Grad Student - ISSI

Irene Farah is a PhD candidate in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on the political economy of street vending in Mexico City and San Francisco, with a focus on intra-urban inequalities. She received her BA in Political Science from ITAM in Mexico City and her MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. Irene works closely with street vendors and street vending associations to understand their relationship with the state and the impact that regulations have on workers’ livelihoods. Her research aims to shed light on the complex relationships...

Fabián Fernández is a student in the joint UCSF-UCB M.D./Ph.D. program in Medical Anthropology. He researches issues of safety, workplace violence, and policing in U.S. Emergency Departments. In his time in the Bay Area, he has organized with healthcare workers from Do No Harm Coalition fighting against wage theft, evictions, and police sweeps. He has also worked to support individuals and families affected by police violence. He models his healing work from years of practice with Clínica Martín Baró, a student-run free clinic grounded in latin-american liberation psychology. He...

Annette Gailliot is a graduate student in the Sociology department at UC Berkeley. Using computational and historical methods, she studies how technology is changing work-based inequalities and regulations. Her master’s project examines how automation affects Medicaid eligibility determination and access across states. Prior work explores how unemployment insurance buffered service sector workers’ financial and physical wellbeing during COVID. Other work has examined the effectiveness of Ban-the-Box and Fair Chance policies on employment levels and working conditions for workers with prior...

Alejo's work sits at the intersection of political ecology, riverine territorialities, and environmental justice. His dissertation analyzes the histories, dynamics, and struggles to make and remake the riverine landscape of the Upper Magdalena River (UMR), Colombia, and its political implications for peasant and fisherfolk communities. Alejo asks how green capital’s attempts to stabilize, disrupt, or rework land-water interfaces shape and are shaped by peasants' and fisherfolk's longstanding struggles against dispossession. Native to the UMR region, Alejo uses community-engaged...