Grad Student - ISSI

Evelyn Ortiz Soto

Jurisprudence and Social Policy PhD, UC Berkeley Law, UC Berkeley

Evelyn Ortiz Soto is a graduate student in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy PhD program at UC Berkeley Law. Their work centers on law and society with special attention to legal mobilization and Queer identity politics informed by critical theory. Blending computational social science and qualitative methods, their research examines the implications of AI governance and far-right legal mobilization for queer youth and their digital identities. Utilizing an original dataset of federal bills extracted from the U.S. Government Publishing Office, they employ computational text-mining and...

Robert Ortiz Stahl

Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Robert “Bobby” Ortiz Stahl is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the David Minkus Memorial Graduate Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. His dissertation examines how unhealthy housing becomes a governable problem through the intersecting practices of expert intervention, advocacy, and "policywork" in Oakland, California. Drawing on ethnographic research with policy and public health experts, housing advocates and affected tenants, Bobby traces how public policy solutions can both reflect and reshape the...

Anna Palmer

Sociology, UC Berkeley

Anna Palmer is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research examines the convergence of extractivism, (post)colonial development, and the climate crisis in the Caribbean through a qualitative and spatial lens. Her current project focuses on political decision-making and resistance to oil extraction in Guyana through content analysis and interview methods. She holds a B.A. in Sociology from Occidental College.

Ally Pardo

Public Health, UC Berkeley

Ally Pardo (she/her) is a master's student at the School of Public Health (Health and Social Behavior program). Born and raised in San Francisco, Ally's research is grounded in her organizing work with Filipino communities in the Bay Area. She examines health outcomes among Filipinos in the East Bay through a novel conceptualization of empire and colonialism as distal social determinants of health. With a background in Ethnic Studies (B.A. in Asian American Studies) and current training in public health, Ally leverages her interdisciplinary lens to further her research.

Joohyun Park

Sociology, UC Berkeley

Joohyun Park is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, she studies gender, medicine, law, and social movements. Her dissertation examines how the South Korean courts' interpretation of victims' medical records in sexual violence cases has evolved over time, analyzing the changing perceptions of victimhood through the lenses of agency and vulnerability.

Sarah Payne

Sociology, UC Berkeley

Lauren Pearson

Geography, UC Berkeley

Lauren R. Pearson is a PhD Candidate in the Geography Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her M.A. from the University College London and her B.A. from New York University. Her dissertation focuses on the phenomenon of illegally set wildfires in Sicily through an analysis of the history of social, political-economic, and environmental crisis in Sicily. Her research has been supported by the Trinity College’s Research Grant in Modern Italian History, The 'FLAS' Fellowship, The Berkeley-Naples Fellowship at the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, and...

Clara Pérez Medina

Geography, UC Berkeley

Clara Pérez Medina (they/them) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. They are a geographic filmmaker, studying the relationship between race, place, and representation through the modalities of oral history, film, and photography. Currently they are working on a collaborative film project with Bay Area Black housing justice organizers considering the historical racial political economy of Oakland and the intergenerational lines of care that have sustained the city. They have an M.A. in Sociology from the University of California...

Jimena Perez

Geography, UC Berkeley

Jimena Perez is a community-engaged scholar, NSF GRFP Fellow, and Geography Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation explores the L.A. River—known to the Tongva as paayme paxaayt—as a site of memory, resistance, and repair. Raised in Southeast Los Angeles, she witnessed the River’s confinement in concrete, mirroring the struggles of nearby working-class communities. Rather than centering loss, her ethnographic research highlights the visions and practices of residents across L.A. County who challenge dominant planning narratives and reimagine infrastructure. Jimena’s...

Elena Peterman

Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Elena Peterman is a PhD student in Anthropology at UC Berkeley. She researches the political and affective dimensions of encounters with industrial toxicants (especially PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) along the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. Her ethnographic work traces the ways so-called 'forever chemicals'— in their persistence and expansive proliferation— variously derange or reinforce racialized regimes of property and citizenship in a rapidly transforming corner of the U.S. South.