Sarah Kersting
Sarah Kersting is an artist and graphic designer based in Echo Park. She works across different mediums with an emphasis on bold acyrlic and ink illustrations and expressive digital drawings. Her signature style, California Ornamental, brings together her background in American studies and Italian art history by wedding nostalgic Americana iconography with the Italian Grottesque traditional style of ornamentation. After working in the fashion industry in New York for two years, and completing a Graphic Design Certificate at Otis College of Art & Design, Sarah is now working as an […]
Mike Tepper
Mike Tepper began his academic journey at U.C. Berkeley in the summer of 2004, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies. In the summer of 2005, his path was abruptly altered when he was deliberately struck by a vehicle at Dwight and Telegraph, leaving his leg broken in four places. Forced to withdraw from school, Mike focused on his rehabilitation before returning to campus the following spring. He continued his studies through 2009, but ultimately left before completing his degree to pursue his dream of playing in the NFL. […]
John Rider
After graduation, John Rider attended the University of Oxford, where he completed a Masters of Science in Social Anthropology, with honors. Thereafter John attended Harvard Law School, where he was the first Juris Doctor student affiliate of the Harvard Human Rights Program. John served as a teaching fellow in courses on cross-worldview negotiation, undertook clinical work as a litigator serving incarcerated members of minority faiths in American federal penitentiaries, conducted pre-litigation investigative work on slavery in supply chains and on conservation-related indigenous displacement across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and […]
Rudy Brandt
Since graduation, Rudy has been a full-time caregiver to a parent living with early onset Alzheimer’s.
Jose Solorzano Zavala
Shortly after graduating, Jose established a brick and mortar location for his wholesale branded-merchandise and professional services business, Kustom Life Company. He and his team consult, design, manufacture, and fulfill branded products for small to large sized companies throughout the United States. As Chief Executive Officer, Jose provides financial, operational and strategic direction for the company and directly manages several on-site and remote employees.
Jessie McConville
While completing her senior year in 2020, Jessie accepted a professional internship with Disney to work in Corporate Alliances in Orlando. The internship was canceled due to COVID, so she moved back home to San Diego and started working for a local tech/biotech company. She has been at Scientist.com for over a year as the Associate Director of Marketing. She is grateful for her time at Berkeley, loves her current job, and likes to spend her free time playing sports, making art, and fostering dogs.
Charis Hanshaw
Charis Hanshaw has over 30 years of professional experience in operations management, research, and marketing and communications with private organizations that range in size from boutique marketing consultancies to international research corporations. As an effective problem-solver and caring advocate, Charis returned to higher education later in life for the specific professional development that would facilitate an intentional shift toward work in aging services. In May 2020 amid the growing global pandemic, Charis completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in American Studies from U.C. Berkeley, an interdisciplinary program with a dual […]
Dmitry Schultz
After graduating in December of 2020, Dmitry started working in health equity and disaster management. During the height of the vaccination efforts across the nation, he was an Emergency Management Specialist at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where he helped facilitate the deployment of mobile units to conduct vaccinations in historically underserved communities. Taking the lessons learned from FEMA and UC Berkeley, Dmitry started a new opportunity with the San Mateo County Emergency Medical Services Agency. Working as a Health Emergency Preparedness Analyst, he develops disaster readiness programs, writes disaster […]
Lauren Roper
After graduating with honors, Lauren returned to her hometown of Los Angeles, California. She currently works in Global Communications at Belkin International, a consumer tech company, where she is heads-down in the world of PR. Outside of work, she puts her minor in Creative Writing to good use by writing prose and poetry on the angst of being a young twenty-something and other random thoughts and feelings. She hopes to one day compile her writing into a published work, which she will dedicate to Professor Palmer.
Andrew Garcia
After completing his undergraduate studies, Andrew returned to Berkeley to earn a Master’s in the Cultural Studies of Sport in Education program from the Graduate School of Education in August 2021. His capstone project focused on leveraging sport as an influential arena of activism to advance dialogue around environmental change. His project offered a potential implementation at the intersection of sport and the environment through the Players for the Planet Ambassador Program, initiated by Major League Baseball. The program provides a positive example of helping to develop a critical ecoliteracy to promote the […]