Minh Dang

Every April, Dang celebrates what she calls her “Freedom Day” — the anniversary of breaking away from a life of child abuse and sex trafficking. Recognized by the White House as a Champion of Change, Dang has become nationally known for fighting the commercial sexual exploitation of children — helping many heal the pain and shame associated with it. She credits her Berkeley undergraduate experience for teaching her how to “stand up for justice” and says, “There was a time that I could only imagine breathing beyond the next day, let alone being at the White House.” Graduating this spring with a master’s in social welfare from Berkeley, Dang is the executive director of Don’t Sell Bodies, founded by actress Jada Pinkett Smith. She looks forward to April 16, 2026, when her “days in freedom will finally match my days in slavery.” Read her posts, or follow her on Twitter@minhspeakstruth. Welcome Minh to the Berkeley Wall of Fame.

—Amy Cranch

Andrew Szeri

First, as Commencement festivities begin, I offer my most hearty congratulations to this year’s recipients of master’s and doctoral degrees throughout our 13 schools and colleges! We trust that your education at the world’s best public university will serve you in good stead as you shape your life, build your career, and exert your influence near and far.

We want to know how the next chapters unfold for you. Keep in touch with us in the coming years!  Someday your profile might join these of other alumni.

Second, for students working on their dissertations or theses over the summer, check out Room 215 — dubbed the Dissertation Writer’s Room — within the Graduate Services section of the Doe Library. This quiet space is a great place for you to work, where students can offer one another support and encouragement surrounded by others who are single-mindedly pursuing their summer writing.

Third, for students traveling this summer for research or other academic pursuits, don’t forget that UC offers travel insurance while you’re away from campus — but only if you register in advance. This insurance covers accidents and incidents, medical care and evacuation, extraction for political and weather related reasons, and more, for activities out-of-state and in other countries, at no cost to you. Learn more at the UC TRIPSS website and register here.  And remember, whenever you’re going to be away, it is a smart idea to let your program staff know where you will be and how to contact you.

I wish all of you — whether graduating or continuing — a productive and rejuvenating summer!

Andrew J. Szeri
Dean of the Graduate Division;
Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Executive Vice Chancellor, George Breslauer, addresses the audience at the Graduate Mentoring Ceremony.

Professor Robert Bergman (Chemistry), winner of the Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award for Senior Faculty, accepts his award and shares his thoughts on mentorship.

Assistant Professor Leonardo Arriola (Political Science), recipient of the Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award for Junior Faculty, reflects on mentorship.

Juana María Roderiguez (Gender and Women’s Studies), winner of the Faculty Mentor Award, accepts her commemorative plaque from Bahar Navab, President of the Graduate Assembly.

Professor Raka Ray (Sociology and South and Southeast Asian Studies), winner of the Distinguished Faculty Mentoring Award for Senior Faculty, receives her award from Andrew Szeri, Dean of the Graduate Division.

Professor Patricia Penn Hilden is surrounded by colleagues and graduate students as she celebrates receiving the Faculty Mentor Award for 2013.

Professor Andrea Peterson and her graduate students upon receiving the Faculty Mentor Award for 2013.

The two complementary award programs, sponsored by the Graduate Division and the Graduate Assembly, seek to highlight and promote the high standards of mentorship that are essential to the excellence of Berkeley’s graduate education.  Presenting the awards were Graduate Dean Andrew J. Szeri, Associate Dean Susan J. Muller, Graduate Assembly President Bahar Navab and other members of the Graduate Assembly.

2013 Graduate Mentoring Awards Recipients:

Graduate Assembly’s Faculty Mentor Award Winners

• Andrea Peterson, Professor, Law
• Patricia Penn Hilden, Professor, Ethnic Studies
• Juana María Rodriguez, Associate Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies

Graduate Division’s Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award, Senior Faculty Winners

• Robert Bergman, Professor, Chemistry
• Raka Ray, Professor, Sociology; South and Southeast Asian Studies

Graduate Division’s Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring Award, Junior Faculty Winner

• Leonardo Arriola, Assistant Professor, Political Science

Blakely will join the faculty of Pepperdine University as an Assistant Professor of Political Science.

Political Science doctoral student Jason W. Blakely is among the degree candidates who recently filed their dissertations. Following this accomplishment, he will soon join the faculty of Pepperdine University as an Assistant Professor of Political Science.

As Blakely prepares for his next journey, he reflects on his academic life as a Berkeley student, and admits there is something about it he will never forget:  “The sense of personal growth and transformation! I am not the same person I was when I arrived. Education, at its best, makes us into better versions of ourselves.”

Born in Colorado to a Spanish-speaking Colombian mother and an English-speaking American father, Blakely was attracted to literature and poetry when he was only nine. Years later, an interest in politics emerged and he became fascinated with “how the political world is expressive of different languages and worlds of meaning.”

