Institute for the Study of Social Change (ISSC) UC Berkeley

Gwendolyn Leachman, Jurisprudence and Social Policy
Gwendolyn Leachman is a Ph.D. candidate in Jurisprudence and Social Policy. Before coming to Berkeley, Gwendolyn received a dual B.A. in Language Studies (Linguistics) and Legal Studies at UC Santa Cruz. Her dissertation examines the power dynamics between social movement organizations that use different types of tactics. Focusing on the movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in California, she investigates whether litigation channels resources to the organizations that use it as their primary tactic, allowing these organizations to shape the movement's dominant goals and message. Her primary interest in this work is to examine mechanisms that could potentially produce movement de-radicalization. Outside her dissertation research, Gwendolyn is interested in the social impact of employment discrimination. She has interned at the Immigration and Language Rights Project of the Employment Law Center (San Francisco).

Sarah Lynn Lopez, Architecture
Sarah Lynn Lopez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Architecture. She received her B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies and her M.S. in Architecture from Berkeley. Her dissertation research investigates the impact of migrant remittances—dollars earned in the U.S. and sent to families and communities in Mexico—on the architecture and landscape of rural Mexico. She also addresses the social and economic structures that support construction projects in Mexico, which are often spearheaded by migrant communities or hometown associations located in the U.S. Sarah’s research spans both sides of the border, approaching migration as a continuum in space as opposed to a discrete phenomenon. Coupling demographic and economic data on remittances with ethnographic and architectural analysis of remittance landscapes, Sarah studies how macro processes interface with local dynamics to produce new social spaces in the U.S. and Mexico.

Genevieve Negron-Gonzales, Education
Genevieve Negron-Gonzales is a Ph.D. candidate in the Social and Cultural Studies program of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. Her experience growing up near the border in Chula Vista, California, has shaped her political, personal and intellectual development. Genevieve’s ethnographic research explores how both the discourse and practice of immigration policy shapes the political identity and activist engagement of undocumented young people. By collecting the stories and mapping the political trajectories of undocumented youth activists, she questions how ‘common sense’ is made and unmade among undocumented immigrant youth. Examining how young people theorize race and racism, encounter and contest dominant conceptions of “illegal” immigration, and come to see themselves as political participants in a context which excludes them, demonstrates how undocumented youth confront, contest, and interact with dominant notions of equal opportunity and immigration.

Jennifer Randles, Sociology
Jennifer Randles is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology. Her research interests lie at the intersection of family and marriage, public policy, social change, culture, gender, sexuality, and emotions. Her dissertation, tentatively titled “Learning and Legislating to Love: U.S. Relationship Education and the Modern Marriage Crisis,” is an ethnographic study of government-sponsored marriage education in California. She explores how publicly-funded relationship skills training programs frame the causes, consequences, and solutions to marital and family instability, and how community-based marriage education programs are created, implemented and understood.

Kim Richards, Ethnic Studies
Kim Richards is a Ph.D. student in Comparative Ethnic Studies. Originally from Eastern Washington, she received her B.A. from Eastern Washington University in Anthropology and American Indian Studies. Although attending graduate school in Berkeley, Kim is still an active member of the Spokane area American Indian communities and organizations. Her current work focuses on reconstructing the histories of urban American Indian education sites and programs in the Bay Area during the relocation and self-determination eras. Her research deconstructs the larger processes of internal colonialism while also emphasizing the importance of reclaiming sovereignty and self-determination for American Indian peoples and communities.

Jose Arias, Education
Jose Arias is a Ph.D. student in the Social and Cultural Studies program of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education. He holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from UC Berkeley and a masters in Social Sciences in Education from Stanford University. Deeply committed to issues of justice surrounding youth of color, in particular those informed by the micro/macro level disciplinary practices of the state, Jose has worked with numerous campus and non- profit organizations – including Homies Unidos of El Salvador and San Mateo County Barrios Unidos – that assist youth in navigating and challenging classed, gendered, and racialized contexts of oppression. He currently serves as a consultant for a PBS funded documentary on school discipline. Jose's dissertation, supported in part by the Center for Race and Gender, focuses on the ways in which youth conceptualize justice and engage in justice work at a public high school youth court.

