group of four people standing in a line, one woman on the left wearing loose gray jack and pants and three men, two in cowboy hats, one in cap in work clothing each holding a book
Liza Grandia returns her first book, "Tz'aptzooq'eb," to one of the communities that hosted her and hundreds of other villages with funding from Oxfam. (Courtesy of Liza Grandia)

Anthropological Ally

Liza Grandia wants to encourage students to be public scholars

Liza Grandia, associate professor in the Department of Native American Studies and an internationally acclaimed public scholar, was barely drinking age when she stopped the World Bank and an international oil company from building a pipeline through the rural regions of Guatemala. The lesson Grandia learned then — that one is never too young to become engaged in public scholarship — is something that she emphasizes to her students at UC Davis. 

“In my teaching, I try to get students to work on real things. I want them to know that they, as students, can make a difference in the world,” said Grandia, who received a 2022 Teaching Award from the College of Letters and Science. “I want them to know they don’t need to wait. They can do it now.”

Read the full story published by UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement about Grandia's work in public scholarship. 

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