Erica Anjum serves as the Deputy Director of the UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center, is a lecturer with the International Development Studies Interdepartmental Program, and works with a number of committees dedicated to pedagogical reform and community engagement. Her background includes multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary training and experience in the visual arts, STEM, philosophy, policy, planning, and regional and international development. Her current research interests center on exploring the potential of the built environment to improve quality of life through intentional design processes and on examining partnership strategies to address both the needs of migrants and the very spaces and communities that are experiencing and interacting with diverse patterns of rapid-onset population growth. An ongoing research project focuses on infrastructure development to increase access to quality water and other basic needs in mega-cities of the "Global South." Another project applies a critical feminist theory perspective to better understand how to empower women and girls living in refugee settlements in East Africa. Additionally, she is also interested in developing mixed-methods approaches to research that extend beyond a qualitative and quantitative binary model. With this background, Erica joins the ASC family naturally excited to contribute to the Center's mission to facilitate interdisciplinary research, its transformative community projects, and its commitment to creating meaningful opportunities for students.

When she isn't "deputy directing" the Center, teaching, or doing research, Erica is collaborating on a comic and short-story series with friends, trekking through nature, petting other people's dogs, taking photographs, boxing, or day-dreaming about her next motorcycle.