Development

Research Interest

Ana Singh

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Public Health
South/Southeast Asian Studies

Ana is a fourth year student double majoring in Public Health and Political Science with minors in Public Policy and South/Southeast Asian Studies. Her academic interests include religious violence and politics in South Asia, tropical infectious disease epidemiology, and depictions of racial, sexual, and religious minorities in media. Ana is fluent in English, Hindi/Urdu, and Spanish. In the past, she has conducted research on the soda tax in place in several Bay Area cities, interned at the Berkeley City Council, and worked for the Indian non-profit Tata Trusts in Nagpur, Maharashtra. Ana...

Tanya Tandon

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Goldman School of Public Policy

Tanya Tandon is a senior at UC Berkeley majoring in Political Science with a concentration in International Relations and double minoring in Public Policy and Human Rights. On campus, Tanya served as the President of the Association for Socially Responsible Business. Before coming to UC Berkeley, Tandon worked in the nonprofit sector at RESULTS in advocacy and legislative work. Her previous experience focused on international sustainable development with the US Green Chamber of Commerce, as well as inclusive sustainable tourism and CSR at Taj Indian Hotels Company Limited in Mumbai through...

Kate Ngo

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Economics
French

Kate Ngo is currently a junior from San Gabriel Valley, CA double majoring in Political Science and Economics at UC Berkeley. Her academic interests broadly include international human rights, economic development, and interstate conflict. She is also pursuing a minor in French to learn more about the language and culture. Last semester, Ngo interned at a nonprofit media and communications organization where she tracked opinion polls and helped build a database to store polling data. In her free time, you will find her reading a suspense novel or binging on the latest Korean drama.

Mariano Sigifredo

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Goldman School of Public Policy

Mariano is an Argentinian senior student pursuing a B.A. in Political Science, with a concentration in comparative politics and the political economy of development, with a minor in Public Policy. He is interested in the distribute effects of fiscal rents in developing countries and the politics of economic development. He worked as a research assistant and a “Summer Research Fellow” on projects of international security and post-conflict contexts in Latin America. He has been working on an Honors thesis that seeks to analyze the impact of the variation of subnational regime types in...

Jolie Leung

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Political Economy

Jolie Leung is a junior pursuing a B.A. in Political Science with a concentration in International Relations and a minor in Political Economy. Her interests include post-conflict economic development, human rights, and socio-economic inequality, particularly in Latin America and East Asia. Since 2019, Leung has worked as a research assistant to Dr. Aila Matanock in her project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Minerva Research Initiative, researching and analyzing data on the constitutional frameworks of post-colonial nations. Aside from research, Leung teaches about current...

Ali Hasan

Undergraduate Student
Political Science
Rhetoric

Ali Hasan is in his third-year pursuing a B.A. in Political Science with a concentration in Comparative Politics and a minor in Rhetoric. His interests include constitutional law, failed states, postcolonial politics, political theory, and the intersection of rhetoric and politics. Hasan is also involved with the City of Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission, UC Berkeley’s model UN team, and political publications centered around international relations and human rights. After graduation, he hopes to pursue law school and learn more about criminal justice reform and public interest law...

Ariana Jessa

Undergraduate Student
Environmental Economics and Policy
Haas School of Business

Ariana is a senior studying Environmental Economics and Policy and Business Administration at UC Berkeley. Her prior research has been focused on climate change economics, and she is currently finishing up her thesis on modelling the migration of a Panamanian indigenous group due to climate change. She has worked with numerous professors as an undergraduate researcher on projects ranging from climate governance to peace deals and counterinsurgency in the Middle East. In her spare time, Ariana enjoys cooking and learning Arabic.

Krish Gopalan

Undergraduate Student
Molecular and Cell Biology
Public Health
Global Poverty and Practice

Krish Gopalan is a fourth-year student at UC Berkeley from Southern California. He is pursuing a B.A. Molecular and Cell Biology and minoring in both Global Public Health and Global Poverty and Practice. His interests broadly include the politics of health and development in the Global South, especially in South Asia. His prior research includes analyses into the effectiveness of the Integrated Rural Development Program and the role of private-public partnerships in developing health infrastructure in India. At Berkeley, he was involved with the California Public Interest Research Group,...

Emily Fjaellen Thompson

Graduate Student
Anthropology

Emily Fjaellen Thompson is a PhD student in socio-cultural anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her bachelor's degree in Latin American and Latino/a Studies from Vassar College, where she was awarded the Burnam Fellowship for work on the U.S.-Mexico border with unaccompanied minors seeking asylum and the Cornelisen Fellowship for extended fieldwork in the Peruvian Andes. She received her master's degree from the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, where she was granted FLAS awards to study Quechua in New York City and...

Gabriel Lesser

Graduate Student
Spanish and Portuguese

Gabriel Lesser is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. His interests include 19th and 20th century humor, visual studies, caricatures, and cartoons in Mexico and Brazil.

He is the recipient of the 2021 IIS Pre-Disseration Research Grant.