Bao Lo, Ethnic Studies
Bao Lo is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. Her areas of study include immigration, youth and violence, and race and ethnicity. Her dissertation research focuses on understanding the processes and reasons that explain violence, particularly suicide and gang-related violence, among Hmong youth. More specifically, she is looking at how the process of adapting to the U.S. may be related to Hmong youth and violence.

Susan Woolley, Education
Susan Woolley is a Ph.D. candidate with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Language and Literacy, Society and Culture Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education. She received her B.A. in Anthropology from Wesleyan University and her M.A. in Education from UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on constructions and negotiations of ‘safe space’ for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students in a public high school. She is particularly interested in how experiences of school safety for these students are complicated by dominant discourses on masculinity and normative sexuality. Susan looks at strategies engaged by youth, including peer education and empowerment through gay-straight alliances, to address issues of homophobia and transphobia in their schools.

Corey M. Abramson, Sociology
Corey M. Abramson is a Ph.D. Candidate in UC Berkeley’s Department of Sociology and the daily operations manager at the Center for Urban Ethnography (CUE). His research uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the intersection between systems of social stratification and health. His dissertation is a comparative ethnographic study of the way five elderly communities, encompassing different racial and socioeconomic groups, manage the health demands of growing old. Theoretically, his work aims to elucidate three key issues of concern to social scientists: 1. the way lifelong processes of social stratification work out in the “end-game” of old age with regards to health; 2. how social mechanisms shape people’s understandings of, relationships to, and behaviors towards, their bodies; and 3.the manner in which different communities deploy cultural resources to respond to shared “structural dilemmas” (such as the confluence of scarcity and aging) in everyday life. This project not only illuminates the way persistent inequalities in the final stages of life work themselves out in a rapidly aging American society, but also suggests where social policy can intervene to ameliorate them.

Gabino Arredondo, Education
Gabino Arredondo is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Language Literacy, Society and Culture Program at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education. He received his M.A. in the same program conducting research that examined science learning in bilingual classrooms. Prior to coming to UC Berkeley, he received his B.A. from UCLA. He was a double major in History and Chicana/o Studies with a minor in Education. He has worked in various educational settings that included migrant education, community run after-school programs, and student-initiated and run retention and outreach projects in the UC system. His dissertation research focuses on the creation, co-construction, and socialization of college going identities among Latina/o and African American students and families. The dissertation examines these processes primarily by looking at language use, literacy practices, and critical discourses of academic achievement in the lived experiences of these students in their school and neighborhood communities.

Loan K. Le, Political Science
Loan K. Le is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley. Her areas of research include political behavior, social psychology, race, ethnicity and immigration. Her dissertation research examines the effects of ethnic spatial concentration on immigrant political incorporation in the United States. Prior to attending UC Berkeley, Loan received dual degrees in Political Science and in Spanish from UC Irvine. She has also served as a Coro Foundation Public Affairs Fellow in Los Angeles, California, and as a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar in Heredia, Costa Rica.

Anne J. Martin, City and Regional Planning
Anne J. Martin is a Ph.D. student in City and Regional Planning. She holds a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College in The Growth and Structure of Cities, and a Master of City Planning from UC Berkeley. Her research engages social, political, and economic perspectives on low-income housing. Her dissertation research seeks to illuminate the ways in which the foreclosure crisis continues to impact households after their homes have been lost to foreclosure. Her project investigates where families have gone after foreclosure, examines post-foreclosure experiences and coping strategies, and inquires into how the experience of foreclosure has changed people's perspectives on housing, community, and citizenship. Her prior research examined suburban mobile home park ownership consolidations and closures, focusing on how these changes affect low-income park residents and the broader metropolis. As a research fellow at The Center for Community Innovation at UC Berkeley, Anne has analyzed opportunities for affordable housing development in the East Bay and researched the foreclosure crisis in Western Contra Costa County. Anne has taught as a graduate student instructor for several interdisciplinary undergraduate courses in the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley, including American Cultural Landscapes, Introduction to Environmental Design, and People and Environment.

