Alumni

Naomi M. Yitref

BIMI HBCU Fellow
BIMI Team

Naomi M. Yitref is a doctoral student in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy (JSP) Program at UC Berkeley Law. Just before that, she graduated Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Honors Sociology and Anthropology. From Seattle, Washington by way of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Naomi is the daughter of Ethiopian refugees and uses her personal socio-historical biography to inform her work around diasporic identity, mobility and legal tensions in Black immigrant/refugee communities. More generally, her legal research interests look at the role of law in...

Dewi Zarni

Former Undergraduate Research Fellow

Dewi Zarni graduated from UC Berkeley in December 2021, where she majored in American Studies with a concentration in Race, Migration, and the Carceral State. Dewi was exposed to the complexities of the immigration process and its impact on families through her father's experience as an asylee. She developed her understanding of the legal system and the factors behind migration while volunteering at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant and interning for a local immigration attorney, where she interviewed Spanish-speaking clients about their experiences and interpreted for attorneys. During her...

Dewi Zarni

Undergraduate Research Fellow
BIMI Team

Dewi Zarni graduated from UC Berkeley in December 2021, where she majored in American Studies with a concentration in Race, Migration, and the Carceral State. Dewi was exposed to the complexities of the immigration process and its impact on families through her father's experience as an asylee. She developed her understanding of the legal system and the factors behind migration while volunteering at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant and interning for a local immigration attorney, where she interviewed Spanish-speaking clients about their experiences and interpreted for attorneys. During her...