies of Coaching

One notable course at UCLA is Education 472: Introduction to Philosophies of Coaching. This course provides Bruins with the tools they need to transition from student - or student-athlete - to coach. Designed to appeal to visual thinkers, 25 Concepts in Modern Architecture explores the fundamental ideas behind architectural design, through easy-to-follow sketches, drawings and succinct explanations. Led by former UCLA gymnastics coach Valorie Kondos Field, known as Miss Val, the class explores leadership techniques through discussions, guest appearances, and philosophical insights.

A Unique Learning Environment

The course's structure encourages open dialogue and personal reflection. Even in the Zoom-based first class of the semester, Kondos-Field asked the students to unmute themselves as she called on each of them. On the last day of class, Kondos-Field stands with poise at the front of a classroom in Moore Hall as students and guests funnel in. A wedding ring is on her left hand and a 2010 national championship ring is on the other. There are two main objectives for today’s three-hour class: discussion of Kondos-Field’s first book, “Life Is Short, Don’t Wait to Dance” - she has a second in the works - and final presentations. It feels more like a gathering than a class. The dialogue flows freely in Education 472 but Kondos-Field is always at the forefront.

Guest Speakers and Philosophical Insights

Guests are critical to the course’s effectiveness. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has made an appearance. “If we’re studying say, Pete Carroll, that week,” Kondos-Field said, “Alex doesn’t speak to Pete, but Alex Rodriguez comes in and talks about how to move from being a player, a student, to choreographing your life. There is one regular face in the class - Director of New Initiatives Arif Amlani, who has a background in philosophy and philosophy of education. He teams up with Kondos-Field to connect leadership techniques with ancient philosophy passed down through centuries. “I have full confidence in her and the wisdom that she imparts,” Amlani said. “And conversely, there might be times when I do my thing. I have a very different style and I’ll talk about very different kinds of things. I might go more into philosophical issues. We have that understanding and, really, it’s by design. Gray areas brighten and blurred lines in communication snap into focus. Tough conversations aren’t just unavoidable - they’re welcomed. But don’t call it a safe space.

Transformative Coaching

Transactional vs. Sue Enquist was a transactional head coach when she helmed the UCLA softball team for 18 seasons. “Everybody coaching today should definitely understand what transformative means,” Inouye-Perez said, “because if you’re not, you put yourself at risk of not only not succeeding, but also being fired for not getting the fact that you no longer can be transactional. The current generation of college students has likely experienced a mix of the transactional, do-as-I-say coaching style and transformative coaching. “But this generation has experienced both. And now, guess what? Since you’ve experienced both, you get to choose.

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Student Perspectives

“Honestly, it’s probably one of the top three classes I’ve had in my entire college career so far. Before class had even started, the group was applauding Leger-Walker and Angela Dugalić as they walked into the room. “Being in the grad classes, everybody is so curious about the other sports,” said Leger-Walker, who sat out this past season recovering from a torn ACL. “They’ve come out to our games and then the next day, they were all congratulating us. It just builds that sense of community at UCLA, and it’s pretty special. On the last day of class, Kondos-Field proudly tells the class that Cam Brown, a former student and women’s basketball player, had secured a job offer by reciting her philosophy during an interview. “I don’t think that I’ve ever sat down to this extent and thought about leadership the way I have this quarter,” Leger-Walker said. “It can be such a general term thrown out there. Like, what is a leader?

"Keep it G": Pillars of Leadership

And Dr. Swift has a central theme - “Keep it G” - and involves pillars that all begin with the letter G. Swimmer Joanie Cash shows a graphic of a blue-and-yellow bridge that she had created to demonstrate the pillars of her philosophy.

Research Across Disciplines

UCLA's research extends far beyond coaching philosophies. Here are a few examples of research initiatives and publications:

Understanding Race

Alexa Alice Joubin’s book “Race” provides readers with an expansive, global understanding of the term, race, from the classical period onwards. The book is distinguished by its breadth and global coverage.

Climate Resilience in Megacities

Our study analyzes 43 global megacity climate reports to assess climate resilience across five dimensions: infrastructure, climate risks, disasters, financial sources, and stakeholder roles. Findings reveal links between infrastructure types and funding/stakeholders, but limited alignment with actual hazards faced.

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Impact of Climate Events on Chemical Exposure

This scoping review explores how extreme climate events impact chemical exposure pathways, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations. A multilingual search strategy was developed across 9 WHO languages.

