Xavier Durham (he/him) is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at UC Berkeley whose interests revolve around policing, surveillance, state violence, punishment, inequality, and urban sociology. His current project focuses on the precarious convergence between formerly-incarcerated people and neoliberal security practices in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, examining how the policed become the police as they navigate a constrained labor market. Previously, he has done extensive work on police use of force during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as well as the constitutional...
Daryl Mangosing (they/he/she) is a DrPH Candidate in Berkeley Public Health whose interests lie at the intersection of LGBTQ+ health disparities, community-engaged research, mixed-methods, and Critical Theory. For their dissertation, Daryl is studying sexualized drug use (i.e., recreational or illicit drug use to facilitate and enhance sexual activity), harm reduction practices and strategies, and health outcomes among sexual and gender diverse people in the context of HIV prevention and online dating applications. Previously, they served as a Research Communications Specialist at...
Martha Ortega Mendoza is the proud daughter of two former restaurant cooks. Currently, Martha is a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation builds upon the scholarship focused on undocumented students by documenting and uplifting the academic, social, and financial experiences of undocumented graduate students. Through her research, Martha identifies how institutional agents (e.g., staff, administrators, and faculty) can attract, retain, and help undocumented graduate students complete their graduate studies. In...
Valentín “Val” Sierra is a Ph.D. candidate at the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare. Val’s clinical and research agendas focus on eliminating mental health disparities, particularly suicide and depression, for urban Native American young people through culturally grounded practices and interventions. They hold a M.S.W. from Berkeley Social Welfare and a B.A. in Native American Studies, with highest honors, from UC Davis. They are currently working on a community-based research project in partnership with the Sacramento Native American Health Center, Inc. to develop an Indigenous...
Rashad Arman Timmons is a community builder, keyboardist, writer, and black feminist educator from Detroit, Michigan. A beloved child of factory workers, urban gardeners, prayer warriors, and musicians, Rashad is a lifelong student of the ways black folk manipulate and adorn the built environment to envision freedom. A doctoral candidate in African Diaspora Studies with a Designated Emphasis in New Media Studies, Rashad’s dissertation explores urban infrastructures as critical sites where the lived social relations that come to define blackness are enacted, visualized, and challenged...