Meet the winners of the 2015 Distinguished Fellows Video Contest: First Place: José Lizárraga. Second Place: Joyce Chery. Third Place: Roxanne Cruz-de Hoyos. Winners received conference travel awards in the amounts of $1,500, $1,000, and $750, respectively.

First Place: José Lizárraga

Graduate School of Education, Berkeley Distinguished Graduate Fellowship recipient of the Mentored Research Award

José Ramón Lizárraga is a third year doctoral student in the Language, Literacy and Culture program at the Graduate School of Education. In his research, he uses a sociocultural lens to examine the role of emergent technologies in teaching and learning, specifically for youth from non-dominant communities.


Second Place: Joyce Chery

Department of Integrative Biology. Berkeley Distinguished Graduate Fellowship recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship

Born and raised in New York in a Haitian household, Joyce never dreamed of being in a Ph.D. program. She discovered her passion for plant biology during a trip to Haiti in 2010 where she realized the diversity of biological organisms. Joyce completed a Bachelor’s degree in Plant Sciences at Cornell University and a Curatorial Fellowship at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. She is passionate about diversity not only in nature but also in academia. Joyce dreams of becoming a curator of a natural history collection at a university where she can teach, conduct research, and encourage students from diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in STEM.


Third Place: Roxanne Cruz-de Hoyos

Department of Integrative Biology. Berkeley Distinguished Graduate Fellowship recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship

Roxy Cruz was born and raised in East Los Angeles. She spent several years working in the Nepali Himalaya before becoming a Ph.D. student in the Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, where she now conducts research on tropical plant eco-physiology.


 View past contest submissions