Schaeffer Fellowship

Leonard D. Schaeffer Fellows in Government Service

Anna Diaz

Class of 2023
2024 Percy Undergraduate Grant
2023 Schaeffer Fellowship
2023 Democracy Camp in Berkeley

Anna is passionate about serving underserved communities through the lens of the law and legal system. As a Berkeley Peter E. Haas Public Service Leader, she worked for Bay Area JusticeCorps, where she helps self-represented litigants navigate the legal system by providing legal information under the supervision of attorneys. Now, with the Public Service Center’s support she works an as Undergraduate Intern at Marin County Public Defender’s Office. She also is a Student Researcher at the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab at Berkeley Law. Currently, Anna also works as a Law Clerk at a...

Mckenzie Diep

2023 Schaeffer Fellowship

Mckenzie Diep is a second-year student at UC Berkeley pursuing simultaneous degrees in economics and urban studies. Her interests include broadband equity, science technology policy, anti-displacement studies, and human-centered design. As a Bay Area native, she is passionate about understanding housing and displacement issues. She actively studies how urban design perpetuates racial inequities and informs policy. Mckenzie is a Researcher at the UC Berkeley and the University of Toronto's Urban Displacement Project and a Research Fellow at the UC Berkeley Center on the Politics of...

Utkarsh Dubey

Class of 2027
2026 Schaeffer Fellowship

Utkarsh Dubey was born in Bombay, India, and grew up in Long Island, New York, and Dallas, Texas. Since childhood, he has been surrounded by South Asian immigrant communities, sparking his interest in immigration policy. His cross-cultural upbringing and engagement with diverse communities draw him towards the fields of law and governance.

Utkarsh is a third-year student at the University of California, Berkeley, studying History and Public Policy. He is ardently interested in immigration policy and foreign relations, and has taken a range of courses to further his understanding of...

Kaila DuFour

Class of 2026
2025 Schaeffer Fellowship

Kaila DuFour is a third-year student majoring in Legal Studies with a minor in Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Recently, they served as a Law Clerk in the Special Prosecutions Section of the Attorney General's Office in Los Angeles, where they gained insight into complex legal processes and the pursuit of justice on behalf of the public.

On campus, Kaila is a senator for the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC). As a senator, they have dedicated themselves to expanding outreach, promoting inclusive...

Rosie Echeverria

Class of 2023
2023 Democracy Camp in Berkeley
2023 Cal-in-Sacramento
2022 Schaeffer Fellowship
2022 Washington Fellowship - Spring
Placement: Rep. Adam Schiff - Burbank District Office Mentor: Colleen Oinuma

Rosie Echeverria was born and raised in East Hollywood, Los Angeles in a Central American immigrant household and she is a first-generation, low-income, EOP, DSP, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ student at UC Berkeley. She went to Santa Monica College (SMC) for about two and a half years then transferred and moved to UC Berkeley in Fall 2020, toward the beginning of the covid pandemic. She is a Political Science major with a minor in Public Policy and Education.

Her...

Gélser Zavala Garcia

Class of 2022
2022 Democracy Camp in DC
2022 Schaeffer Fellowship
Placement: Special Assistant to Mayor Libby Schaaf Placement Location:

Gélser Zavala is a rising senior majoring in Legal Studies after transferring from Laney College with a AA in Paralegal Studies and Social Sciences. He is an East Oakland born and raised native, the son of war refugees from El Salvador who migrated to California in the late 1980s. Growing up in a working class family, Gélser endured challenges in his public education with insidious systems of underfunded policies for school, gang-violence, teen pregnancy, and dropping out of...

Justine Garcia

Class of 2027
2025 Schaeffer Fellowship
Justine Garcia is a student at UC Berkeley majoring in Political Science and minoring in Public Policy on a Pre-Law track. Justine recognizes the privileges she has access to: housing, college preparatory education, and food security. These basic needs though remain out of reach for far too many, due to the deep inequities in the American system. This awareness fuels her passion for transforming these privileges into rights and advancing equity through policy and the law. She is particularly interested in education accessibility, healthcare, reproductive freedom, and affordable housing...

Cyn Gomez

Class of 2023
2022 Schaeffer Fellowship
Placement: San Francisco District Attorney's Office Placement Location: San Francisco, California

Cyn Gomez is a nineteen-year-old, first-generation, second year at UC Berkeley, studying Social Welfare with minors in Race and the Law & Spanish. Cyn’s pronouns are he/him and they/them and identify as nonbinary and transmasculine. Cyn is an election poll worker, Berkeley Student Cooperative House President, a student worker at UC Berkeley, ASUC Cheif Advisor on QT+ Wellness, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Director for the...

Lauren Gonzalez

Class of 2025
2025 Schaeffer Fellowship
2024 Cal-in-Sacramento

As the daughter of an immigrant father, Lauren is passionate about utilizing public service to fill in the gaps of unjust systems. Her background also includes family members exposed to environmental pollutants that had unjustly contributed to severe health problems. Due to her background, Lauren is focused on environmental justice and empowering disadvantaged communities. Currently, Lauren is majoring in environmental science and public health.

Previously, Lauren has worked in the ASUC Student Advocate’s Office as both a Financial Aid Caseworker and Director for...

Sofia Marie Greenwald

Class of 2024
2023 Cal-in-Sacramento
2023 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
2023 Schaeffer Fellowship

As the daughter of an immigrant mother and growing up 15 minutes away from the Southern border, Sofia’s upbringing included two very different languages and cultures. It is because of those unique experiences and interactions that she has always had a deep interest and understanding in the uplifting of her Latine community through policy and the field of law. Her personal experiences with challenges accessing professional opportunities and facing workplace discrimination, due to her background, further inform and inspire her undergraduate efforts. She works to increase access to...