Public Interest Scholars
Financial and programmatic support
The Berkeley Law Public Interest Scholars Program is a three-year scholarship covering full tuition and fees for J.D. students dedicated to public interest work. As part of its public mission and commitment to public interest students, Berkeley Law admitted the first class of Public Interest Scholars in 2021.
Recipients will join the Public Interest Scholars community. Throughout the year, Scholars will attend networking and social events with like-minded students, staff, faculty, alumni, and local attorneys.
They’ll also build close connections within and among the Public Interest Scholars cohorts, expanding upon their community of support for their public interest job search. Scholars can also obtain program funds to attend conferences, plan events, or join bar associations.
With the Public Interest Scholars Program, Berkeley Law hopes to reduce the barriers law students face when deciding whether to pursue public interest legal careers. By accepting the Public Interest Scholarship, recipients commit to entering public interest work during their summers and after law school.
How to apply
Candidates for the Public Interest Scholars Program must have a demonstrated interest and commitment to public interest legal work during and after law school. “Public interest” encompasses a broad range of practice areas and workplaces, but most often refers to work with a nonprofit, government agency, union, plaintiffs’ side firm, educational institution, community organization, or international NGO.
To apply, you must submit a one to two page essay addressing the following prompt: Knowing the challenges that can come with pursuing a public interest legal career, what drives you toward your goals, and how do you plan to make a meaningful impact with your legal degree? Your essay must be included with your initial application materials. Please be sure your other application materials, such as your personal statement and resume, reflect your interest, experience, and commitment to the field.
Review and selection
The deadline to apply is December 15, 2024. Early decision applicants must apply by November 15, 2024.
To ensure that you have a completed application by the review period, you must have taken the LSAT or other accepted standardized tests by the end of November. All of your required application materials must be submitted by the deadline.
Every admitted student who applies for the program by the deadline will be evaluated. We are looking for a strong commitment to public interest work pre-law school and a desire to continue in public interest work at Berkeley Law and beyond. Successful applicants demonstrate a commitment to public interest work, a strong likelihood of entering public service after graduation, and an orientation toward leadership and initiative. We are looking for people who will be able to leave their mark on Berkeley Law and have a positive impact on their community.
Finalists may be required to complete additional essays or interviews with the scholarship committee.
Faculty mentor
Jonathan Simon joined the Berkeley Law faculty in 2003 as part of the J.D., JSP, and Legal Studies programs. He teaches in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, criminology, legal studies and the sociology of law.
Professor Simon’s scholarship concerns the role of crime and criminal justice in governing contemporary societies, risk and the law, and the history of the interdisciplinary study of law. His published works include over seventy articles and book chapters, and three single authored monographs, including: Poor Discipline: Parole and the Social Control of the Underclass (University of Chicago 1993, winner of the American Sociological Association’s sociology of law book prize, 1994), Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear (Oxford University Press 2007, winner of the American Society of Criminology, Hindelang Award 2010) and Mass Incarceration on Trial: A Remarkable Court Decision and the Future of Prisons in America (New Press 2014).
Simon has served as the co-editor-in-chief of the journal, Punishment and Society, and the co-editor of the Sage Handbook of Punishment & Society (along with Richard Sparks). He is a member of the Law & Society Association and the American Society of Criminology. Simon’s scholarship has been recognized internationally with appointment as a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship at the University of Edinburgh (2010-11), a Fellow of the Israeli Institute for Advanced Studies (2016), and a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (2018). In 2016 Simon was recognized for his scholarship on the human rights of prisoners with the Docteur honoris causa de la Faculté et de l’Institut, Faculté de Droit et Criminologie, Université Catholique de Louvain.
Meet the Scholars
Jump to: Class of 2027, Class of 2026, Class of 2025, Class of 2024
Class of 2027
Andrew Boardman
Andrew Boardman (he/him) is passionate about applying the tools of law and public policy to advance economic justice at scale. Andrew grew up in Rhode Island and earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Rhode Island, where he immersed himself in research and policy advocacy. He conducted an honors research project on the poverty-reducing Earned Income Tax Credit, presenting his findings in testimony to state lawmakers. He also spent a summer with the R.I. Division of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, served as an academic research assistant, and organized statewide youth advocacy efforts to enact tuition-free community college.
Andrew’s work before law school focused on actualizing the potential of the U.S. tax system to deliver shared prosperity and economic security. As a Policy Analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, D.C., Andrew published research and advised lawmakers and advocates. His analysis shaped policy debates and appeared in outlets including Bloomberg, Politico, and Business Insider. He previously served as a Research Assistant at the Urban Institute, a volunteer tax preparer for low-income families, and a fellow and American Rescue Plan Act policy consultant to the City of Providence, R.I. He is a Harry S. Truman Scholar.
At Berkeley Law, Andrew intends to deepen his understanding of legal and public policy pathways to a just economy. He looks forward to participating in a robust community dedicated to public service as a Public Interest Scholar. A lifelong product of public education, Andrew is honored to be pursuing his legal education at one of the world’s premier public institutions. He enjoys exploring new places on bike, live music, and iced americanos.
Mahima Chaudhary
Mahima (she/her) was born and raised in the D.C. metro area. She graduated from Georgetown University with a major in economics and minor in public health and discovered her interest in a legal career while studying abroad at the London School of Economics. Outside of the classroom, she enjoyed tutoring inmates at the Arlington County Detention Facility, learning Indian dance, and serving as the Director of Advocacy for the Georgetown chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. During her summers, she interned for the Environmental Law Institute and the Maryland Office of the Public Defender.
