Democracy Camp in Berkeley

Hildeberto Venegas

2022 Democracy Camp Berkeley Fellow
Class of 2022

Hildeberto Venegas is a fourth year transfer student majoring in Political Economy and minoring in Public Policy. He was born in Oaxaca, Mexico but grew up in Napa, California after his family decided to immigrate to the US in 2008. The hardships his family and community experienced during the Great Recession inspired him to learn about economics, with the goal of one day being able to help alleviate the challenges low-income and immigrant families face during financial downturns. Hildeberto is passionate about immigrant rights, immigration law, rights of senior citizens...

Maryann Whitney

Class of 2028
2026 Democracy Camp in Berkeley

Hi, my name is Maryann Whitney, and I am studying math and physics at Cal. Education is the bridge between where you are and where you dream of going. Growing up, however, I learned that this bridge was not equal or stable. I attended a low-income school where inequality and injustice shaped the students' lives. Students faced constant instability with food insecurity and a lack of basic necessities, burdens that made it difficult to concentrate in class, believe in their potential, or imagine a better future.

Being inundated with constant egregious disparities was...

Jiaen Wu

2020 Democracy Camp Berkeley Fellow
Class of 2020

Lara Zangana

Class of 2026
2026 Schaeffer Fellowship
2025 Cal-in-Sacramento
2025 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
2024 Democracy Camp in Berkeley

Lara Zangana is a first-generation undergraduate at UC Berkeley, double majoring in Society and Environment and Conservation and Resource Studies. As a Climate and Youth Engagement Fellow with UC Berkeley’s Student Environmental Resource Center, Lara contributed over four hundred hours of public service focused on immigration, housing, and environmental justice. In fall 2024, she also interned at the White House within the Biden Harris Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

This past summer, Lara served as an undergraduate researcher and Cal-in-Sacramento Fellow...

Richard Ming Zeng

Class of 2028
2025 Democracy Camp in Berkeley
2026 Pathways to Federal Public Service

Richard Zeng is a second-year Political Science major at the University of California, Berkeley, with a minor in Public Policy. Passionate about improving transportation infrastructure through the democratization of public policy, Richard has worked in various student-led policy institutes, creating policy briefs that focus on the creation of climate-conscious energy policy. Richard currently serves as the Executive of Legislation for the Associated Students of the University of California’s Senator Margaret Solomon, where he leads a legislative team that creates student...