Placement: California Health & Human Services Agency Placement Location: Sacramento, California
Raised in an immigrant household in Southern California, Allyson is passionate about creating solutions to health care challenges marginalized communities face. At an early age, Allyson’s father was diagnosed with a chronic health condition that required frequent interactions with the health care system. Through this experience, she became acutely aware of the high cost of health care and its disproportionate impact on BIPOC and low-income families....
Community engagement has always been a passion of mine. There is a sense of altruism and belonging when collaborating with community members to promote collective impact. Coming from a lived experience with minimal resources (homelessness, food insecurity, poverty), I believe in the power of public involvement, investment, and empowerment. I am an Urban Planner with experience working for public agencies and capacity building for local organizations. Having worked for Alameda County and creating a nonprofit organization, I understand the limitations of funding.
As a Political Science major passionate about LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights, I entered my Gardner Fellowship with two main goals: to explore how I can make the most meaningful impact on the issues I care about, and to build a strong relationship with a mentor who could help guide me through that journey. I am currently placed at the ACLU’s National Political Advocacy Department in Washington D.C., where I work on reproductive freedom campaigns and policy. Four months into my fellowship, I am happy to report that my placement has afforded me ample opportunities to realize...
As an undergraduate, I was drawn to public health due to the breadth of topics that play a pivotal role in community health. When selected to be a John Gardner Fellow, I knew I wanted to pursue health policy and continue advocating for traditionally marginalized communities. I am currently serving my placement at the California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS). My short time at CalHHS has reinforced the idea that in order to support community health, we must support a myriad of policy issue areas including affordable housing, criminal justice reform, immigrant...
Having earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology from Stanford University and his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, John William Gardner launched a truly exceptional career in public service. He ultimately served under six presidents, most prominently as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Lyndon Baines Johnson between 1965 and 1968.
As Secretary of HEW, Gardner successfully implemented a wide range of Great Society programs targeting the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. He upheld the Civil Rights Act of 1964...
In May 2023, Maya graduated from UC Berkeley withan Urban Studies major and a minor in Sustainable Design. Taking undergraduate and graduate courses in urban design, sustainability, landscape architecture, city planning, and U.S. housing policy, Maya explored how cultural, political, and economic processes structure the urban landscape through an interdisciplinary lens. She focused on issues of gentrification, geographies of urban justice, and struggles over public (and private) space.
In addition to her coursework, Maya served as an...
Jonathan (Jon) Dena would like to help disadvantaged individuals learn the financial skills to secure stable housing. Jon’s devotion to affordable housing comes from personal experience. As a child, he often lived in crowded conditions, often with multiple families in a single house. The other experience that shaped Jon’s public service was becoming homeless as a teenager, which led ultimately to a nine-year prison sentence starting at the age of 16. Since then, Jon has tried to rebuild his life. As soon as he was released from prison, he enrolled at Cosumnes River College...
2023 William K. (Sandy) Muir, Jr. Leadership Award
Sammy Raucher, a Los Angeles native, is passionate about LGBTQ+ rights law and policy, as well as the intersections between social issues and data technologies. At UC Berkeley, she majored in political science and minored in data science. She hopes to devote her leadership and sociotechnical skills to a career defending and expanding civil rights for marginalized communities, especially the LGBTQ+ community, in her home state of California and the greater United States. She is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa ...
Aurora Lopez has always seen education as a way for her and others in her community to get ahead in life. As a transfer student from community college to UC Berkeley, Aurora worked hard to overcome many challenges that she faced growing up as a child of a 15-yearold single mother from an immigrant family. Living in a house with 14 other people, Aurora often had to take responsibility for the education of her brother and cousins, at the same time she carved out enough space and time to excel at community college and then UC Berkeley. At UC Berkeley, Aurora majored in Political Science with...
