RIVERSIDE — Dr. Jenni Martinez, a UC Riverside 2026 Ph.D. recipient in Ethnic Studies, won the Audience Choice Award at the 12th annual Grad Slam campus competition, held Friday, April 10, in the School of Business Auditorium. Her moving autoethnographic presentation, “Amordidas: Post-Deportation Recipes of Survival,” resonated with UCR students, faculty, and staff, earning her both the Audience Choice Award and an additional Dean’s Research Impact Award from the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS).

Grad Slam is an annual contest held at each of UC’s 10 campuses that highlights research communication among graduate students. Taking its inspiration from an competitive event pioneered in Australia, UC Grad Slam aims to make research accessible by providing emerging scholars, creatives and scientists an opportunity to engage their respective campus community in a concise, often theatrical, three-minute presentation. Participants are judged on how well they engage the audience, how clearly they communicate key concepts, and how they manage the allotted time. .

Field-Defining Scholarship

Dr. Jenni Martinez brings a powerful, humanizing lens to the field of Ethnic Studies by exploring how the trauma of deportation touches every part of a person's life. By using her own family's story as the foundation for her research, Jenni breaks the mold of traditional academia. Her work shows that deportation is a legal, political, and intimate rupture that reshapes family life, memory, care, and a person’s sense of self and belonging. Drawing on food, sensory memory, and everyday practices of care, Jenni treats recipes and family stories as vital archives of survival and knowledge. Her research asks how mixed-status families continue to create life, connection, and meaning in deportation’s aftermath. Specifically, her research explores how deportation fundamentally alters a person’s sense of being in the world, and how families work toward regeneration through recipes, storytelling, and embodied memory. 

“My work begins with families like mine, who know that deportation extends far beyond the moment someone is removed from the country. It continues in the kitchen, at the dinner table, in family memory, and in the everyday practices through which we try to remain connected. I study these spaces because there is life there, even after profound rupture. Food becomes one way families remember, repair, and regenerate life after deportation.” 

“I am struck how Jenni Martinez led us through a deeply personal story that brought together the unsettling realities of contemporary immigration policy in the United States with the social science theories of self-care," said Daryle Williams, Professor of History and Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “It’s research of impact that hits both our hearts and our brains. Jenni is to be commended for the speed and effectiveness with which she communicated her research methods and findings, alongside peer presentations on music as medicine, the molecular structures of airborne pollutants, and our deep-seated interest in horror stories.” 

A Legacy of Research Communication

Originating in 2008 as the Three Minute Thesis (3MT), the event now celebrated across the University of California as Grad Slam challenges graduate students to achieve the extraordinary: condense years of specialized research into a compelling, three-minute pitch. Armed with only a single static slide, participants must translate their complex academic work into an accessible presentation for a general audience.

Today, Grad Slam has evolved well beyond a simple pitch competition. It serves as a foundational professional development experience, training the next generation of academic leaders in the critical art of public engagement and science communication.

“Grad Slam provides a critical platform where graduate researchers evolve into confident, persuasive communicators — a transformation central to cultivating the academic leaders of tomorrow,” said Lidia Kos, Vice Provost & Dean of Graduate Studies. “Witnessing scholars like Jenni Martinez articulate groundbreaking, complex research with such profound clarity and passion underscores the immense value of these opportunities. By investing in these communication skills, we are not merely refining scholarship; we are empowering the voices that will ultimately change the world.”

The campus-level competition is open to all eligible UCR graduate students and offers a top prize of $5,000. The UCR champion then advances to the UC Center in Sacramento for the systemwide Grad Slam Finals, where they compete for an additional $7,000.

CHASS boasts a proud history in the competition. Recent success stories include alumna Shannon Brady, who won the 2024 UCR campus competition with her psychology presentation, “Thinking out Loud: Is Self-talk a Secret to Success?” Brady went on to take third place at the systemwide finals, earning a $2,000 student support award. 

About the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS)

CHASS is the largest college at the University of California, Riverside. Home to over 11,000 students, 600 faculty members, and more than 20 departments and programs, the college fosters a diverse interdisciplinary environment where critical thinking, innovation, and social responsibility thrive. Through initiatives that emphasize public scholarship and community engagement, the College continues to redefine the role of the humanities, arts, and social sciences in the 21st century at one of the world’s premier R1 research universities. Learn more at chass.ucr.edu.