About the Generation Professionale: In-Formazione Project
The Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti- Discrimination Law and In-Formazione bring together students/young professionals from Italy and students/young professionals from Berkeley to discuss issues surrounding equality and discrimination. The project aims to expand perspectives, bridge connections, and open opportunities for second-generation Italians entering the job market. To date, students and young working professionals from Italy and the United States have been meeting via Zoom and discussing pressing social, economic, and legal topics
from a global comparative perspective.
The program is a collaboration started between Gordon Abeiku Mensah, the founder of In-Formazione, Megan Cistulli, postgraduate fellow at BCCE, and Julianna Bass, undergraduate researcher at BCCE.
Collaborators
Gordon Abeiku Mensah
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Gordon Mensah is a Consultant at World Bank Group (IFC and World Bank), and researcher at Astrid Foundation. He is founder and president of the social sustainability association In-Formazione. The association has been involved in career training and mentoring for about 5 years in partnership with more than 20 multinational companies, including U.S. big tech companies, 5 law firms among the top 15 in the world by revenue, and one of the world leaders in management consulting. The project has helped train and develop the careers of more than 200 students from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds in the professional world in recent years. Following these achievements and the impact made, the association was the winner of Baker Mckenzie’s first global Paul Rawlinson Award resulting the best project worldwide.
Gordon Mensah, previously worked at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (Italian Government) Regulatory Impact Analysis Service and at the secretariat of DG ITEC of the European Parliament. He has been a consultant at OECD and the Eni Foundation, Policy researcher at the Harvard Policy and Institutional Research Program and DPI London. He obtained a triple degree at the European Master in Law and Economics(Policy) from Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Universität Hamburg, UPF Barcelona and winner of the EU Commission’s Scholarship for the best eight applicants. Master’s Degree with Honors from the University of Milan and Université de Paris. Bachelor’s degree cum laude from the University of Parma.
He is, in addition, co-author of chapters within books published with academics and public and private administrators. He is a Junior Fellow at the Center for American Studies, was included in the Nova List 2022 as one of 10 professionals in public service and research, he is Winner of “Youth in Action for SDGs,” recipient of the Merit Award by the Italian Ministry of Education and the Italy-USA Foundation as one of the best graduates in the field of Political Science in Italy.
He is exposed to international contexts having lived, studied, and worked in 8 countries and 3 continents. He is fluent in four European languages and Twi and Fante(Ghana).
Megan Cistulli
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Megan Cistulli graduated from UC Berkeley in spring 2022 with highest distinction and earned a B.A. in Political Science with a specialization in international relations and American politics while minoring in human rights.
Working as a Civil Rights Research Fellow at the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law (BCCE), Megan has led and participated in numerous research and fellowship projects including:
Amicus brief for the Harvard/UNC affirmative action case; Maintained BCCE global membership and partnership network of over 900 activists, advocates, and academics; Islamophobia in Europe report collaborating with Open Society Foundations; Created edX courses on the Global #MeToo Movement
Megan founded UC Berkeley’s nationally ranked undergraduate moot court team, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Political Science Honor Society, a researcher at the Africa End Sexual Harassment Initiative, a fellow at the Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies, clerked for the Honorable Judge Gail Dekreon at the Superior Court of San Francisco, presented her research at the London School of Economics, was nominated for the 2022 University Medal, published an article in the Undergraduate Harvard Law Review, and is in the top 2.6% of undergraduate oral advocates in the U.S.
She is COO and a co-founding team member of Technology and Entrepreneurship Ladder, Inc. (T&E Ladder), a nonprofit organization that bridges the tech-ed opportunity gap by providing entrepreneurship and hi-tech education to high school students in Kenya. She also worked for Pearson as student director of the Social Impact and Sustainability Committee and as a government relations and sustainability intern where she spoke with California legislative assembly members regarding inclusive access and equity in education.
After graduating in May 2022, Megan was awarded a grant from UC Berkeley’s Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program to continue research at BCCE. She spent the summer of 2022 focusing on two research projects. First, she worked on the Brief of amici curiae Deans of U.S. Law Schools in the Harvard/UNC affirmative action cases. Second, she created globally-available edX courses on topics including the #MeToo Movement and pay equity. She worked remotely, which allowed her to travel to Kenya for Technology and Entrepreneurship Ladder, Inc. After her summer research concluded on August 1, 2022, she immediately started her full-time job as a postgraduate research fellow at the BCCE—a fellowship ending July 31, 2023. She continues to work on her nonprofit and part-time with Furaha-Joy Sekai Saungweme and the Africa End Sexual Harassment Initiative. Megan will be attending law school in fall 2023.
Julianna Bass
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Julianna Bass is a 4th year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley majoring in Psychology and minoring in African American Studies, while remaining on the Dean’s List for the College of Letters and Sciences and being newly elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
At the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law (BCCE), Julianna has worked as an Undergraduate Research Assistant (URA) and the Director of Communications. As a URA she has worked on projects including:
An EdX course for the Global Systemic Racism Working Group; a non-US Police Misconduct Class Action case; the Global Systemic Racism book project; the Equity & Criminal Justice Working Group’s seminars; a Transatlantic DEI initiative with the organization In-formazione.
Julianna is also a research assistant at the Black Studies Collaboratory through UC Berkeley’s African American Studies Department, a teaching assistant and health worker for the University Health Services Tang Center, an student administrator at the PATH to Care Center, a volunteer with the Black Recruitment and Retention Center, and served as the Director of Inclusion for her greek institution. She has also completed internships in the Office of Mayor Michael Tubbs, at the Reinvent Stockton Foundation, and with an Oakland-based law firm that specializes in employment law and worker’s rights. In the spring of 2022, Julianna studied abroad in Rome, Italy, where she volunteered with the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center.
In her time at the university she has been awarded: the Cal Alumni Leadership Award, the Congressional Black Caucus Spouses Education Scholarship, and the ATO Foundation of Berkeley Leadership Award.
As the Director of Communications at BCCE, Julianna has spearheaded both internal and external operations. She has led a team of students in maintaining the Center’s website and online presence, while also managing internal staff bulletins and weekly productivity reports. She took on the role of editor-in-chief of the 2022 Annual Report, where she cataloged Center operations, drafted descriptions, and utilized design skills to execute a comprehensive impact summary. Julianna also works as the lead of the student editorial team for the BCCE E-journal.