In fact, attention to language is part of Blakely’s life even when he is not working or studying. Most of his free time is spent “enjoying and experiencing language,” he said. This includes exploring books, movies, songs and lyrics, as well as “conversations with friends, family, and neighbors.”

“Growing up with two different languages in the household made me intensely curious early on about how language shapes our sense of the world,” he said.

In a recent interview for eGrad, Blakely discussed his academic experience at Berkeley and revealed what inspired him to write his dissertation, entitled “Three Political Philosophers Debate Social Science: Leo Strauss, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Charles Taylor.”

What is your dissertation about?
My dissertation is about the limits of scientific knowledge. Specifically, I attempt to advance a school of thought called “interpretivism” that argues that the study of politics is not a science like, say, chemistry or physics. Rather, because human actions and practices are expressive of meanings, the study of politics is much more like the study of the law or literature. In my dissertation I try to narrate the emergence of this perspective and argue that certain of its central insights have not yet been fully appreciated.

What made you decide to focus your dissertation on this particular topic?
My topic emerged out of long conversations with two brilliant people I met at Berkeley — one a graduate student named Tyler Krupp, and the other my adviser, Mark Bevir. One of the most enriching aspects of life at Berkeley has been the quality of minds at this institution, which is truly humbling. During my time here I have learned from countless people; Kinch Hoekstra and John Searle also come to mind. I never would have grown and developed intellectually to this extent without such conversation partners.

What was your biggest challenge while working on your dissertation?
I think many dissertation writers would admit that one is finally prepared to actually write the dissertation only once one has finished it! If only I could begin to write the dissertation now — then I would write it as I should!

 How did you feel after submitting your dissertation?
Very grateful. I have been blessed to have the health, opportunity, support, and good fortune to spend these years at Berkeley working on problems of great interest to me. It requires the sacrifices and support of an entire community to keep a place like Berkeley going. I never want to lose that sense of gratitude.

What made you choose UC Berkeley?
The academic quality is as good as the best places in the world. To my delight, Berkeley also turns out to be a place with tremendous benefits for living — the natural beauty, food, people, and cultural dynamism of the entire Bay Area. My wife and I will miss our neighbors and the home we made here.

Chartotte W. Newcombe

UC Berkeley doctoral candidate Roi Livne and alumna Elham Mireshghi were among 22 fellows selected to receive a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship.

Newcombe is one of the most competitive and prestigious awards for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences. Each 2013 Newcombe fellow will receive a 12-month award of $25,000.

About the Fellows:

Roi Livne is a doctoral candidate in sociology. He is studying the intersection between moral considerations and economics in U.S. end-of-life care in his dissertation, Debitum Naturae, The Moral Economies of U.S. End-of-Life Care.

Elham Mireshghi received a B.A. from UC Berkeley in 2006, majoring in electrical engineering and computer science and minoring in anthropology. Ms. Mireshghi is now a doctoral candidate in anthropology at UC Irvine. Her dissertation, Business with God or Kidneys or Cash: An Ethnography of Moral Uncertainty in Iran, examines the development and implementation of the world’s only regulated and religiously sanctioned program for kidney sales.

This year’s graduates are:

• Dru Anderson
• Dusadee Pang Huntraku
• Erin Colleen Johnson
•  Sahar Khoury
• Jess Rowland
• Sean Talley

For more information, download the exhibition brochure (PDF).

Oleson will use the fellowship grant to produce her next photo project in Brazil.

Molly Oleson, a student in the Graduate School of Journalism, is this year’s winner of the Dorothea Lange Fellowship, on the merits of a five-photograph submission. Two photos taken in India arose from her Master’s degree project, which focuses on women’s education, independence and freedom. Five taken in South Africa were generated from Oleson’s internship in Cape Town last summer.

“This fellowship represents an incredible opportunity to continue to produce work as a documentary photographer, and to pursue a story that I’m passionate about and excited to share with the world,” said Oleson.  “I’m very grateful to UC Berkeley for offering the fellowship, and to the fellowship committee for selecting me.”

Oleson will use the $4,000 award to produce her next photo project, which will portray an indigenous tribe in the Brazilian Amazon.

The fellowship committee also selected Allison Allbee, a graduate student in Urban Planning, for an award of $2,000.

The Dorothea Lange Fellowship, in memory of one of the most outstanding documentary photographers of the 20th century, encourages the use of photography in the scholarly work of any discipline at UC Berkeley. The fellowship may be awarded to UC Berkeley faculty members, graduate students, and seniors who have been accepted for graduate work at Berkeley. Applicants must demonstrate outstanding work in documentary photography and provide a creative plan for future work.

Past Winners: 

2012       Tyler Orsburn, Journalism
2011       Vanessa Carr, Journalism
2010      Steve Saldivar, Journalism
2009     Rhyen Coombs, Journalism
2008     Adithya Sambamurthy, Journalism
2007     Jeremy Rue, Journalism
2006     Jakob Schiller, Journalism, and Timothy Wheeler, Journalism
2005    Tristan Spinski, Journalism

Oleson's pictures focuses on women’s education, independence and freedom.

