Getting and Keeping a Job in the Current Anti-DEI Climate

Come hear from a recent PhD, a career center expert, and a director of graduate studies about what you should know about applying for positions and grants in the current volatile and anti-DEI political climate. Bring your questions! 

Panelists

Leila Blackbird

Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, Brown

Erin Brown

Associate Director, Graduate Career Services, UCLA

Eren Tasar

Associate Professor & Director of Graduate Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill

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Leila Blackbird is an incoming Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at Brown University. Leila received a PhD in history from the University of Chicago in 2025. Leila's work centers the histories and lived experiences of the Black and Indigenous peoples of the Gulf South and has been featured in books such as Louisiana Creole Peoplehood and What is History, Now? and in the academic journals The William & Mary Quarterly, Eighteenth-Century Studies, and Scholarly Editing.

Erin Brown is the Associate Director for UCLA’s Graduate Career Services, providing career exploration and professional development programming, as well as individual career coaching, to UCLA graduate students. Having completed her PhD in History at UCLA, she has a deep connection to UCLA’s graduate communities and is committed to helping graduate students successfully pursue their career goals. Erin brings a wealth of industry experience to this position, having worked at two multi-national corporations (including Toyota), as well as having founded and operated a preservation consulting firm in northern California. While at UCLA, she taught in multiple departments and was a writing consultant for UCLA’s Gradate Writing Center. She has previously taught at CSU Chico, where she holds a master’s degree in Construction Management. An ardent advocate of thinking outside the box and testing limits, Erin enthusiastically supports students who want to use their graduate training in innovative and unexpected ways.

Eren Tasar is associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of History at UNC Chapel Hill. He received his Ph.D. in Soviet history in 2010 from Harvard and is the author of the widely acclaimed Soviet and Muslim: The Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia (Oxford University Press, 2017), among other works.