Alumni

Nadia Almasalkhi

Former Policy & Communications Fellow

PhD student in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Before beginning graduate school, I worked as a casework intern in a refugee resettlement agency, as a legal assistant to immigration attorneys, and as a research assistant investigating the effects of trauma on refugees in the U.S. I hold a B.A. in International Studies and a B.A. in Arabic and Islamic Studies, both from the University of Kentucky. My research interests include the experiences of Middle Eastern emigrants, the politics of immigration law, and the intersection of nationalism and forced migrations.

Lilián Juárez Armenta

Undergraduate Researcher
BIMI Team

Lilián Juárez Armenta is a fourth-year, transfer, undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, majoring in Political Science and minoring in Spanish Linguistics. She plans to attend law school after graduating from UC Berkeley. She is passionate about immigrants and undocumented students’ rights. Lilián is currently an intern for the bi-national organization, Al Otro Lado, where she works with asylum seekers who are forced to remain in Mexico due to the current immigration laws. As a member of the 2021 Undergraduate Research Cohort, she will research the experiences of undocumented students...

Karla Gutierrez Cebrero

Undergraduate Researcher
BIMI Team

My name is Karla Gutierrez Cebrero, I am a first year bioengineering major interested in research that explores the experience of undocumented students after they graduate from college. Specifically, the strategies that undocumented students use to succeed after graduating with an associates or bachelor’s degree without a working permit. As well as the challenges undocumented students encounter after obtaining a college diploma without a work permit.

Andy Chang

Ph.D Candidate, Sociology

I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, working at the interface of migration, gender, and development. My dissertation uses ethnographic methods to examine Indonesian guest workers’ incorporation into Asia’s postindustrial countries. I compare the migration experiences of women domestic workers and factory operators. To understand how brokers and states construct transnational labor markets in gendered ways, I conducted 22 months of participant observation in four Indonesian recruitment agencies and more than 120 interviews with government officials...

Andrew Garcia Chavez

Undergraduate Communications & Outreach Fellow

Andrew Chavez worked as a Communication and Outreach Fellow at BIMI in the Summer and Fall of 2020. He is a 4th year studying Political Economy and minoring in both Public Policy & Education. As the son of two working-class immigrants, he has experienced the effects of immigration policy first hand in his family. As a result, he wants to try his best in helping the immigrant community and their families in the Bay Area in any way he can.

Laura Chen

Graduate Student and Organizer of MRPG @ Berkeley

Research interests in displacement and post-conflict reconstruction; refugee resettlement; integration and economic/social participation

Morelia Chihuaque

Communications Fellow

Morelia Chihuaque is a UC Berkeley graduate and majored in Political Science at UC Berkeley. Morelia' s main interests are human rights and immigration rights as a daughter to immigrants. She has witnessed the barriers and lack of resources immigrants in her community have faced. One of her goals is to give back to her community, help uplift and fight for the rights of marginalized communities. She has interned for Stockton's Mayor, Michael Tubbs, in creating an Immigration Resource Guides for the community. Morelia is a BIMI Communications Fellow.

Saida Cornejo

Undergraduate Research Fellow

I am a fourth year Legal Studies and Ethnic Studies double major at the University of California, Berkeley. As a Haas Scholar and Marco Antonio Firebaugh Scholar, I am conducting my own independent research project that aims to analyze the relationship between illegality and entrepreneurship. I aim to reveal the challenges undocumented entrepreneurs face by examining how being viewed as “illegal” by law and society generates barriers to processes of assimilation and integration into the American social fabric which denies certain rights, privileges, and access to resources that foster a...

Nicholas Depsky

PhD Candidate

I study the intersection of climate and migration. Specifically, I analyze the role that drought plays in the displacement of people from Central America's Dry Corridor and how coastal communities globally are likely to retreat from rising sea levels. Relating the evidential links between a changing climate and human displacement to pressing global governance priorities is also a central focus of my work.

Publications:

Depsky, N. and Pons, D., 2020. Meteorological droughts are projected to worsen in Central America’s Dry Corridor throughout the 21st century. Environmental...

Arnold Foda

BIMI Collegium Fellows 2019

Arnold Foda was a BIMI Collegium Fellow at BIMI who contributed to data collection for the Mapping Spatial Inequality Project and helped incorporating research in undergraduate teaching as part of the 2018-2019 Collegium Fellowship.