Christopher Adcock

A Fall 2014 graduate, Christopher is now pursuing concurrent MD/MPH degrees at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Chris wrote a comprehensive senior thesis on the dangers that the use of lead bullets poses to hunters and their families. He was a national semi-finalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy (Academic Heisman), selected for the PAC12 All-Academic first team three times, and listed as the second smartest player in college football in 2014 on nfl.com. Chris is also 2015 Oscar Geballe Post-Graduate Scholarship winner. Chris also […]

Alex Bigman

Alex will be starting a PhD program in History of Art and Archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU in Fall 2014, and looks forward to bringing his ISF training to bear upon his research within this exciting discipline. Alexs thesis was an analysis of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, using cognitive linguistic theories of Mental Spaces and Conceptual Blending to explore how the modernist play’s unusual structure helps to reveal the workings of its characters’ minds. Since graduating, he has continued to develop his interest in art history through […]

Laura Bolton

After graduating in the Spring of 2014, Laura moved to New York and began work at one of the worlds leading brand consultancies. The title of Laura’s thesis was “Internet Privacy and the Behavioral Advertising Industry: Controversies, Challenges and Recommendations to Reduce Consumer Fears Online.” Laura’s thesis compared regulatory practices in Germany to those in the UK and US. Laura was both an international student and California resident. She writes: The ISF major was perfect as I’m a very independent person and loved formulating my own schedule of classes, taking […]

Adam Oriel Cohen

After graduating in 2014, Adam Oriel Cohen became a Fellow in Public Affairs at CORO which is a highly selective, full-time, nine month, graduate-level experiential leadership training program that prepares diverse, talented and committed individuals for effective and ethical leadership in the public affairs arena. In 2017 Adam began the study of law at UCLA. Adam’s thesis was a comprehensive comparative investigation of the history and effectiveness of remedial programs in the CUNY and the California State University systems. As an undergraduate Adam was a Research Apprentice to Professor David […]

Emily Cohen

Emily will begin her Master’s degree in Occupational Therapy at USC in the Fall of 2015 and may continue for a third year to receive a Ph.D. As part of her admission package, Emily has been awarded a research opporunity in the Pediatric Department with Professor Sharon Cermak. Emily summarizes her 2014 thesis: In 1975 the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, addressed the inaccessibility of education for children with disabilities by requiring that all children with disabilities be provided a free appropriate public education (FAPE) (Individuals with Disability Education […]

Tali Gires

While also winning the Florence Palmer Prize in Political Science in 2014 for her work on NGOs, Tali wrote her ISF thesis on constructions of gender relations among different ethnicities living in rural communities in the San Martin region of Peru in order to understand how gender and ethnicity play a role in survival strategies for these communities and how gender and ethnic constructions relate to the development of economic and political structures. Based on fieldwork conducted in this region, she analyzed the ways in which these mestizo and indigenous […]

Kamyar Jarazadeh

Kamyar was awarded the Department Citation in 2014 and the prestigious Clarendon Fellowship given to only the most distinguished graduate students across the disciplines at Oxford. He writes: ISF has been a springboard for all of my past and ongoing projects. I’ve had the great opportunity to be be a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) scholar, allowing me to travel to Turkey to complete my ethnographic fieldwork and publish in the Berkeley Undergraduate Journal. I will be attending Oxford in Fall 2014, and undertaking the MSc program in Migration Studies. […]

Eviane Leidig

Having graduated in Spring of 2014, Eviane then received her Master’s at the University of Bristol in the UK before joining the newly founded Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo (http://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/) as their first PhD fellow this autumn. Her research project, ‘The Paradox of Hindu Right-Wing Extremism: Populist Discourse, Elitist Support, is the first in-depth study of Hindu right-wing ideology in the extremism field. Eviane previously studied abroad at King’s College London AY 2012-13, during which time she interned at a political non-profit, ENGAGE, which aims […]

Leilani Main

Kelly Leilani Main graduated in Spring of 2014, and has been accepted for the Master’s in Urban Planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in the Fall of 2016. After transferring to Cal in Fall of 2012, she worked extensively with the Olive Tree Initiative’s efforts to bring a conversation around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to campus and developed the Art for Social Change deCal, a political printmaking workshop. After traveling to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan in the Summer of 2013, she became deepy interested in urban planning […]

Megan Majd

After finishing her thesis on indigenous rights in a comparative context in 2014, Megan began as a John Gardner Fellow. Each year a total of six Fellows are selected, three from UC Berkeley and three from Stanford University. Megans internship goal was to change the culture around how people see issues related to environmental justice, by finding innovative ways to educate people and to change the systems that perpetuate problems associated with environmental justice through systematic policy change. Currently, Megan is working with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She splits […]