After graduating college, Mahima worked as a paralegal for two different law firms before landing her pre law school dream job of working at the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado in Denver. In this role, she assisted attorneys in investigating and litigating constitutional rights violations across the state and recognized her passion for defending and extending civil liberties.
Mahima hopes to leverage her education at Berkeley Law to pursue a career in either international human rights or civil rights. She views a law degree as an invaluable tool to expand access to justice and shape a more equitable society. In her free time, Mahima enjoys rock climbing, obsessing over dogs, reading fiction in parks, and napping in the sun.
Alice Cheng
Alice Cheng (she/her) grew up in the Bay Area, and graduated from Harvard College in 2020. For the past seven years, she has had the honor of working with brilliant, brave, compassionate, and hilarious young people in various capacities—as an afterschool counselor, summer program director and teacher, community advocate, and classroom teacher. She brings prior experience as an educator, teaching 10th grade Humanities in Oakland, California, and 8th grade Social Studies in Chelsea, Massachusetts as well as working with young people in various Chinatowns. In the classroom, she worked on her analysis and practice of critical literacy, culturally relevant pedagogy, ethnic studies, and differentiation for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Additionally, she has been involved in uplifting the voices of multilingual learners and their families in SF Chinatown and doing education equity work with the Chinatown community in solidarity with other communities of color.
Recognizing the larger systemic changes needed to support young people and their families, Alice hopes to continue to work towards education equity and racial justice. At Berkeley Law, she hopes to learn more about community and movement lawyering. She hopes to continue to learn, grow, and organize as she steps into law school as a Public Interest Scholar.
In her free time, she likes to eat pastries, spend time with family and friends, watch reality TV, and be in the sun (and ideally the water).
Renee Hernandez Rodriguez
Renee (she/her/ella) was raised in the border cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, México. She graduated cum laude from Yale University in 2020 with a B.A. in Humanities. As an undergraduate, Renee served as a Head Freshman Counselor, mentoring and supporting freshmen students. She also volunteered with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, where she provided free income tax preparation services in English and Spanish to low-income community members.
After graduating, Renee discovered her passion for advocacy at the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. At Las Americas, she helped defend immigrant survivors of domestic violence in the El Paso community. She then transitioned to working as a legal assistant at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP) in Arizona. For nearly four years, Renee helped advocate and provide legal representation for immigrant unaccompanied children seeking safety in the United States. Renee’s time supporting her clients inspired her to pursue a career in immigration law as well as to transform the immigration industrial complex.
Renee is excited to use her law degree to continue defending and empowering immigrant children and engender broad change in immigration policies through impact litigation. In her free time, Renee enjoys reading, hiking outdoors, and cooking new recipes from around the world to share with friends.
Perpetua Hilton
Perpetua “Petra” Hilton (she/her) was born and spent her childhood in Kansas City, Kansas. She received a B.A. in Religious Studies at the University of Kansas, and moved to the Bay Area in 2011 to pursue an M.A. in Ethics and Social Theory at the Graduate Theological Union. There, she wrote a thesis on St. Augustine’s ethic towards sexual violence in De Civitate Dei. During Petra’s undergraduate degree, she was a leader with the KU Queers and Allies group, and during her Masters program she worked as both a graduate teaching assistant as well as with the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network.
After Petra’s Master’s Degree and a short period of living in the United Kingdom, she began working at the Habeas Corpus Resource Center in San Francisco. Over her eight year tenure there, she rose from Clerical Assistant through Paralegal positions into the role of Senior Paralegal. As a paralegal Petra worked on habeas corpus litigation for indigent clients imprisoned on California’s death row, most of whom were convicted multiple decades prior, and whose claims ranged from juror misconduct and intellectual disability to actual innocence. She also volunteered to work in the office’s hiring practices, as well as its ongoing intra-office Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts.
Petra is primarily interested in criminal law, specifically trial and post-conviction advocacy. She is also interested in public advocacy for LGBTQ people, and criminal legal reform (especially on the topic of sex work decriminalization). Her hobbies outside of work include photography, traditional noir and transgressive horror film, as well as punk and industrial music. She lives with her spouse and 7-pound chihuahua.
Lauren Meadows
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Lauren Meadows (she/her) graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Indiana University in 2020. A Wells Scholar, Lauren majored in Political Science, History, and Spanish, and minored in Law & Public Policy. In 2018, she received a Provost’s Award for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity for her paper on the legal and political history of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and in 2020, she received the Herman B Wells Distinguished Senior Award for exemplary scholastic achievement and campus leadership. Lauren also spent two terms living and working abroad – in London and Madrid – and completed internships in and out of government, including with the Brennan Center for Justice in New York City.
Central to Lauren’s academic and professional interests is the global trend of democratic backsliding, and how it can be mitigated. After graduation, Lauren worked as a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. There, Lauren conducted research to inform international and domestic policymaking on democracy, conflict, and governance issues. She is especially proud of her work supporting the National Task Force on Election Crises during the 2020 election season. In 2021, Lauren joined the States United Democracy Center: a nonpartisan organization providing pro bono legal, communications, and research support to statewide election officials.
