Grad Student - ISSI

Jasmine M. Sanders

Sociology, UC Berkeley

Jasmine M. Sanders is a Sociology PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research centers issues of equity and access with a focus on organizational inequality, culture, and workplace policies and practices. Her dissertation research examines the role of extracurricular work activities, like happy hours and holiday parties, in career advancement. Jasmine has contributed to research exploring organizational policies and practices that promote equality in college sports, belonging in the workplace, and gendered conceptions of work-life balance in tech...

Maya Sapienza

Geography, UC Berkeley

Maya is a PhD student in Geography who studies the relationships between gentrification, Black identity formation, bureaucracy, geographies of urban justice, and struggles over public (and private) space. In particular, she investigates how these entanglements might be instructive for alternative futures. She looks at the relationship between local and federal government policies that have unevenly impacted Black neighborhoods, and the ways Black residents resist physical and cultural displacement in their attempts to reclaim their neighborhoods. Historically, local...

Jaclyn Schess

Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley

Jaclyn Schess is a PhD student in Health Policy/Health Economics at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. She is also pursuing the Designated Emphasis in Political Economy through the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative. Her research investigates the social, political, and economic determinants of mental ill-health and addiction utilizing causal inference tools. Her work covers themes across health, development, labor and political economics. In addition, Jaclyn is the CEO and Founder at Generation Mental Health.

Natasha Shannon

Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley

Crystal Song

Performance Studies, UC Berkeley

Taesoo Song

City and Regional Planning, UC Berkeley

Taesoo Song is a Ph.D. Candidate in City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. His research leverages quantitative and geospatial methods to investigate how housing policies and planning influence residential mobility and neighborhood change for low-income and minority households in American cities. Taesoo's dissertation examines the housing experiences of Asian Americans, challenging the prevailing narrative that they face minimal barriers in the housing market. His work focuses on: 1) ethnic, class, and locational variations in Asian homeownership, 2) the...

Sandra Oseguera Sotomayor

Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Sandra Oseguera Sotomayor is a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at UC Berkeley. Born in Mexico City, she holds a BA and MA in Latin American Studies, with a second MA in Anthropology. Her research focuses on long-term human-environmental interactions, examining traditional agricultural practices among the Indigenous Zapotec people in the Northern Highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. She investigates the impact of these practices on environmental resilience and cultural persistence within these communities. Sandra's academic interests include decoloniality, discussions on food sustainability and...