Joshua Acosta is a PhD candidate in Ethnic Studies whose research interests are in Asian and Asian American studies, Disability Studies, History of Medicine, and Filipino American and Philippine studies. He is a recipient of the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship and was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and California State University Sally Casanova Scholar. His dissertation, “State of Insanity: Medicalizing Madness and the Imperial Subject in the Philippines, 1898-1965,” research traces how the interplay between colonial bureaucrats, Philippine medical scientists, mental illness patients,...
Tak-Huen Chau is a PhD candidate in political science and MA candidate in economics. He is interested in social identities and political behavior in general. Currently, he is working on projects that utilize formal theory and surveys to explain dominant group attitudes on national identity, assimilation, and bilingual education.
Lena Chen is an artist and Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. Her research examines the performance practices of Asian American/diasporic artists, sex workers, and community organizers in Los Angeles and New York City. A recipient of the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship, she holds a B.A. in Sociology from Harvard University and a M.F.A. in Fine Art from Carnegie Mellon University.
Her work has appeared in Amerasia Journal, PUBLIC...
Xinyi is a PhD student in Developmental Psychology with six years of experience working with children and families from underrepresented backgrounds in psychological research. Her research focuses on how socio-ecological factors (neighborhood, school, and family) shape the cognitive and socioemotional development of children from low-income and immigrant backgrounds. Her goal is to provide insights for policy and community programs supporting ethnic minority children and families.
Joyce Cheng joined the Doctor of Public Health program in Fall 2024. Joyce aims to strengthen her training in community engagement partnership and research, equitable health information delivery as well as to explore cross-sectoral partnership and innovative systems thinking. Joyce started her career in the non-profit community health sector in 2006 and held a leadership role since 2020. Joyce serves as the Executive Director and Community Researcher at the Chinese Community Health Resource Center to lead a mission to build a healthy community through culturally and linguistically...
Sarah Halabe is a PhD student in Ethnic Studies, where she studies US Third Worldism, anti-imperial student movements, and leftist Asian American political formations of the late 60s and 70s. Her research specifically looks at the role of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organizations in the Asian American Political Movement and how these groups were theorizing the national liberation struggles happening throughout the Third World. Sarah was born and raised in the Bay Area and received her B.A. in English and American Studies from Scripps College.
Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, UC Berkeley
Zachary Lorico Hertz is a Ph.D. student in the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is particularly interested in understanding how race and class identity develop, are expressed through political behavior, and intersect with power in local politics. In his research, he uses causal inference methods and survey data to study the effects an increasingly diverse and partisan electorate will have on representation and sub-national institutions. His current project uses both experimental and observational methods to assess the...