At Berkeley Law, Lauren hopes to continue her work at the nexus of law and political economy. She aims to use her degree to defend human rights and democratic norms in the face of ascendant authoritarianism, reform broken political institutions and processes, and strengthen the social contract by advancing ethical, transparent, and responsive government at all levels. In her free time, Lauren is an avid hiker, amateur photographer, and voracious science fiction and fantasy reader.
Ben Regas
Ben Regas (he/him) was born and raised in Berkeley, CA. During his undergraduate years, he developed interests in public legal services and local government, interning at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant (EBSC) and in the California State Assembly through a fellowship with Equality California (EQCA). After graduating from Columbia University with a B.A. in Political Science and East Asian Studies, he taught English in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright scholar. He then returned to New York City and direct services, working in eviction defense and tenant organizing for three years as a paralegal in the Tenants’ Rights Unit of the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG). Most recently, he served as the Community Organizer at the Waterfront Alliance, working to create accessible resources integrating climate change education with emergency preparedness.
Ben’s intersecting interests in urban policy, housing and environmental justice, city government, and direct services bring him to Berkeley Law. He is excited to return to his hometown, support his family and community, and eat his way through the Bay Area.
Meghan Riddlespurger
Meghan (she/her) is a dedicated advocate for equitable housing policies, driven by her belief that everyone should have access to safe, affordable housing in any community. Raised in Amarillo, Texas, Meghan attended Amarillo College and graduated summa cum laude from West Texas A&M University with a B.A. in Political Science. Her early experiences attending Amarillo City Council meetings sparked her interest in public service through local government, where she observed firsthand the impact of land use decisions and community participation. When she learned of plans to disinvest in Amarillo’s city core in 2015, Meghan led a political action committee that increased voter turnout and successfully campaigned for a ballot initiative to fund revitalization projects in Downtown Amarillo.
After earning her Master’s in City and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Arlington, Meghan’s focus shifted toward housing justice during her tenure as a city planner in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. There, she advocated for affordable housing proposals and tackled exclusionary zoning practices, initiating significant technology and policy reforms in city planning processes.
Relocating to the Bay Area in 2020, Meghan continued her advocacy in San Carlos, California. As a city planner, she drafted a new Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) ordinance, helped reform development standards for multifamily projects, and improved building permit processes, making housing development in San Carlos more accessible. In 2023, Meghan transitioned to a role with the State of California as a housing policy analyst with the Department of Housing and Community Development’s ADU Team, where she helped applicants navigate obstacles to building ADUs and collaborated with California jurisdictions to align their local regulations with state housing laws.
Building upon her public service career in urban planning and development roles, Meghan intends to use her law degree to advance housing opportunities, especially in response to regulatory challenges and climate migration. Meghan is grateful and excited to join the Berkeley Law community and looks forward to contributing to public interest efforts alongside her classmates. Meghan spends her free time succulent gardening, making art, and walking (or being walked by) her dogs.
Rose Strauss
Rose Strauss (she/her) is a joint Juris Doctor and Master of Public Policy candidate at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and Goldman School of Public Policy. As a youth activist facing the climate crisis, Rose often felt she had no place at the policy decision-making table. So, she built her own.
Rose started 350 Bay Area’s youth chapter at 15 and later spearheaded initiatives with the Sunrise Movement, Future Coalition, and Project Super Bloom. Rose’s organizing efforts were featured in the Guardian and the New York Times. Eager to turn her advocacy into real policy change, Rose sought to understand the inter-workings of the political process. She interned on the hill and with her local government. She worked as an analyst for the California Energy Commission, a graduate student researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Electricity Markets and Policy Group, and most recently completed an internship at the White House Infrastructure Implementation Team focused on energy policy.
As a public policy and law student, Rose hopes to work at the intersection between policy and politics by making climate policy accessible to those who are not professionals and politicians. Rose graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a BA in Environmental Studies and a minor in Poverty, Inequality, and Social Justice in 2021. In her free time, she enjoys exploring the outdoors and playing guitar.
Anna Tropiano
Anna Tropiano (she/her) is originally from Katonah, New York. In 2021, she graduated with highest distinction from the University of Michigan and the Residential College with a major in Political Science and minor in Writing. At Michigan, Anna focused her studies and efforts on issues of civil rights, and environmental and reproductive justice. Experiences include a year-long internship with the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Oceanic and Scientific Affairs researching violence against environmental defenders in Brazil, assisting a Michigan Law student with research on the effects of state policy-making on habeas corpus and abortion law, and volunteering at Washtenaw County’s Office of Public Defender. Additionally, Anna worked as an editor for the gender parity nonprofit Take The Lead Women from 2019-2024.
After graduation, Anna moved to San Diego to work as a legal assistant at Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP, a national employment discrimination and civil rights law firm. During her two years at the firm, Anna supported clients bringing claims of race, gender and pregnancy discrimination on pre-suit matters as well as several matters in litigation; most recently, Anna assisted the legal team during the Mattson v. Milliman, Inc. trial in the Western District of Washington which brought claims of fiduciary abuse against a consulting firm.
Anna is excited to stay in California and plans to use her time at Berkeley Law to learn how to combat the criminalization of pregnancy and other reproductive injustices in the legal system. In her free time, Anna enjoys cooking her family’s Italian recipes, enjoying the outdoors, and attempting the New York Times Sunday crosswords.
