This post was updated Jan. 26 at 11:15 p.m.

Growing up with his father as a member of a gang led to Frank Godinez’s first research project.

The fourth-year political science and sociology student received the Beinecke Scholarship, a $35,000 award to fund graduate study for 20 students in the arts and social sciences, this year. Godinez earned the award for his research on Los Angeles gangs and police-free school campaigns, he said.

Godinez said his south central LA upbringing helped him relate to the gang members he interviewed, as some of their experiences sounded similar to his father’s.

He added that he learned he would receive the scholarship while still processing his father’s death a month earlier.

“It was hard to sit with that win,” Godinez said. “I sat on it for a bit because I was in the middle of so much reflection and introspection.”

Godinez joined the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship – a research program for students in the arts, humanities and social sciences – in 2023. Jacquelyn Ardam, who recruited Godinez to join the fellowship, said she regularly checks in about his research and scholarly work.

“Dr. McClendon (Muriel McClendon, Ardam’s program co-director) and I were really impressed with Frank’s research from the get-go,” she said. “We’re really thrilled to be able to support the work that he’s doing.”

Godinez said he feels he has a responsibility to share his community’s stories and pay homage to his roots through his research.

“I’m constantly or consistently amazed by all that he has on his plate and the real rigorous work he’s doing,” Ardam said. “It’s been really wonderful to be able to support his research and to get to know him as a human being, and he cares a lot about his community, about his fellow students at UCLA.”

Godinez said he submitted the research he completed in the Mellon Mays program for the Beinecke Scholarship application.

Jason Sexton, a sociology lecturer, said he taught Godinez in his fall 2022 class on the sociology of crime. Godinez’s engagement and enthusiasm in the class initially took him by surprise, Sexton said.

“I don’t want to say it was scary for me,” Sexton said. “This student is so switched on, so careful, so articulate, so committed to grappling with big issues that I was talking about in the classroom.”

In the class, Godinez sought to learn about gang life in LA and wrote his research paper on his father’s friends who were gang members, Sexton said. Sexton, who is formerly incarcerated, said he felt that both his and Godinez’s experiences with the carceral system – through Godinez’s father – brought them closer together.

“He brought a research project that was deeply personal but was academic,” Sexton said.

Ardam said Godinez has used his academic opportunities to support his classmates by helping them navigate research and develop their presentations in the Mellon Mays program.

“That’s the reason I’m here,” Godinez said. “I’m here off the shoulders of having great mentors and people who saw something in me and provided that unwavering support every step of the way.”

Godinez, who will graduate in spring, said he plans to take two gap years before pursuing a joint doctoral and law degree program. He added that he is interested in teaching sociology or law.

“I think Frank serves as a model of the best kinds of students who can be open, who can be honest, who can be pursuant in the classroom – and really see that as a space that’s transformative,” Sexton said.