Sarah Anne Minkin, Sociology
Sarah Anne Minkin is a Ph.D. Candidate in UC Berkeley’s Department of Sociology. Her research interests include gender, nationalism, diasporas, social movements and the sociology of emotion. Her dissertation research focuses on American Jews’ relationships to Israel, looking specifically at the production of collective identity and memory with regards to Israel. Sarah Anne is conducting ethnographic research on how Jewish people of different generations understand, transmit and negotiate their family and ethno-national histories, and how these understandings shape feelings of connection to or distance from Israel. Sarah Anne earned a master’s degree in Sociology from UC Berkeley for her research on gender and militarism as they manifest in the conscientious objection and draft resistance movement in Israel.

Alex Schafran, City and Regional Planning
Alex Schafran is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, where his primary research focuses on the changing geographies of race and class in American cities, in particular through analyses of the processes of gentrification and the suburbanization of poverty. Prior to coming to Berkeley, he worked for a decade as an organizer, advocate, policy analyst and planner for a variety of social justice organizations in New York and California. While at Berkeley, he has continued to work in practice through collaboration with the Richmond Equitable Development Initiative, a coalition of grassroots organizations and regional advocates working for social justice and regional equity in Richmond, CA. He holds a MA in Urban Planning from Hunter College, CUNY, and a BA in History from Stanford University.

Yolanda Anyon, Social Welfare
Yolanda Anyon is a Ph.D. student in UC Berkeleys School of Social Welfare. She holds a B.A. in Ethnic Studies from Stanford University and a M.S.W. from UC Berkeley. Yolanda is interested in the provision of social services in educational settings and their role in reducing or reproducing racial and ethnic disparities that contribute to youth violence. Her research aims to identify the contexts, events and actions that shape adolescents’ participation in mental healthcare programs offered at high schools in the San Francisco Unified School District. Given the overrepresentation of African American and Latino students and the underrepresentation of White and Asian American youth in these services, she is particularly interested in how these processes vary for students of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Yolanda’s work draws attention to professional practices and school policies, such as outreach strategies and referral systems, which may help to explain disproportionalities. Her research will also consider alternative models of school based services that could better meet the goal of youth violence prevention by reducing adolescents’ unmet mental health needs.

Trevor Gardner, Sociology
Trevor Gardner is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He holds a B.A. in sociology from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Trevor worked as a public defender for the District of Columbia from 2003 to 2006, litigating both juvenile and adult criminal cases. His research focuses on the relationship between racial profiling and racial ideology, the criminalization of unauthorized immigration, and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Trevor is currently developing a research project on the transformation of San Francisco’s immigration policy between 2005 and 2008. The project examines the processes by which immigration is criminalized, as well as the expanding federal role in determining how security is defined and pursued in urban spaces.

Keramet Reiter, Jurisprudence and Social Policy
Keramet Reiter is a Ph.D. student in Jurisprudence and Social Policy. Keramet received a dual B.A. in Social Studies (social theory) and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University, an M.A. in Criminal Justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, and a J.D. from the University of California-Berkeley. Her dissertation examines the supermaximum security prison boom: the explosion in the late 1980s and early 1990s of high-security, intense-deprivation-condition prisons across the United States. Her primary interests in this work include the history of criminal justice reform, the institutional development of the prison, and understanding and mitigating the day-to-day impacts of U.S. incarceration policies. She brings ten years of experience in prisoner education, prison conditions research, and prisoners’ rights advocacy to this dissertation project.