Apoorva Verghese
Apoorva Verghese (she/her) was born in the UK before moving to the United States and growing up in Houston, Texas. She graduated summa cum laude from Tulane University in 2023 with a BS in Psychology and Linguistics and a minor in Spanish. Her Linguistics senior thesis, which received highest honors, examined language shifts over time in Bollywood movies, in relation to India’s increasingly nationalistic political climate. During her undergraduate years, Apoorva interned with the Orleans Public Defenders, the ACLU’s National Prison Project, and the Innocence Project New Orleans. Each of these experiences proved formative and sparked a desire to work in indigent defense spaces.
After graduation, Apoorva volunteered as a naturalization tutor and worked with InReach, a tech nonprofit that compiles safe and affirming resources for queer individuals across North America.
Apoorva is excited to spend time in the Bay Area. She hopes to use her time at Berkeley Law to further her understanding of criminal systems, abolition, and the uses and limits of the law as a tool. In her free time she enjoys reading cheesy romance novels and experimenting with new baking recipes.
Class of 2026
Samahria Alpern
Samahria (she/her) is interested in holistic advocacy within criminal, youth, and family defense work. She graduated from Brown University in 2021 with a degree in Urban Studies. Samahria grew up in Albany County, New York, and she spent her undergraduate years interning at the Albany County Office of the Public Defender, the New York State Youth Justice Institute, and the Legal Aid Society Homeless Rights Project.
After graduating, Samahria worked as a paralegal for two years at Children’s Rights in New York City. There, she supported class action impact litigation cases addressing issues including the over-administration of psychotropic medication to youth with mental health needs in foster care and the provision of legally mandated special education services to youth incarcerated at an adult jail.
Samahria aspires to use her law degree to help build creative and anti-racist alternatives to the punitive legal institutions that underpin incarceration and family separation. In her free time, Samahria finds joy playing piano, painting, and picking up new grandmotherly crafts like weaving.
Nick Delehanty
Nick (he/him) was born and raised in Albany, New York. He graduated summa cum laude from Middlebury College with a major in history and minors in French and global health. Nick’s thesis on state intervention on behalf of organized labor in the New Deal argued that the federal government somewhat successfully mobilized the concept of civil liberties to advance a novel economic standard of well-being for workers. Nick’s thesis won awards for best thesis in American history and best thesis in the humanities on an American topic at Middlebury and was published in Clio’s Scroll, The UC Berkeley Undergraduate History Journal.
After college, Nick turned his attention to state-created injustices and inequities in the criminal legal system, working at Federal Defenders of New York for five years: as paralegal, as chief paralegal, and then as the organization’s first data director. Nick participated in the holistic defense of hundreds of clients from pre-arraignment to post-sentencing, including supporting attorneys and clients in the courtroom in multi-week trials and suppression hearings. In one notable case, Nick developed digital investigatory leads over three years that contributed to the U.S. Department of Justice dropping the death penalty against a client facing federal murder charges. As chief paralegal, Nick worked to improve working conditions for non-attorney staff at Federal Defenders and to increase the fairness and equity of office processes like workload distribution, case assignment, and hiring.
Nick became the first data director at Federal Defenders thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Faced with hundreds of incarcerated clients who were cut off from their legal teams by the pandemic, Nick used the long days of isolation to teach himself to code. He then developed a first-of-its-kind legal call request and scheduling system for the entire New York defense bar. This system has to date enabled over 45,000 legal calls with incarcerated people at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, the largest pre-trial detention facility in the United States.
At Berkeley Law, Nick is a member of the Post-Conviction Advocacy Project where he works as part of a three-person law student team to represent someone serving a life sentence before the California Board of Parole Hearings. He is also a member of the Law and Political Economy Society and Defenders at Berkeley. During his 1L summer, he interned at the Office of the State Public Defender, assisting in the direct appeals of people sentenced to death in California. Nick enjoys outdoor rock climbing, reading about labor history and philosophy, and not taking himself too seriously.
Léo Mandani
Léo Mandani (they/them) was born and raised in Tehran, Iran before immigrating to Los Angeles. In 2020, they graduated magna cum laude from Tufts University with double majors in Quantitative Economics and Middle Eastern Studies. As an undergraduate, Léo worked as a Research Assistant at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where they examined the efficacy of legal statutes in protecting global labor interests, ranging from Eastern European migrant laborers in Germany to low-wage garment workers in Bangladesh.
After graduating, Léo moved back to California to work as a Paralegal at Altshuler Berzon LLP. There, they have assisted on a number of class actions that aim to advance workers’ rights, both directly in the labor context, such as combating gender wage discrepancies, and indirectly in the consumer protection context, such as challenging predatory vocational programs.
At Berkeley Law, Léo is excited to explore how to best attain economic justice through legislative drafting and impact litigation in the workplace and hopes to bring a perspective of the law that centers anti-poverty as one of its core tenets. In their spare time, Léo likes reading memoirs, perfecting their Iranian stew recipes, and developing an encyclopedic knowledge of the Real Housewives.
