Summer Fellowship

Julie Gonzalez

Julie (They/She/He) holds a BA in Latino/a Studies with minors in Race and Resistance and Education from SF State and an MA in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA. After undergrad, they focused on developing youth empowerment programs and wellness services. In addition to youth work, Julie is interested in continuing to learn about agroecology and building local and autonomous food networks that are culturally and contextually relevant within BIPOC and work-class communities.

Katherine Funes

Katherine Funes (they/she) is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Irvine in the department of Global & International Studies from Los Angeles. Their research sits at the intersections of queer mobilities, environmental justice, and abolition among El Salvador’s LGBTIQ communities.

Siri Russell

Siri Russell (she/her) is a current PhD student in the Constructed Environment at the University of Virginia. Her educational background also includes master’s degrees in community and economic development and business administration. Siri’s professional experience has been grounded in operationalizing equity and inclusion, particularly in the local government context. She serves as co-director of the Urban Data Equity Lab and the Local Government Equity Clinic at UVA.

Courtney Wooten

A lifelong learner, writer, artist, speaker and activist, Courtney Wooten holds a BA in Sociology from Stanford, an MA in Social Justice & Community Organizing, and is a current PhD student in Sustainability Education at Prescott College in AZ. Courtney is the founder of Suburbia Rising/Stories of Self & Solidarity, and co-founder of the Justice & Faith Collective. Her academic interests include radical imagination, abolition, restorative and regenerative practices, cross-cultural epistemologies, and decolonizing pedagogy.

Abby Steckel

Abby Steckel (she/her) recently graduated from Yale University with a BS in Statistics & Data Science. As an undergraduate, she participated in Stop Solitary CT, a campaign to end solitary confinement in Connecticut prisons and jails, and volunteered for several immigration legal services providers. She is interested in understanding the role of data in both reproducing systemic racism and, hopefully, building more just and equitable public policies and programs.

Connor Nakamura

Connor Nakamura (he/him) is a rising sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania with a major in Urban Studies. Stemming from his experience in the community land trust and food sovereignty movements, he is interested in alternatives to traditional conceptions of urban planning. He is passionate about affordable housing policy, urban social movements, and critical theory. At Penn, he writes for 34th Street magazine where he covers local activism on campus and in the broader Philadelphia community.

Darlene Reyes

Darlene Reyes (She/her/hers) is a first-generation Salvadoran-American and will be graduating from the University of Virginia with a Masters in Education in Educational Psychology in the Fall of 2022. She is a Northwestern University alumna and 2019 Fulbright U.S. Student Program Fellowship Aluma. Her Fulbright Fellowship research focused on the Imposter Syndrome in Brazil within Higher Education. Darlene is an advocate for educational equity and passionate about holistic solutions for students of all backgrounds.

Esther Garcia

Esther (they/them) is a PhD student at UCI's Department of Anthropology where they research abolitionist social movements and social justice organizers in Atlanta, GA. They were born and raised in the US South and received their Bachelor's of Anthropology at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. They are the child of Guatemalan and Mexican migrants and use their lived experiences as a queer, trans, disabled person to create the world they want to see.

Helen Zein Eddine

Helen Zein Eddine holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from
Lebanon where she organized and advocated to abolish the sponsorship system. She brings
those experiences to a nonprofit in Richmond, Virginia that supports refugees and other
displaced people.

Khin Hnit Oo

Khin Hnit Oo (she/her) is a health equity researcher and racial justice activist. She is a first- generation Burmese American hailing from Yangon, Myanmar by way of Kauai, Hawaii and an honorary American southerner based in Atlanta, Georgia. A recent graduate of Emory University, she holds a Master of Public Health in Global Health and a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her current research investigates how psychosocial stressors of racism-related experiences and expectations affect sleep quality in African American women.

Maya Smith

Maya Smith (she/her) is a rising sophomore at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Maya plans to major in International Politics with a concentration in foreign policy and processes and to minor in History. As a young woman of color from the American South, Maya is committed to raising awareness to issues affecting BIPOC communities such as the effects of gentrification.

Nicole Li

Nicole Li is an undergraduate student studying Ethics, Politics, and Economics at Yale University. She is passionate about community organizing, particularly in the American South, and currently serves as the youngest steering committee member of Collierville Community Justice, an intergenerational grassroots coalition organizing for racial and economic justice in Collierville, Tennessee. At Yale, Nicole co-leads the Coalition of Allyship Advocates, a student
group working to integrate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into the undergraduate experience.

Saniego Sanchez

Saniego Sanchez is an applied anthropologist who works in the nonprofit arts sector while actively participating in community projects, presenting at conferences, and engaging in research seminars throughout México and the United States.

His aim is to develop and contribute to projects through the lens of community-centered praxis, an applied methodology wherein one works alongside community organizations to assess and address their community’s needs.

Ella Streng

Ella Streng is a recent graduate of Minerva University. Her work with film and multimedia bridges communication gaps between academics and the public, exemplified in her undergraduate thesis on racial othering. Ella lived in five countries throughout her undergraduate experience, allowing her to engage with diverse communities and social issues.

Tera Johnson

Tera Johnson (she/her) is a dual degree Master’s student in City Planning and Landscape Architecture. Using her background as an artist and environmental scientist, Tera seeks to amplify the strengths of people of color, while advocating for healthy and just connections between social and ecological systems. Tera is also co-founder of Two Photon, which uses art to communicate science, raise money and awareness about social issues, and support fellow minorities interested in STEM.

Rahma R. Mahdi

Rahma R. Mahdi is set to graduate in Fall 2021 as a Regent’s and Chancellor’s Scholar from the University of California, Berkeley, where she majors in Interdisciplinary Studies with minors in Public Policy and Education. As a student researcher, Rahma aims to better situate computer science within the realm of global education and policy, with a specialized emphasis on developing countries in the East African region.