Summer Fellowship

Maritza Perez is a Research Assistant at the Haas Institute and is in her final semester at Berkeley Law. Her background as a first-generation American and college graduate fueled her desire to become involved in progressive politics from an early age in order to dismantle inequitable treatment of underrepresented groups. She joined Teach For America (TFA) after college to foster academic growth in New Orleans public schools.

Fanna Gamal is a Research Assistant at the Haas Institute. She is currently a law student at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Before law school Fanna served as a Campaign Associate for ColorOfChange.org -- America's largest online civil rights organization. As an Associate Fanna worked on voting rights, criminal justice and labor campaigns. She has worked as a judicial extern in the Northern District of California, and is active in the Youth Defender Clinical program at Berkeley Law. Fanna graduated form Tufts University with Honors and holds a B.A.

Priyal Bhatt is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying Political Economy and Public Policy. As a Network Research Assistant, she assists in managing the Haas Institute's work on its Network for Transformative Change. In addition to internships in the social and environmental justice arena, she has been an active member of the service community at Cal. Outside of academics, Priyal is passionate about girls' education issues, exploring new cuisines, and reading historical fiction novels.

Alisa Zhao a research assistant with the Haas Institute's Regional Economic Equity project. Alisa is a senior at UC Berkeley studying economics and psychology. She is an honor student at Hinshaw’s lab in the Institute of Human development, working on an honor thesis regarding racial/ethnic differences of ADHD treatment outcome. Previously, Alisa was a senior research staff at Culture and Cognition Lab. She co-developed several research projects investigating racial/ethnic differences on power, beauty, crowd emotion and perception in Tsinghua University and UC Berkeley.

Alexis Alvarez-Franco works as a Research Assistant on the impact of the Berkeley Global Campus as an anchor institution on marginalized communities in order to catalyze economic growth in these communities. Alexis was one of the authors of the "Anchor Richmond" report published by the Haas Institute. Alexis is a San Diego native and has previously worked with institutions focusing on policy research within the San Diego-Tijuana region. Alexis is a senior at UC Berkeley majoring in Political Economy and minoring in Environmental Design and Urbanism.

Sharanya Sriram is a Summer Fellow with the Haas Institute, working with the Roosevelt Institute Summer Academy. She is a rising sophomore at Georgetown University, studying International Politics: Security Studies with a concentration in International Development. At the Institute, Sharanya worked on UC Berkeley's status as an anchor institution, especially with regard to the proposed Richmond Bay campus extension.

Jasmine Sadat recently finished her Master’s in City & Regional Planning from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. Her concentrations are Housing, Community, and Economic Development (HCED) and Land Use. At HIFIS, Jasmine will be conducting spatial analyses and creating maps for research projects involving social justice issues. Jasmine will also be summarizing data as tables, charts or other visual representations in connection with employment, housing, education, and other contexts in the social justice arena.

Rasheed Shabazz is a multimedia journalist and researcher. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelors in African American Studies and Political Science, with a minor in City and Regional Planning. Rasheed was most recently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, focusing on the establishment and operation of Black student news publications across the UC System.

Natalia Reyes is a third year undergraduate at UC Berkeley double majoring in Legal Studies and Rhetoric with a concentration in Public Discourse. Natalia lives and works in the student-governed Berkeley Student Cooperative, where she has been a Board Member and is currently working to establish a substance-free Academic Theme House. In addition to her outreach and publications work as Communications Fellow for the Haas Institute, Natalia conducts research on human rights discourse and the Colombian Constitutional Court.

Monica Elizondo is passionate about the intersections of food justice, social justice and inclusivity in the environmental movement. She is starting her second year at Diablo Valley College and hopes to double major at Cal in Environmental Science along with Society and Environment. She was honored to be a fellow at the Haas Institute because of the tremendous potential to make systemic change through research, policy and advocacy. Monica was an intern for several years at Summer of Solutions: Oakland, a youth-led grassroots program in Fruitvale.

Chloe Tarrasch is a second year undergraduate at UC Berkeley and plans to major in Statistics and Political Economy. This fall, she is a Communications Fellow for the Haas Institute. She previously interned this summer at Curbed SF, an online real estate publication based in San Francisco. At school, she writes for The Daily Californian and volunteers at the Berkeley Student Food Collective. Chloe is passionate about institutional justice, specifically pertaining to economic inequality, gentrification and gender equality.

Magali Duque is a rising senior at Stanford University, majoring in History with a focus in World History and Global Affairs. She is also pursuing a minor in Modern Languages (French and Spanish). A Los Angeles native, she has always been interested in issues of inequality and equitable development, in particular how race, gender and class intersect and affect social development. This led her to join various student organizations on campus through which she has organized conferences and career fairs in order to promote advocacy for human rights and development issues.

Navgeet King Zed (King) is a senior at UC Berkeley pursuing dual degrees in Business Administration and Rhetoric with a Minor Global Poverty and Practice. He is deeply passionate about issues of food justice, food equity and sustainability and their relationship with business and finance. He is interested harnessing the power of business to do good and make a global impact.

Bradley Afroilan is a 1st generation, 4th year Undergraduate majoring in Sociology at UC Berkeley who transferred to Cal from UCSB in the Fall of 2014.  At UCSB, Bradley was a research assistant for John Foran and also wrote and presented a paper on the rapport between the media and Pilipin(x)/ Pilipin(x)  Americans at the Comparative Literature Dept's annual Conference.  This past year at Cal, Bradley has worked closely with the Pilipin(x) Community in his involvement with the Pil-Studies Committee and as a Volunteer Organizing Committee Co-coordinator who successfully helped the Pil-Commu

Emily Stein is a fourth-year part-time law student at the Rutgers School of Law in Newark, New Jersey.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Studies and Special Honors from Hunter College of the City University of New York, where she performed independent research on the quality of life for LGBT communities in rural and urban spaces.  Prior to commencing her legal education, Emily worked closely with diverse communities through grassroots outreach and community programs in New York and New Jersey’s urban centers.  As a law student, Emily has focused her studies on developing her res