Cindy Nguyen
Cindy Nguyen (she/her) is a proud first-generation Vietnamese-American dedicated to building a more healthy, just, and equitable world for all. Originally from Edmonds, Washington, she later graduated magna cum laude from Colby College with a B.A. in Environmental Policy. At Colby, she cultivated a dedication to environmental and social justice. In particular, her summer exploring conservation and Indigenous sovereignty issues on the Colorado Plateau with the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program at Northern Arizona University instilled her desire to uplift and support BIPOC leadership within the environmental movement. Subsequently, she sought to support environmental justice projects at various non-profits, including promoting access to green stormwater infrastructure in South Seattle’s Vietnamese communities with the Environmental Coalition of South Seattle and evaluating access to urban greenspace in Pennsylvania and Virginia with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
As a scholar, Cindy has extensively studied and approached environmental issues with an equity and racial-justice lens. Her senior thesis, for which she received an Honors in Environmental Studies, explored attitudes of nail technicians toward environmental-health concerns in Vietnamese owned and operated nail salons in Snohomish County, Washington. Her research on the social, economic, and physical dimensions of climate vulnerability in Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS) has also been published in Caribbean Geography and Frontiers in Environmental Science.
Following graduation, Cindy spent nearly two years as a Roger Arliner Young Clean Energy Fellow with Rocky Mountain Institute’s (RMI) Islands Energy Program. In her role, she provided technical research, analysis, and writing to support the development of clean energy pathways in Caribbean SIDS. In 2022, Cindy transitioned to working with RMI’s Climate Finance Access Network to help increase access to climate finance for capacity-constrained countries in the Global South. Her time supporting countries carve their own climate and development futures and build resilience deeply inspired her to seek out how traditional tools of power, including the law, can be used to bring power back into historically impacted communities.
Meghana Ravikumar
Meghana (she/her) grew up in the Bay Area. She graduated from Scripps College in 2017 with a degree in history. As an undergraduate, Meghana tutored and mentored multiple youth from low-income communities. She also served as president of the Hindu Society, where she collaborated with others to plan and lead celebrations of Hindu holidays for the community. Her proudest accomplishment was conducting research in the Tamil Nadu State Archives in India and writing an award-winning thesis of original research. Her focus was on how female temple dancers navigated the colonial legal system to advocate for their rights and protest the government’s oppression of their traditions in 19th-century India.
Post-graduation, she worked as an immigration paralegal for four years, assisting undocumented immigrants with a variety of legal cases. She also collaborated with local organizers and community members as part of a coalition dedicated to halting local ICE transfers. Her experience at the organization proved to be a formative one and led to an interest in community organizing, movement lawyering, criminal legal reform, and abolition. Many of the nonprofit’s clients were Mexican and Mexican American, which sparked a desire in Meghana to learn more about Mexico and develop a more nuanced understanding of migration factors. She then spent 2 years teaching English in Mexico as a Fulbright grantee, specifically in the cities of Aguascalientes and Merida.
At Berkeley Law, Meghana hopes to learn more about movement lawyering, criminal legal reform, abolition, and restorative justice. Her goal is to use her law degree to support those communities most affected by policing and the criminal legal system. In her free time, Meghana enjoys reading, watching movies, and dancing salsa and bachata.
Emily Rehmet
Emily (she/her) was born and raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Brown University in 2020, with a double-major degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Public Policy. In college, Emily was a co-captain of the Brown Mock Trial Team and ex-officio member of the Brown University Title IX Steering Committee.
After graduation, Emily worked for three years as a Clinical Research Coordinator for the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain & Behavior (CLBB). At CLBB, she worked on projects at the intersection of neuroscience and the law, such as a white paper on the science of the emerging adult brain for use by policymakers, judges, and attorneys.
At Berkeley Law, Emily is interested in pursuing “neuroscience for justice” and improving access to neuroscience research in the courtroom, particularly for under resourced and pro se litigants. In her free time, Emily loves to backpack to new countries, cook Taiwanese dishes with her grandmother, and practice vinyasa yoga.
Rosie Rios
Rosie Rios (she/her/ella) is born and raised in Baldwin Park, California and is the proud daughter of immigrants. Her mother is from El Salvador and her father is from Mexico. As an activist, organizer, and the “word weaver” of her family, she has been fluent in English and Spanish all of her life. As a long time organizer and former social worker, she has extensive experience supporting and uplifting people directly impacted by “crimmigration” — the intersection of the criminal legal system and immigration, where she offers trauma and healing-informed, bilingual services. She has been a holistic defense practitioner for the Bronx Defenders in the immigration practice and the Santa Barbara Public Defender’s office in the criminal defense practice.
Before joining Berkeley Law, Rosie served as the Managing Director for the UCLA Prison Education program where she channeled her efforts to create access for higher education to incarcerated people in county, state, and federal prisons. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology with a minor in Labor and Workplace Studies from UCLA and a Master’s degree in Social Work from Columbia University School of Social Work.
Rosie intends to use her law degree to continue serving people in underserved communities, like the one that helped raise her. In her free time, Rosie enjoys snowboarding and grounding herself with nature.
Lande Watson
Lande Watson (she/her) grew up in the Bay Area and is thrilled to be back for law school. She graduated summa cum laude with departmental honors in Political Communication from George Washington University, where she was a member of the University Honors Program.
Prior to pursuing a public interest legal career, Lande held advocacy and communications roles in government and nonprofits. She was a member of the communications team at the Asian Law Caucus (ALC), the country’s first legal aid and civil rights organization serving low-income Asian Pacific American communities. At ALC, she collaborated with attorneys and community advocates to oppose the double punishment of immigrant and refugee community members, fight abusive workplace practices, and support older tenants in San Francisco. Before joining ALC, Lande served as Deputy Director of Speechwriting and Research for California Governor Gavin Newsom. She is especially proud of her work on the Governor’s death penalty moratorium and the state’s COVID-19 response. Lande was also an organizer for NARAL Pro-Choice California during the 2018 election cycle. Before moving to Berkeley, she spent a year in Japan’s Ibaraki Prefecture, teaching English to high schoolers through the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET).
