Grad Student - ISSI

Jessica Kari Law

Sociology, UC Berkeley

Jessica Law is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at UC Berkeley. She is broadly interested in racial formation and knowledge, the state, identity politics, and social movements. Her dissertation project focuses on the construction of “racial equity” as a framework for understanding and addressing inequality. This project specifically examines the instantiations of “racial equity” in San Francisco’s local governance. Jessica holds a master’s degree in sociology from UC Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree in sociology and comparative race studies from the University of Chicago.

Jin Hyung Lim

Jin Hyung is a PhD student in the School Psychology Program at the Berkeley School of Education. As an international student from South Korea, he is passionate about promoting the mental health of Asian American students, teachers, and families. Guided by the social-ecological framework and resilience theory, he studies how school and community resources can function as promotive and protective factors for the psychological well-being of Asian Americans.

Sunnie Liu

UC Berkeley Law, UC Berkleey

Sunnie Liu is an artist, organizer, and Public Interest Scholar at Berkeley Law. Born in rural China but raised in Houston, Texas as the child of Chinatown workers, Sunnie is committed to movements at the intersection of racial and economic justice. Sunnie graduated with degrees in Studio Art and History from Yale University.

Before law school, Sunnie advocated to end solitary confinement, reform bail, and improve public defense from Mississippi to Chicago. Sunnie also organized against the displacement of Manhattan’s Chinatown and co-founded Xin Sheng | 心声 Project, a nonprofit...

Daniel Lobo

Sociology, UC Berkeley

Daniel Lobo is a Ph.D. student in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, with specializations in political economy and the sociology of organizations and markets at the Haas School of Business. As a cultural and economic sociologist, he is interested in the fundamental question of, who gets what and why in our society? More specifically, he is interested in how individuals experience organizations intersubjectively and behaviorally. How is talent conceptualized, discovered, selected, evaluated, compensated, and promoted (or not) to positions of power? How, and by whom, are...

Mercy Loyo

Mercy Loyo is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Berkeley, and an ardent believer in the imagination as a terrain of struggle. Although these two things may seem disparate, they live together, as a lovely hodgepodge, in her head and her heart, anchored by Toni Morrison’s words: “Dream a little before you think.”

Mercy is largely interested in how the increased use of technology in spheres such as education, healthcare, and public safety both solidifies and revolutionizes social inequity. She is currently working on a project that examines the advent of online and...

Arianna Lunow-Luke

Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Arianna Lunow-Luke (she/her) is a PhD student in the department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, where she is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship. She is also pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Food Systems through the Berkeley Food Institute. Born and raised in Kailua, Oʻahu, Ari is a fourth generation Chinese settler of Kanaka Maoli lands in Hawaiʻi. She received her BA in Biology and Ethnic Studies from Brown University.

Ari’s research is centered on Asian settler colonialism and multiculturalism in Hawaiʻi. She is particularly...

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.

Edward Martin

Geography, UC Berkeley

Edward Martin is a PhD candidate in Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, and the FOUNDATIONS FOR CHANGE: Thomas I. Yamashita Fellow. His research explores how abolitionist activists build non-carceral forms of safety through community mental health initiatives. His current project examines the relationship between abolitionist organizing practices and community mental health alternatives to incarceration in Oakland, California. Through this research, he aims to understand how tensions between carceral logics and abolitionist organizing practices shape the...

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...