Joshua G. Acosta is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a third-generation Filipino American and grew up in Southern California. He is a recipient of the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship and was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and former California State University Sally Casanova Scholar. Joshua’s research interest involves the history of the U.S. colonization of the Philippines and the Filipino American diaspora. His project explores a cultural history of leprosy, decolonization, and transpacific American medical...
Sofi Chavez (she/her/hers) is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a 2019-2020 recipient of the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship. Sofi received her BA in English from Bryn Mawr College in 2017.
Sofi’s research interests include Latinx and Chicanx cultural production, queer of color literature, and queer kinship formation. Her dissertation will examine the figure of the queer Latinx child in contemporary literature.
Sofi is also a proud Cancer Sun, Pisces Moon, Virgo Rising, and will happily discuss astrology’s centrality to the queer community, both...
Maria Chi-Chable (she/her) is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, where she is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship. She was born and raised in San Rafael, California and is a proud daughter of Maya immigrant parents. Maria graduated as a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow from Wellesley College in 2023 with a B.A in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her undergraduate research located Jenni Rivera’s mariposa iconography and situated the Jenni drag queen community within a space of liberation, resistance, and radical world-building.
Claire Chun is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies (with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies). She received her B.A. in Politics and Social and Cultural Analysis from New York University.
Her research explores how modern conceptualizations of “Korean” and “Asian” beauty, wellness, and aesthetics are shaped by overlapping forces of US militarism, tourism, and humanitarianism.
Claire’s research and writing has been published or is forthcoming in the Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, Journal of Asian American Studies,...
Sierra Edd (Diné) is a PhD candidate in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is Tł’ógi, born for the Kinłichii’nii people and grew up in Durango, Colorado / Four corners. Her research interests are in Indigenous gender and sexuality, culture, storytelling, futures/futurity, and digital media. She is also 2020 recipient of the Ford Pre-Doctoral Fellowship and a coordinator for the Indigenous...
Isabella Garcia (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley where she is the recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship and the Katherine Sweeney Fellowship. Isabella received her B.A. in History and English & Creative Writing from Wellesley College in 2022 and was also a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow.
Isabella’s research aims to look at the roles Chicana and Chicane youth activists played in the broader Chicano Movement in the late twentieth century in the United States, and carefully consider why their...
Sarah (she/her) is a PhD student in Ethnic Studies and a recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship. Sarah was born and raised in the Bay Area and received her B.A. in English and American Studies from Scripps College. Her research is centered around Asian American literary and visual aesthetics- specifically art that was born out of the Third World Liberation, Asian American, Black Arts, and Women of Color Feminist Movements.
José Eduardo Valdivia Heredia (they/elle/ellx) is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, where they are a recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship. They are a queer Chicanx artist and scholar from Sonoma, California. José received a B.A. in Religion and Latin American/Latino Studies from Swarthmore College (2023), where they co-founded Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal(link...
Victoria (she/her) is a PhD candidate in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley and a recipient of the Chancellor’s Fellowship. Her dissertation centers on Southeast Asian refugee communities and their fight against California’s prison to deportation pipeline. She volunteers with the Asian Prisoner Support Committee and helps teach ROOTS, an Ethnic Studies course in San Quentin State Prison.
Beyond her U.S.-based work, Victoria is also interested in Vietnamese anti-colonial history, literary translation, and spiritual practice. She previously received a B.A. in Ethnic Studies at Brown...
