Aukeem Ballard is a former secondary public-school educator, organizer, and school leader whose pedagogy and practices remain grounded in critical love. Aukeem is currently a PhD student in the Berkeley School of Education with a Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory. Aukeem's current research focuses on the gendered and racialized educational experiences, conditions, and practices that constitute (and are shaped by) phenomena such as love, hope, healing, and courage as mediated through, thereby informing, often oppressive and dehumanizing spaces. Aukeem seeks to highlight and...
Renee is a Doctor of Public Health candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research is focused on care after birth for Black birthing people in California. Renee examines the healthcare needs and experiences of Black women until one year postpartum to provide solutions to improve models of care delivery. Her focus is on Maternal and Child Health policy, strategy, and innovation to improve healthcare systems. Her passion has always been service leadership and eliminating health disparity gaps among women, infants, and children. Renee...
Caylee Hong is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, where she researches urban oil production in the Los Angeles Basin. Her dissertation examines the ways that diverse stakeholders navigate the decommissioning and redevelopment of century-old oil fields in the heart of cities, including Los Angeles and Long Beach. She has published research on infrastructure finance, the environment, law, and citizenship in Antipode and Anthropological Theory. Prior to Berkeley,...
Cathy Hu is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work sits at the intersection of punishment and society, social movements, and political sociology. Currently, she is working on an ethnographic and interview project examining criminal justice activism in the Bay Area. This project focuses on the county criminal court, and DA elections in particular, as a new site of intervention for social movements from both the abolitionist left and the tough on crime right. It aims to show how local battles over issues of the criminal court reflect...
Clara Pérez Medina (they/them) is a PhD student 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,...
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...
Jasmine M. Sanders is a Sociology PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research centers issues of equity and access with a focus on organizational inequality, culture, and workplace policies and practices. Her dissertation research examines the role of extracurricular work activities, like happy hours and holiday parties, in career advancement. Jasmine has contributed to research exploring organizational policies and practices that promote equality in college sports, belonging in the workplace, and gendered conceptions of work-life balance in tech...