Grad Student - CER

Halle Young

Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Halle Young is a PhD candidate in the Joint Medical Anthropology program at UCSF-UC Berkeley, where she researches the therapeutic milieu of vulvovaginal pain. Her project explores what practices and ideals of intimacy and gender inspire cisgender women to engage in interventions toward penetration, especially when pain is present.

Ashley Zhou

Berkeley School of Education, UC Berkeley

Ashley Zhou is a student of the Joint Doctoral program in special education with UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Her research focuses on structures of race, class, gender, and disability in special education through the role of the paraprofessional. Analyzing historical archives, she examines the labor formation of paraprofessionals and special education teachers in the aftermath of Brown. Her work also incorporates ethnography to examine the consequences of this labor formation for contemporary challenges in special education. Through this investigation of educational...

Raquel Zitani-Rios

Sociology, UC Berkeley

Raquel Xitlali Zitani-Rios (She/They) is a PhD student interested in how cultural frameworks shape identity, public perceptions, civic engagement, and responses to social inequality, with particular attention to urban space, power, and belonging. Using qualitative methods, Raquel's research examines how community dynamics and local governance mediate struggles over inclusion and exclusion in the Bay Area.