Lande is interested in criminal and immigration law and excited to explore the variety of public interest opportunities at Berkeley Law. She enjoys long-distance running, trying new restaurants and coffee shops, and spending time with family and friends.
Ianna Zhu
Ianna Zhu (she/her) was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. In 2022, she graduated summa cum laude from UC Berkeley as a double major in Psychology and Political Economy with a concentration in health policy and inequality. Her honors thesis analyzed data from the National Health Interview Survey to examine the causal effect of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid Expansion on access to and utilization of mental health care services among minority and immigrant populations. As an undergraduate, she was a research assistant for the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law and interned with JusticeCorps at the Self-Help Center in Hayward.
Upon graduating, Ianna has been advocating for survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking at Asian Americans for Community Involvement, a nonprofit in the South Bay dedicated to serving and improving the health and wellness of those who are marginalized and vulnerable in our diverse community.
She is excited to be staying in the Bay Area to attend Berkeley Law. As a first-generation professional student, she plans to study the law critically with the questions of how vulnerable communities like immigrants with language barriers, those with low socio-economic status, and those who have faced trauma will be impacted. In her free time, Ianna enjoys volunteering at her church and reading while enjoying a nice hot cup of tea.
Class of 2025
MacKenna Alvarez
Originally from Southern California, MacKenna (she/her) graduated magna cum laude from NYU in 2019 with a BS in Secondary English education and double minors in Urban Education and Public Policy. As an undergraduate, MacKenna studied the harmful impacts of privatization on education as both a research assistant for NYU and USC, and as an education consultant for schools in Los Angeles.
After graduation, MacKenna taught 7th and 8th grade history and English in Brooklyn, New York where she created anti-racist curriculum scorecards and teaching practices for her charter network to implement across all subject areas. By working at a charter school, MacKenna deepened her passion for fighting against privatization and for tackling factors outside of education that contribute to economic inequality. She is excited to continue this work at Berkeley as a Public Interest Scholar.
In her free time, MacKenna enjoys reading, making unnecessary lists, and spending time with her cat, Chubs.
Leily Arzy
Leily Arzy (she/her) was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 2019, she graduated summa cum laude from Emory University. Her honors thesis examined the factors contributing to over a decade of juvenile justice reform across the United States.
Leily joins Berkeley Law after two years at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York City where she worked to end mass incarceration. She conducted research and authored analyses on a wide range of criminal justice issues, including state policing reforms following George Floyd’s murder and efforts to overhaul cash bail in California. Leily also engaged in legislative advocacy at the state and federal levels—frequently working with Congress to advance critical reforms, including legislation that would reduce incarceration during the COVID-19 pandemic and eliminate the federal crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity.
Prior to the Brennan Center, Leily spent a year in Sacramento as a Judicial Fellow with the Judicial Council of California, the policy and rule-making body for the state’s judiciary. Leily’s work focused on promoting the equitable administration of justice in state courts. Her culminating project was a best practices guide for courts to effectively implement and comply with the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Outside of school, Leily enjoys spending time with friends and family, listening to live music, and baking sourdough bread.
Marian Avila Breach
Marian Avila Breach (she/hers/ella) graduated summa cum laude from UC Santa Cruz in 2020 with double majors in Philosophy and Politics. Born in Northern Mexico to a Mexican family, she grew up in the Bay Area but has been fortunate to maintain strong ties to Mexico. As an undergraduate, Marian led an investigative team as part of UC Santa Cruz’s inaugural Human Rights Investigation Lab. Her work in the lab involved the use of open source investigative techniques to verify human rights abuses in Latin America. Upon graduation and in response to her experiences with the lab, Marian began volunteering with the the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF) in the capacity of interpreter for asylum cases.
Following an interest in the intersection between marginalization and criminalization, Marian joined the Santa Cruz Public Defender’s Office as an investigator and assisted trial attorneys preparing defendants for trial. Impulsed by her experiences in public defense, Marian sought out a tutoring opportunity with Mount Tamalpais College, an accredited college within San Quentin Prison. There, Marian helped the San Quentin Ethics Bowl team prepare for annual Ethics Bowl competitions hosted at San Quentin against teams from a variety of Bay Area universities. Marian continues to volunteer with MTC, finding joy and purpose within the MTC community.
At Berkeley Law, Marian has reaffirmed her commitment to public interest law. As an upcoming leader for La Alianza Tenants’ and Worker’s Rights SLPS, Marian hopes to further address the need for intersectional legal work in the public interest realm and sustain pathways through which Berkeley Law students can continue giving back to their community.
Ayeza Bajwa
Ayeza (she/her) was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. She graduated from Yale University in 2020. After she graduated, Ayeza worked as a paralegal at Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) on their litigation team, which challenged restrictions to reproductive health care in over a dozen states, in both federal and state courts. While her two years at PPFA were marked by major losses for the reproductive rights movement, this only made her more confident that she wanted to pursue a career in public interest law and use the legal system to to push for health equity.
