Mercy Loyo is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Berkeley, and an ardent believer in the imagination as a terrain of struggle. Although these two things may seem disparate, they live together, as a lovely hodgepodge, in her head and her heart, anchored by Toni Morrison’s words: “Dream a little before you think.”
Mercy is largely interested in how the increased use of technology in spheres such as education, healthcare, and public safety both solidifies and revolutionizes social inequity. She is currently working on a project that examines the advent of online and distance learning in the Oakland Unified School District and its impact on teachers, students, families, and community members. Ultimately, she aims to use her research to envision possibilities for well-being that do not rely on substituting technological change for wider social change.
