The Pahl Center for the Study of Critical Social Issues at UC Santa Barbara fosters innovative research and dialogue on the most urgent issues shaping our communities and our world. Rooted in the Division of Social Sciences, The Pahl Center cultivates faculty-led projects and promotes graduate and undergraduate mentorship, research, and training. The Center focuses on taking specific critical social issues, proposing a solution to remedy or alleviate the issue, and then testing the proposed solution utilizing empirical analysis. By championing public-facing social science, The Center aims not only to improve understanding of major social issues but to move the needle toward alleviating them. This research is shared beyond the UC Santa Barbara campus, in the USA, and around the world.