Ronna’s professional background is in disability, public health, Medicaid, and food and nutrition policy. She has worked in partnership with cities, states, tribes, territorial governments, and international organizations, including serving as Regional Director for USDA’s Western Region Food and Nutrition Service. More recently, she worked as an IETA Global Health Fellow for the CDC Country Office co-located in the US Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe. Ronna received a MA in the field of deafness from NYU and a MPH from Harvard’s School of Public Health. Ronna is...
Prior to studying at Cal, Megan graduated from Boston University, receiving their Bachelor’s in Mass Communications with a Public Relations emphasis along with minors in African American Studies, Medical Anthropology, and Music. While working for a small public relations firm, they joined the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir and have been performing gospel music across the Bay Area ever since. In the folklore program, Megan aims to explore foundational cultural impacts within the African American gospel music tradition. Focusing on themes of personhood, community healing, religion, and...
Meikko has spent nearly a decade as an educator and lifelong learner, specializing in Afrofuturist media and its capacity to capture the hopes and histories of Black Americans. She holds a B.A. in English from UC Santa Barbara, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Mills College.In recent years, Meikko has presented on Afrofuturist pedagogy and curriculum design, highlighting its potential to transform education and empower underserved students. As a master’s student in the Folklore Studies program at UC Berkeley, she is eager to explore how Afrofuturism not only...
Katherine is a folklorist and dancer whose research interests center on Lindy Hop and the history of Afro-Diasporic dance in the United States. She holds a B.A. in English and a minor in Psychology from UC Berkeley, where she conducted undergraduate research on jazz musicians and dancers of the early twentieth century. Since graduating, she has worked in the UC library system and taught swing dancing around the Bay Area. Her current research examines the laws, informal social codes, and practices that have shaped Lindy Hop and its communities from the...
Micah's research broadly explores the relationship between Yiddish, Folklore, and the archive. Drawing on media studies, performance studies, and diaspora and transnational studies, they are currently researching the glitches in transmission of modern Yiddish subjecthood through early 20th century radio. They hold a BA in History and Urban Studies from Bowdoin College, where they researched the politics of placemaking at three Jewish housing cooperatives in the Bronx. As a Fulbright Scholar based in Morocco, they studied the memory of Muslim-Jewish entanglements in the city...
