Grad Student - ISSI

Anna Macknick

Linguistics, UC Berkeley

Anna Macknick is a graduate student in Linguistics and the Designated Emphasis on Indigenous Language Revitalization. They collaborate with the Xaitsnoo (Southeastern Pomo) language community in creating curriculum, teaching language classes, and developing the language's first community-centered dictionary, with a focus on Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Anna's work seeks to support Indigenous language sovereignty by increasing community access to and autonomy over language materials held at UC archives. Anna is interested in connections between Universal Design for...

Kendrick Manymules

Geography, UC Berkeley

Kendrick Manymules (Diné) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography. He is from Fort Defiance, AZ. Kendrick's research explores the history and contemporary configuration of questions around land, development, and sovereignty. He utilizes archival methods in order to understand how contemporary understandings of land are reworked through capitalist development that invariably have profound consequences for the practice of Diné sovereignty. Kendrick holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of City Planning degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mitzia Martinez

Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, UC Berkeley Law

Mitzia E. Martinez Castellanos is a doctoral candidate in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at Berkeley Law. Her research explores the lingering effects of being undocumented and experiencing legal violence after an immigrant gains a legal status. She pays particular attention to how legal violence affects immigrants' legal consciousness, identities, sense of community, and willingness to engage with the law. Before graduate school, Mitzia worked at an Oakland community-based research institute, conducting bi-national projects in collaboration with immigration...

Jonathan Marty

City & Regional Planning, UC Berkeley

Jonathan is a PhD student in City & Regional Planning at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design with Designated Emphases in Global Metropolitan Studies and Political Economy. His current research examines the governance of urban public space in New York City, Oakland, and Paris, as well as international organizing and advocacy movements around social housing. A critical, interdisciplinary social scientist committed to the study of urban inequalities, statecraft, and the production of space, Jonathan has previously conducted work on the effects of gentrification in Chicago Public...

Bri Matusovsky

Medical Anthropology, UCSF-UC Berkeley

Bri Matusovsky's dissertation research follows green monkeys (Chlorocebus Sabaeus), invasive pests on the island of St. Kitts, a primarily Black Caribbean island with small minorities of wealthy white and East Indian residents who control a significant amount of its wealth and resources. Green monkeys were introduced as a by-product of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and are now differently valued in scientific research, tourism, and conservationism. The increasing frequency of encounters between humans and monkeys, and related food insecurity experienced by both humans and monkeys, is...

Cristina Mendez

Cristina S. Méndez (she/ella) is a Chicana educator, scholar, and poet. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley School of Education and a member of the interdisciplinary designated emphasis program in Indigenous Language Revitalization. Her research focuses on the lived experiences and sense-making of Maya Mam women lideresas who organize for the vitality of their language and culture and for the wellbeing of their communities across the United States, México, and Guatemala. Through her research and other collaborations, Cristina is committed to centering...

Elijah Mercer

School of Information, UC Berkeley

Elijah Mercer is an interdisciplinary researcher and advocate committed to driving positive social change through data-driven insights. Holding a B.A. in Criminology with a Minor in Communication Studies from American University, Elijah has dedicated his career to empowering marginalized communities. As the Founder and CEO of Data for JustUS, he leads a consulting firm focused on amplifying underrepresented voices through strategic support in data analysis, research, and communication strategies. Elijah's expertise extends to various fields, including crime analysis, policy evaluation, and...

Farnam Mohebi

Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

Farnam Mohebi is a PhD student at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and a researcher in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. She has previously earned her MD and MPH degrees. Her research focuses on the intersection of professionals and emerging technologies, drawing from the fields of medical sociology, organizational theory, and science and technology studies. She is particularly fascinated by the evolving relationship between physicians and artificial intelligence, the phenomenon of physician influencers, and...

Bernardo Moreno Peniche

Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Bernardo is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology. He studies the (dis)locations of tropicality in relation to the emergence of zoonoses and vector-borne diseases in the Global North. He focuses on Chagas, a parasitic disease transmitted by an insect vector, that has gained its epidemiological relevance in the US through its association with human migration from Latin America despite growing evidence of local transmission cycles that have continuously been part of US landscapes. He asks about the effects that framing Chagas disease as a foreign threat have on public health policy and clinical...

Srihari Nageswaran

Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Srihari Nageswaran is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. His prior research examined the relationship between India’s model of quasi-federalism and regionalist political mobilization in its southernmost state of Tamil Nadu. His tentative dissertation project leverages the tools of economic anthropology, critical geography, and South Asian studies to examine special economic zones in Chennai.