Oleson's pictures focuses on women’s education, independence and freedom.

Molly Oleson

Check out the article about Molly Oleson, published on UC Berkeley News Center.

Doctors Without Borders is looking for Leadership Team members for the 2013-2014 school year. If you are passionate about the cause and interested in applying, please fill out an application and send it electronically by Saturday, June 1st. Final positions will be solidified by the week of August 26th. At the end of the first semester, the Leadership Team will travel to Kenya in partnership with Zagaya, a local non-profit, to distribute the newly synthesized malarial drug.

The UC Berkeley Chapter of Doctors Without Borders works with developing communities that are threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe to improve their quality of life though ensuring greater access to medical aid.

Like them on Facebook and visit their website for more information!

Philip Brett, musician, conductor, researcher, teacher, and alumnus

The second annual award from the Philip Brett LGBT Fund — to support Berkeley graduate students pursuing LGBT-related scholarship — has been chosen by a faculty committee from a highly competitive pool of 17 graduate students in fields ranging from film and media studies to sociology to public health to anthropology, and more.

This year’s awardee is Darren Arquero, a second-year Ph.D. student in Ethnic Studies. His research interests include transnational feminist and queer theories/theologies, cultural politics of gender and sexuality, Philippine and Filipino American studies, and migration and diaspora studies.

Arquero will make good use of the award to defray costs of participating in the 2013 Crosscurrents Research Colloquium in New York this summer. This month-long intensive, which “typically accepts participants who already have doctorates, professional degrees or ordination,” will enable him to “to advance his research on LGBT theology — [with] access to the region’s many important libraries and archival collections — while maintaining a sustained conversation with a select group of scholars, activists, and clergy,” wrote his faculty adviser Keith Feldman, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies.

In 2011 Arquero earned a B.A. cum laude at Rice University, majoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality. In his application for the Brett award, he wrote: “My current work in ethnic studies is an extension of my undergraduate thesis that focused on LGBT Christians… On the national level, I aim to …understand how race, when paired with religion, operates as mutual forms of social organization and control of queer Filipino bodies within and outside the United States. On the transnational level, I plan to conduct a comparative analysis of paglaladlad (Tagalog term ‘unfurling the cape,’ or coming-out process) for baklas (Filipino gay men) in the United States and the Philippines in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.”

The Brett Fund was founded in 2009 with contributions from faculty, staff, alumni, undergrads, grad students, and the Chancellor’s Challenge Fund. (Contributions to the Fund in any amount are still welcome.) It honors the memory of Philip Brett (1937-2002), who taught here 1966 to 1991 (and at UC Riverside and UCLA afterward). An eminent scholar of Renaissance and Baroque music and noted harpsichordist, Professor Brett also conducted UC Berkeley’s Chamber Chorus and chaired the Department of Music. In 1976 Brett caused a sensation in academia by examining how a composer’s sexual identity could inform his work, thus pioneering the emergence of lesbian and gay musicology.

That development was seminal to a primary founder of the Brett Fund, Davitt Moroney, Ph.D. ‘80, who was a graduate student under Brett here and is now Professor of Music, University Organist, and Director of the University Baroque Ensemble — and a longtime member of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on the LGBT Community at Cal.

The third annual competition for the Philip Brett Fellowship, open to all graduate students doing LGBT-related research in any field, will be held in spring 2014.

Dennis Ducro

Dennis watched sailboats going out every weekend from the window of his Berkeley Hills apartment. He thought, “I have to try it and experience what the Bay has to offer.” Once Dennis heard about Cal Adventures from a friend he quickly got involved. “So far, I have used the pass to attend four weekends of sailing classes (Beginner and Advanced) and I took a 2-day class on sea kayaking. It has been great to learn how to sail, and I especially like the free rentals during the year. I go out sailing when it suits me and practice what I learned in class. Next up is windsurfing! It has been a while, so I’ll probably attend a Cal Adventures class to refresh.”

Dennis says his favorite activity thus far is dinghy sailing since he can bring friends along for a tour of the San Francisco Bay. “It’s a great feeling to play with the wind and feel its power. With all the gear and instructors in place, Cal Adventures is a perfect place to start.”

Start your own adventure and check out the classes and clinics, including: Paddle Boarding, Rock Climbing, Sailing, Wind Surfing and Sea Kayaking. Adventureship Passes go on sale for students in August. Cal students receive over 50% off. Members of the Recreational Sports Facility receive a 10% discount on outdoor adventure classes!

Free Kayak Rental!

Bring a friend down to the UC Aquatic Center for 1 free hour of kayaking. Mention the “eGrad free kayak rental” upon arrival.