As a law student, Ayeza has continues to pursue her passion for reproductive justice, participating in the State and Local Interest Litigation Practicum and interning on the Social Justice and Impact Litigation Team of the Santa Clara County Counsel. She has also explored a burgeoning interest in workers’ rights through internships at the National Employment Law Project and Altshuler Berzon. Ayeza has thoroughly enjoyed opportunities to mentor fellow law students as a Legal Research and Writing Tutor and Public Interest Chair for the Women+ of Color Collective. She looks forward to participating in the Ninth Circuit Practicum as a 3L.
In her free time, you can find Ayeza cooking Pakistani food or synchronized swimming.
Tiffaney Boyd
Tiffaney Boyd (she/her) is passionate about challenging inequality, expanding access to justice, and uplifting community voices. She grew up in Hemet, California, and graduated magna cum laude as a double major in Communication and Social Science with an emphasis on Critical Intercultural Communication from California State University San Marcos. As a first-generation college student, Tiffaney’s activism and position as Student Body President led to the creation of a student-led food pantry to alleviate student hunger and a student resource center for Black students. During undergrad, she also worked for the San Diego District Attorney’s Office with their victim’s unit, and her research on “Safe Spaces” was published in the International Undergraduate Journal for Service-Learning, Leadership, and Social Change.
After graduation, Tiffaney spent more than five years working in politics and public service. She most recently worked as a Legislative Director in the California State Assembly. Throughout her time in government, she made a concerted effort to advocate and uplift communities of color through legislative channels. Tiffaney was instrumental in passing legislation on institutionalizing trauma-informed criminal justice reform, expanding food security for college students, and requiring Ethnic Studies for college graduates at the CSU. Beyond working for the Legislature, where she began as a Jesse M. Unruh Assembly Fellow, Tiffaney has also served as a Policy Director for a statewide ballot measure and worked as the Policy and Government Affairs Director for the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls.
Tiffaney hopes to leverage the skills gained from her time in government and her legal education to bridge the gap between access, justice, and policy for marginalized and low-income communities of color. In her spare time, Tiffaney enjoys traveling, listening to podcasts, and practicing yoga.
Julianna Gay
Julianna Gay (she/her) grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. She attended Cornell University, where she earned her B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations and double minored in Law & Society and Crime, Prisons, Education & Justice. While at Cornell, Julianna co-founded an organization known as the Parole Preparation Project, which helped incarcerated individuals navigate the challenging process of obtaining parole. Julianna also had the opportunity to intern with Judge Richard Berman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In this role, she also advocated for formerly incarcerated individuals who were on supervised release.
These experiences have emboldened Julianna to dedicate her legal career to fighting for a more just and rehabilitative carceral system. Specifically, she desires to continue to advocate for Black and Brown individuals who are often disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system.
In her free time, Julianna has a passion for painting, playing softball/volleyball, and spending time outdoors.
Mackenzie Gettel
Mackenzie (she/her) grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. She graduated cum laude from the University of Missouri in 2022. She received degrees in philosophy and political science. As an undergraduate, Mackenzie participated in multiple activities on and off-campus including serving as a site leader for an alternative breaks service organization, competing in collegiate mock trial, and leading as president of the first-generation students association.
Outside of school, Mackenzie worked under a property rights attorney as an administrative assistant. She gained experience assisting in multiple trials and preparing various court documents. Mackenzie is interested in becoming a legal advocate for homeless/at-risk youth who are occluded from legal representation.
At Berkeley Law, she’s curious to learn more about the intricacies of the homelessness crisis from an empathetic, yet an objective point of view, specifically as it relates to homeless teenagers and their pivotal positions in society. During her 1L summer, Mackenzie is interning at Bay Area Legal Aid in the Consumer Protection section. In addition to working on debt collection defense cases, she will also be working on affirmative impact litigation against a big bank, which is set to go to trial this summer. She is also working as a research assistant for Professor Davis. Here at Berkeley Law, Mackenzie is the Director of the Homelessness Service Project and helped found a new service project called the Algorithmic Justice Project in her 1L year. Under the direction of Professor Mermin, they are investigating how algorithmic decision making harms prospective tenants.
In Mackenzie’s free time, she enjoys working out, meditating, and spending time with friends and family—many of who inspired her to attend law school!
Adriana Herrera
Adriana Herrera (she/her) was born and raised in Rochester, New York. She graduated from The New School in 2018, where she co-led programming for students of color that ultimately led to the establishment of the first-ever community space for students of color on the university’s campus.
Post-graduation, she worked as a Program Coordinator at Cool Culture, a Brooklyn-based organization that uses art and culture to propel social change in schools, cultural institutions and communities. For the past year, she has worked with the Center for Educational Leadership, supporting nationwide professional learning opportunities for K-12 district leaders. In 2021, she had the honor of contributing to the Free Minds, Free People national conference for liberatory education.
At Berkeley Law, Adriana is excited to explore the breadth of public interest opportunities in education policy and beyond. Adriana is also an aspiring baker, recovering sneaker collector, and Gemini.
Peter Mason
Peter (he/him) was born and raised in New York City. He graduated from Pomona College in 2018, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and earned departmental honors with his Philosophy major.
After graduating, Peter worked as a Paralegal at Altshuler Berzon LLP and a Legal Assistant at Gladstein, Reif & Meginniss, LLP. The two law firms specialize, among other things, in representing labor unions and workers. His exposure to that work generated an interest in the role lawyers can play supporting social movements, which he is excited to be pursuing at Berkeley Law.
As a law student, Peter is on the Executive Board of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Society at Berkeley, as well as co-Editor-in-Chief of the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law and Podcast Editor of the California Law Review. He is also active with the labor union for academic workers across the UC system, UAW 4811.
