Summer Fellowship

Enjoli Hall is from Buffalo, New York and is a Master of Urban Planning Candidate at University at Buffalo, where she works as a research assistant in Dr. Samina Raja’s Food Systems Planning and Healthy Communities Lab and focuses on housing, community and economic development. At Haas Institute, Enjoli is providing research support to the California Community Partnerships program with projects on housing policy and narratives of displacement in the city of Richmond.

Winne Luo is a rising sophomore double majoring in Public Health and Statistics at UC Berkeley. She has interests in health disparities and disease in populations, and the place-based, socioeconomic, and political determinants of health. Previously, Winne has worked with the Office of Equity and Inclusion to analyze diversity in high school admissions to UC Berkeley. She hopes to use insights derived from data to further health equity and social justice.

Thomas Matthew is a J.D. candidate at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where he was awarded the Boalt Hall Dean's Fellowship. His research interests include examining solutions to methodological tensions among progressive liberals in California. Thomas' academic work is heavily influenced by his desire to give legal and political agency to underserved communities worldwide. Prior to joining the Haas Institute, Thomas attended Amherst College where he received his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology.

Tanvi Rajgaria is a rising senior at Pomona College, with a major in Economics and minor in Religious Studies. Her focus is on bringing together human narratives - historical, anthropological, and philosophical - into data and modeling framework development. Tanvi herself has a long history of working as a bridging liaison between institutions and communities, looking forward to her role as At-Large Student Representative on the Board of Trustees Finance Committee for Pomona College.

Rhonda Itaoui is in the final year of a PhD program in Social Sciences at Western Sydney University in Australia, and a Visiting Scholar at the UC Berkeley Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project.

Jasmine Guraya is currently double majoring in Psychology and International Economics & Migration at UC Berkeley and anticipates graduating in Fall 2017. She has a wide array of interests and is intrigued by how and why people reason the way they do, how the human brain functions, and ponders on the role of international events and economic labor theories on migration.

Minahil Khan received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Advocacy and Argumentation at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Minahil served as a William J. Clinton Fellow for Service in India where she worked on a women’s livelihood initiative at the Aga Khan Foundation’s Delhi office. She is currently earning her JD at the Georgetown University Law Center.

EJ Toppin is a Master of Public Policy Candidate at the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. As a Summer Fellow at the Haas Institute, he is engaged in efforts to address housing affordability and the issue of displacement in Richmond, California as well as Greater Detroit, Michigan's water contamination and infrastructure crisis. Prior to returning to school for graduate studies, EJ worked as a legislative aide on environment, agriculture, and energy issues in the United States Senate.

Derrick Duren is a senior transfer student at UC Berkeley completing a double major in Media and American Studies. Derrick has dedicated much of their extracurricular time to social justice education and advocacy through their experiences as Multi-Cultural Awareness Chair and as a curator for Multi, their inaugural art showcase for students of color at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Derrick currently serves as a Development Assistant & Honorary Student Committee member at the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive.

Daniel Russel Cheung is an incoming senior at UC Berkeley majoring in History. Outside of the fellowship, Daniel works to mitigate the effects of Proposition 209 on communities of color by serving as the External Director of the Bridges Multicultural Resource Center. Daniel also works with Asian and Pacific Islander students. He served as a Community Advocate in the Asian Pacific American Student Development Office and created and instructed a seminar on multiracial history in Berkeley's Asian American Studies Department.

Taliah Mirmalek is a community researcher-organizer from Oakland. She will conduct research and analysis supporting a multi-stakeholder collaborative aimed at increasing civic participation among those who have been excluded or disaffected, rather than simplistically focusing on the consistently politically active. For the past three years, she has been organizing as a researcher in the labor movement, most recently with UNITE HERE Local 2850.

Teofanny Saragi (they/them) is a recent graduate of Pomona College, where they studied Asian American Studies and Public Policy/Sociology. Teo’s commitment to social justice work is rooted in their experiences as a first-generation college student, being raised in a low-income, single-parent household, and coming from a lineage of indigenous Batak Indonesian people. This summer, Teo hopes to continue uplifting community voices as part of the Strategic Communications team. In their spare time, Teo loves to sing, read poetry, and search for yummy vegetarian foods.

Michael Xu is a J.D. candidate at the University of Michigan Law School. His research interests lie in the dynamics of othering and neoliberalism in the “post-civil rights” era, with a focus on the incomplete nature of democracy in our social order as well as environmental justice. Having received common law and civil law training in three languages, Michael most recently earned his LL.M.

Miranda Simes is an incoming junior at Columbia University studying sustainable development and sociology. In her studies, she continually questions the dynamics between natural, physical and social spaces and the different layers of geography when it comes to access and inclusion. Previously, Miranda has contributed to research analyzing how climate action plans in New York City and Los Angeles have addressed social equity. Miranda will be working this summer with the Equity Metrics Project to investigate spatial inequities and barriers to inclusivity.

Onisha Etkins is a Ph.D. student studying Population Health Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Broadly, Onisha is interested in exploring public health inequities as it relates to race and ethnicity. She is studying mental health in U.S. Caribbean immigrant communities and Black immigrant communities generally. Onisha's work is influenced by her own upbringing as a first generation Guyanese-American and growing up in a predominantly Caribbean immigrant community.

Evan Yoshimoto is a recent graduate from UC Berkeley with degrees in Environmental Economics & Policy, and Conservation & Resource Studies. Evan’s research interests include sustainable economics, political ecology, and environmental justice. As a member of the Students of Color Environmental Collective, Evan spent his undergraduate career organizing for a more equitable and justice-centered environmental movement. He currently serves as the Civil Rights Chair of the Japanese American Citizens League Berkeley Chapter.