2011-12 Gardner Fellows at UC Berkeley
Kelly Fabian '11 (Political Science with a minor in Art History)
Hometown: Trabuco Canyon, California
Fellowship Placement: Americans for the Arts
Fellowship Mentor: Narric Rome, Senior Director of Federal Affairs and Arts Education
Service Interest: Arts Advocacy, Community Arts Organizations
Berkeley Experience: Kelly Fabian graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Political Science with a minor in Art History. Involved with the Student Advocate's Office since freshman year, she was elected to the ASUC executive position by the entire UC Berkeley student body. Her passion for social justice extended to a summer internship with the ACLU and a Global Law Brigades service trip to a rural Panamanian village. The Political Science department has twice recognized her contributions to the school: through the prestigious Travers Undergraduate Scholarship in Ethics and Politics and as a finalist for the departmental citation at commencement. As a sophomore, she was the only underclassman to win the Undergraduate Library Research Prize for a seminar paper about Andreas Vesalius's Epitome.
Beyond her academic success, Kelly has found ways to express her love for the arts. She taught art appreciation at a local elementary school with Cal Corps' CREATE program, and her year-long honors thesis examined the relationship between government funding and museum exhibitions. Kelly also drew political cartoons for The Daily Californian for two and a half years, and the Washington Post's college student blog for six months.
Other service experience: Kelly coached soccer with Coaching Corps, volunteered with Alpha Delta Pi, and regularly participated in campus wide philanthropy events such as Relay for Life and The Berkeley Project.
Fellowship goal: Kelly would like to learn more about the intersection of arts and politics, specifically, the current landscape of arts policy and the most effective means of advocating for the arts.
Post Fellowship plans: Kelly would like to earn a law degree with an emphasis on issues pertaining to freedom of expression in art.
Quote about service commitment: "In times of budget crises, arts programs are often the first to be cut. It was my art classes and my art teachers that anchored and inspired me throughout my life. Through my fellowship I want to work to ensure that the arts remain accessible to future generations."
Arjun Ghosh '11 (Political Science)
Hometown: Glendale, California
Fellowship Placement: Summit Public Schools
Fellowship Mentors: Diane Tavenner, Director and Bruce Brege, Chief Operating Officer
Service Interest: Public Education Policy
Berkeley Experience: Arjun transferred to Berkeley after spending two years at Santa Monica Community College. Since arriving at Berkeley, Arjun has enjoyed volunteering as a tutor: first at the People's Test Prep Service, a campus organization that organizes free SAT preparation classes for area high school students, and then with the Teach in Prison program, which sends tutors to San Quentin State Prison to tutor inmates working on their GED and associates degrees. After that Arjun spent a semester in Washington DC interning in the office of the Majority Whip, Congressman Kevin McCarthy. There he worked primarily with the communications staff, drafting press releases, twitter updates, and speeches.
Other Service Experience: Arjun has in the past, tutored an adult education class in Exeter, NH, worked as a CIT for several years at the Junior Blind of America's Camp Bloomfield in Malibu, CA.
Fellowship Goal: Arjun hopes to learn about solutions to improve our current public education system. He would like to focus specifically on the charter school movement, learning about their benefits and drawbacks and their approach to excellence in education.
Post Fellowship Plans: Arjun plans to earn a law degree and hopes to pursue a career in public service either as an elected official, staffer, or advocate, and champion of educational reform issues.
Quote about service commitment: "Growing up here, I was always told by my parents and my teachers that with enough hard work persistence, anybody could become anything they wanted to be . . . I want to make that true."
Byron Ruby '11 (Political Science, Society & Environment, minor in Applied Language Studies)
Hometown: Menlo Park, California
Fellowship Placement: Office of Global Change, U.S. Department of State
Fellowship Mentors: Jonathan Pershing, Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change and Christina Chan, Foreign Affairs Officer
Service interest: Environmental policy, international and domestic
Berkeley experience: In addition to music, debate, and foreign languages, one of Byron's central passions is the environment. He has been working with a professor for the past two years conducting research on the role that environmental regulation stimulates the development of green chemistry in industry, using rules regarding volatile-organic compound (VOC) limits in the automotive paint industry as a case study. In the summer of 2010, Byron worked for Representative Eshoo in the House of Representatives primarily to work on legislation related to energy issues and the environment. In his senior year, he joined the Bay-Area Environmentally Aware Consulting Network (BEACN), an on-campus environmental business consulting group. As a Director and Project Manager, he has aided businesses to audit their operations to become more sustainable as well as helping a non-profit –- the Responsible Purchasing Network –- conduct research on green purchasing trends in the Bay Area.
Byron graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a 4.0 grade point average, earning him Highest Distinction in General Scholarship for both of his degrees. He also received Highest Honors in political science for his thesis "Conflict or Cooperation? Arctic Geopolitics and Climate Change," which gauged the likelihood of conflict over the Arctic using both qualitative methods and statistical simulations.
Other service experience: Additionally, Byron has been involved in efforts to restore the Strawberry Creek riparian area, has started a community group (Team Gold), and has been a member of the Voices Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing financial assistance to high school debaters with less-privileged socioeconomic backgrounds.
Fellowship goal: Byron hopes to contribute to policies that address pressing environmental challenges on the domestic and international level, while gaining a deeper understanding of how environmental science and politics interact in policy-making apparatuses.
Post Fellowship plans: Byron would like to eventually pursue a joint J.D.-M.A. degree in environmental law and environmental science.
Quote about service commitment: "There is no paucity of challenges that we as a society face as we move into the twenty-first century. If we are to serve as leaders in the global community of tomorrow, it is imperative that we begin addressing these challenges today in a way that recognizes the complex interactions and linkages between the global and the local, the public and the private, and the human and the natural worlds."