Bhavya Sukhavasi
A Michigan native, Bhavya (she/her) is dedicated to leveraging the law to design a more humane, equitable health care system. In 2020, Bhavya graduated from the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy with a concentration in Health Policy and a minor in Writing. As an undergraduate, Bhavya worked at the Center for Value-Based Insurance Design (V-BID Center), an organization which aims to improve health outcomes and contain costs by aligning stakeholders around high-value health care. Bhavya was also dedicated to strengthening the connections between students at the University of Michigan and Detroit-based community partners through her involvement in clubs such as The Detroit Partnership.
After graduating, Bhavya moved to Washington, DC and began work as a research assistant at the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MEDPAC), a nonpartisan legislative branch agency that provides the U.S. Congress with payment policy analysis on the Medicare program.
At Berkeley Law, Bhavya hopes to continue to explore how public health interventions can make the United States health care system more accessible, affordable, and humane. Outside of school, she is excited to try new coffee shops, trail run, and hammock with the company of a good book.
Class of 2024
Nora Ellmann
Nora (she/her) grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. She graduated from Brown University in 2017 with a BA in development studies and a focus on movements for reproductive rights in Latin America.
Taylor Fox
Taylor (she/her and they/them) is a Berkeley Law graduate interested in legal advocacy that advances the work of communities who are building a world beyond the prison-industrial complex. In 2020, Taylor graduated from the University of Chicago with a B.A. in Political Science, and spent her summers interning with the D.C. Public Defender Service and Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. Before law school, Taylor conducted research as a master’s student on the history of US counterinsurgency, policing, and the George Floyd uprisings.
As a law student, Taylor has rooted their legal study in work that fights policing and surveillance through internships with Stop LAPD Spying Coalition and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Taylor has also been a part of student-led pro bono projects that challenge the expansion of digital surveillance technologies and provide legal support to incarcerated people while at Berkeley. These experiences have shaped Taylor’s commitment to community and movement lawyering that is grounded in an abolitionist framework. Outside of law school, Taylor is active in abolitionist and Palestine solidarity organizing in the Bay Area.
Jamilah McMillan
Jamilah McMillan (she/her) graduated magna cum laude from Monmouth University in 2017 with a major in political science and double minors in journalism and graphic design. As an undergraduate, Jamilah was the news and managing editor of her university’s students run newspaper, the president of the Muslim Student Association, and the founder and president of Student’s Advocating Girls’ Education.
At Berkeley Law Jamilah spent a year doing youth defense advocacy at the East Bay Community Law Center where she represented young people in hearings and court appearances. During her 1L summer Jamilah interned at Law for Black Lives assisting with legal work for Black people in Brooklyn. During her 2L summer Jamilah became familiarized with family law after becoming a Bergstrom Fellow and interning at Brooklyn Defender Services in their Family Defense Practice. A highlight of Jamilah’s Berkeley Law experience was spending a semester abroad in South Africa doing legal work, as well as helping to organize a delegation of law students on a solidarity trip to Palestine in 2022.
Jamilah will pursue a legal career of civil rights litigation and family law as a fellow at the Family Justice Law Center in NYC.
Kevin Steen
Kevin (he/him) grew up in Skagit County, Washington before moving to Los Angeles to study linguistics and Arabic. He later moved to the Bay Area to work in the field of automatic speech recognition. In 2014, Kevin founded an international organization that provides direct assistance to queer and trans people who have been rejected by their families. He is also involved in leftist political organizing in the East Bay, particularly in the area of tenant struggle. He speaks Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, and some French.
Kevin is interested in interrupting the violence of the carceral system and facilitating pathways for healing from personal and intergenerational traumas. At Berkeley Law, he’s curious to study the systems that perpetuate white supremacy, ableism, cis-heteropatriachy, and anti-poverty. His activities at the law school include Students for Justice in Palestine, Defenders at Berkeley, the Policy Advocacy Clinic, the Abolitionist Collective at Berkeley, and Queers United in Radical Subversion. He hopes to begin his legal career as a public defender in the Bay Area.
Kevin enjoys weightlifting, hot springs, and preparing food for loved ones. He is a passionate birdwatcher and documents his exploits on Instagram @kevbirds. Recently, he was very excited to observe his first American Dipper at the Yuba River.
Amanda Young
Amanda Young (she/her) is a proud Bay Area native and is excited to continue local advocacy at Berkeley Law. Most recently, she worked as an Organizer and Program Associate at the ACLU of Northern California. At the ACLU, she organized with the gender, sexuality, and reproductive justice team, leading campaigns to protect reproductive and LGBTQ health care from religious restrictions, and working with labor organizers to pass local and statewide paid leave policies. Additionally, she managed an organizing and racial justice training program for young BIPOC leaders in the Central Valley.
Prior to joining the ACLU, Amanda worked at the Legal Aid Association of California in Oakland, advocating for increased legal aid funding. Before LAAC, she was an AmeriCorps fellow at Healthy Start of Southern Oregon, a national infant mortality prevention program, and also worked in Washington D.C. as a health care policy analyst.
Amanda graduated with highest honors from Duke University with an A.B. in Public Policy and a minor in Arabic.
Outside of school, Amanda serves on the board of New Leaders Council- San Francisco. She also enjoys trail running, reading astrological charts, teaching mindfulness and meditation, and baking many types of pastries.
