Matsui Center Cal-in-Sacramento Fellows

Irene Kou

Class of 2026
2024 Cal-in-Sacramento Student Director
2024 Cal-in-Sacramento
2024 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
2023 Cal-in-Sacramento

Irene Kou is a rising sophomore intending to major in Legal Studies at UC Berkeley. Growing up as a first-generation, Asian American student living in a low-income community, she wants to further her understanding of the challenges she and others have faced first-hand. Through this past summer, she served as Co-StudentDirector for Cal-in-Sacramento and interned at the Federal Defender’s Office. She also researched the generational differences in Asian communities using Holistic versus...

Irene Virginia Kou

Class of 2026
2024 Cal-in Sacramento Student Director
2024 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
2023 Cal-in-Sacramento

Irene Kou (she/they) is a sophomore intending to major in legal studies at UC Berkeley. Growing up as a first-generation, Asian American student living in a low-income community, she wants to further her understanding of the challenges she and others have faced first-hand. This past summer, she served as Co-Student Director for Cal-in-Sacramento and interned at the Federal Defender’s Office. She also researched the generational differences in Asian communities using Holistic versus Western medicine. For the 2023-2024 cohort, Irene will serve again as Student Director and aims to...

Yvette Hernandez

Class of 2024
2022 Cal-in-Sacramento
2022 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
Placement: Placement Location: Sacramento, California

Yvette Hernandez is a first-generation Chicana student majoring in Public Health and minoring in Public Policy. Yvette is passionate about making higher education and healthcare affordable for working-class families.

Yvette’s interest in improving the healthcare system began during her internship at a family medical clinic, where she experienced working with patients and saw firsthand the flaws in the system. The lack of diversity, the need for preventive care, and the growing number of...

Tristan Shaughnessy

Class of 2023
2022 Cal-in-Sacramento
2022 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
Placement: Placement Location: Sacramento, California

Tristan Shaughnessy is a junior transfer studying political science. At community college, he wrote for the Diablo Valley College’s newspaper, The Inquirer. Watching county supervisors respond to a pandemic, he saw how the everyday decisions of elected and unelected officials impacted thousands of people. For him, this highlighted the importance of good governance and local politics, making him want to pursue a career in public service.

Tristan is currently working at Bay Area Legal...

Sidney Carrigan

Class of 2023
2022 Cal-in-Sacramento
2022 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
Placement: Placement Location: Sacramento, California

Sidney Carrigan is a third year student completing her B.A. in Legal Studies along with minors in Disability Studies and Public Policy. Throughout her life, she has witnessed her mother struggle to comprehend the intricate legal system that governs her autistic brother’s life. Her early experiences with disability rights law and advocacy developed into a passion for alleviating the burdens of others, specifically by means of legal support. Through an internship with Harvard Law School’s Legal...

Shaily Bajracharya

Class of 2023
2022 Cal-in-Sacramento
2022 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
Placement: Placement Location: Sacramento, California

My name is Shaily Bajracharya. I am a third year student studying Psychology, Data Science and minoring in Education. I was born in Nepal and lived there for 14 years. I moved to the US in 2016 and faced multiple challenges transitioning to the US high school system. It was especially challenging to navigate the US college application system as a first generation, low income student of color. My experiences in my schools here and in Nepal made me inspired to work in the field of education to...

Sam Greenberg

Class of 2022
2022 Cal-in-Sacramento
2022 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
Placement: Placement Location: Sacramento, California

Sam Greenberg is a Political Economy and Urban Studies student who is passionate about solving California’s housing crisis and fixing its unsustainable, auto-dependent transportation system. He believes that California has failed to adequately expand its housing supply and that it needs to invest substantially in affordable housing. He also believes that California needs to expand and improve its public transit systems significantly to create a sustainable alternative to the private automobile....

Michelle Yiu

Class of 2022
2022 Cal-in-Sacramento
2022 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
Placement: Placement Location: Sacramento, California

Michelle Yiu is a second-generation Chinese-American studying Public Health and Integrative Biology with minors in Public Policy and Asian American Studies. Instilled with values of whole-person health and preventive care by her mother, a Yijin Chinese exercise practitioner, she has wanted to work in the health care field from a young age. After being introduced to public health at UC Berkeley, her interests primarily lie in health policy, community health, health advocacy, and...

Jose Gonzalez Ramirez

Class of 2022
2022 Cal-in-Sacramento
2022 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
Placement: Placement Location: Sacramento, California

Lesly Castro

Class of 2023
2022 Cal-in-Sacramento
2022 Diversity & Entrepreneurship Fellow
Placement: Placement Location: Sacramento, California

Lesly Castro is currently a student at UC Berkeley hoping to receive a degree in Legal Studies with a minor in Public Policy. She is a first-generation college student from Salinas, CA. As someone who is the daughter of immigrant parents, and as a person who has first-hand witnessed the hardships of her family and community, she feels it is important to address and bring awareness to the necessities of underrepresented communities. Lesly is most passionate about immigration, education...