Breast Cancer Risk in Black Women

Nearly half of women aged 40 and above have dense breasts. While this risk affects all women, Black women are disproportionately impacted mostly due to systemic disparities in healthcare access, information dissemination, and follow-up care. This pilot project aims to enhance understanding of mammographic breast density (MBD) as a key factor in breast cancer risk, particularly among underserved Black women in DC communities.

Predicting Visceral Adipose Tissue

Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is associated with increased chronic disease risk but is difficult to measure. Because existing prediction equations are inaccurate, we developed machine learning models to better predict VAT. Our models significantly improved VAT prediction, even using only non-invasive, easy-to-measure variables. Prediction did not improve further with invasive blood or molecular markers.

Improving Asthma Management

Using a quality improvement approach, we identified barriers, designed and implemented SAT intervention at IMPACT DC. Post-intervention data of our case show reduced emergency visits and missed school days, and improved caregiver confidence. The SAT Intervention may reduce health disparities and improve access; contributing to better asthma management and reduced ED visits post-intervention.

Confronting Racism in Healthcare

Amid national rollbacks of diversity efforts, some medical institutions are adopting antiracism training. We created three student-authored teaching cases to help learners confront racism in healthcare. Using two antiracism frameworks and real-world scenarios, students developed cases tailored to different experience levels.

Reclaiming Agency Through Cultural Practices

In 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, forcing 122,000 Japanese-Americans into internment camps during WWII. This article examines how Japanese-Americans reclaimed agency through cultural practices, including social dance and performance, as acts of resilience and resistance.

Analyzing Liver Disease

Chronic HBV and HCV infections are leading causes of liver disease worldwide. We analyzed RNA-seq data from blood samples of HBV, HCV, and healthy individuals using Salmon and STAR + featureCounts. This dual approach enabled robust identification of DEGs. PCA revealed distinct clustering, with HBV samples separating clearly. Enrichment analyses showed immune responses in HBV and metabolic stress in HCV.

Visualizing Single-Cell RNA Sequencing Data

We present scSNViz, a user-friendly R package for quantitative visualization, statistical analysis, and graphical depiction of the expression patterns of sceSNVs within individual cells on cell-barcoded scRNA-seq data (e.g.10xGenomics).

Understanding Gamma-Ray Bursts

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are among the most energetic and explosive phenomena in the universe. The electrons accelerated during a burst are typically assumed to follow a simple power-law energy distribution. However, observational evidence suggests this model may be too simplistic, prompting questions about the underlying physics.

Evaluating Natural Language Generation Tasks

Evaluating NLG tasks is challenging due to subtle semantic differences. Traditional metrics and LLM-based evaluators face biases and instability. This research proposes ensemble methods-Inter-LLM, Intra-LLM, and Hybrid-combining outputs from diverse models to improve reliability.

Understanding Politics

In Realigners, Timothy Shenk offers a new explanation of how we got here- a biography of American democracy told through the country’s dominant electoral coalitions over more than two centuries. We’ve had majorities that transformed the country before. In The Consumer Citizen, Ethan Porter investigates how the techniques of everyday consumer experiences can shape political behavior. Drawing on more than a dozen original studies, he shows that the casual conflation of consumer and political decisions has profound implications for how Americans think about politics. This book systematically examines the first terms of every president from FDR to Joe Biden and assesses the leadership style and policy agenda of each. Success in bringing about policy change is shown to hinge on the leadership style and skill in managing a variety of institutional and public relationships. In Ugly Freedoms Elisabeth R. Anker reckons with the complex legacy of freedom in America, showing how individual liberty has upheld economic injustice, misogyny, white supremacy, and climate destruction. These “ugly freedoms” harm and oppress others.

Black Girls’ and Women’s Health

This field of Black girls’ and women’s health (BGWH) science is both transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary. As such, the contributors to this edited collection offer a unique lens to BGWH science, expanding our collective scientific worldviews. The Young Black Leader’s Guide draws on the experiences of Black American giants in the field to prov…

Loneliness, Depression, and Hypertension in Black Women

Relationships among loneliness, depression, and hypertension are understudied in black women. This study describes individual, relationship, and psychosocial factors in black women from Wave 13 of the HRS Rand Longitudinal File merged with the 2016 Venous Blood Study Data. The sample included 641 black women [mean age was 63 years (±9.536)] with complete loneliness (UCLA-11) and depression (CES-D) data.

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