Grad Student - ISSI

Deborah Qu

Psychology, UC Berkeley

Deborah Qu is a graduate student in the Social and Personality Psychology program at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses broadly on emotions and emotion regulation, explored through multiple lenses. Her research investigates the automatization of cognitive change strategies, the role of psychological distancing in emotion regulation, and how individual traits like Agreeableness interact with situational factors to shape emotional responses. Deborah also studies bicultural experiences among American immigrants, such as the way Chinese Americans regulate their emotions when shifting between...

Ogi Radic

Sociology, UC Berkeley

Adriana P. Ramírez

Sociology, UC Berkeley

Adriana P. Ramírez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at UC Berkeley. Her research interests revolve around migration, citizenship, Latin America, political sociology, and race and ethnicity. The influence of growing up as a migrant student between Mexico and the U.S. is evident in her work, which explores transnational migration dynamics. Her current work examines how young return migrants adapt to different spheres of Mexican society and formulate their identity and sense of belonging across contexts of reception in the states of Oaxaca and...

Benji Reade Malagueño

Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley

Benji is a PhD Candidate in UC Berkeley's Department Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM). Their current research integrates geospatial, econometric, and hydrological analyses to examine drivers of inequities in access to water, focusing on the impacts of water policy, land ownership, and agricultural exports in central Chile and California's Central Valley. They are passionate about using research, data science, and GIS to empower social movements, inform policy, and fight for a more just food-water system.

Before joining ESPM, Benji studied environmental justice,...

Reiley Reed

School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley

Reiley Reed (she/her) is a PhD candidate at the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare. Her research interests include the historical and ongoing role of social work in perpetuating reproductive oppression, pregnancy criminalization and surveillance, and power dynamics in health care. Her mixed-methods dissertation research explores the role of social workers in reporting abortion and substance use in pregnancy to government authorities. Previously, she worked at the Person-Centered Reproductive Health Program at UC San Francisco where she managed research projects focused on patient-...

Everardo Reyes

Ethnomusicology, UC Berkeley

Everardo “Ever” Reyes (Rarámuri descent and Chicanx) is a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the intersections between music, social movements, and Indigenous self-determination. His dissertation focuses on the contemporary sonic and political influences of the 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz Island by the Indians of All Tribes on Indigenous social movements. Ever also works on Rarámuri and Nahuatl language revitalization through music technology and songwriting with the Indigenous Poetics Lab at the Arts Research...

Marlena Robbins

Public Health, UC Berkeley

Marlena Robbins is a Doctor of Public Health candidate at UC Berkeley. She specializes in Tribal governance, psilocybin policy, and public health. A member of the Diné (Navajo) Nation, her dissertation research focuses on state-level psilocybin legislation and its implications for tribal sovereignty in the Four Corners region—Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Marlena is conducting a policy analysis and interviews with tribal leaders, state officials, and urban Indian health organizations to examine how governance, healing, and community priorities intersect in...

juleon robinson

Geography, UC Berkeley

juleon robinson is an organizer, community educator, and PhD Student in the Department of Geography at UC Berkeley. His research analyzes the relationship between race and property in Bay Area housing geographies, with a specific focus on the persistence of Black housing geographies as sites of temporariness and dispossession. His current project examines the 2017 demolition of the Las Deltas public housing complex in North Richmond, California, to reckon with the role of public housing policy in the ongoing fragmentation of Black geographies in California’s East Bay....

Irene Franco Rubio

Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Irene Franco Rubio is a scholar-activist, organizer, and first-generation Ph.D. student in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, with a Designated Emphasis in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies and New Media. Her research examines intersectional coalition building and cross-cultural solidarity within multiracial social movements, focusing on how and why coalitions emerge and sustain themselves amid the challenges of movement siloing in the U.S. Southwest. Grounded in Comparative Ethnic Studies and Sociology, she employs a combination...

Kieren Rudge

Environmental Science, Policy, & Management, UC Berkeley

Kieren Rudge is a PhD candidate in the Society and Environment Division of the Environmental Science, Policy, & Management Department at UC Berkeley. Their work is grounded in critical race theory, political ecology, and critical Pacific islands studies. Their dissertation focuses on how racialized social-political structures differently impact Pacific communities facing climate injustice. This project uses a collective case study examining marginalization and coalitional climate activism in the state of California and the U.S. territory of Guåhan. This research examines how the...