Graduate Profiles

After graduating in May 2013, Robyn Taylor took part in a professional six-week dance intensive workshop in Toubab Dialow, Senegal at Ecole des Sables. The teaching at this dance workshop consisted of various traditional West African dance forms as well as contemporary dance and choreographic techniques. Robyn is currently residing in Paris, France where she is studying contemporary dance at Menagerie de Verre. Fascinated by the movement and ethos of Paris, Robyn observes the metro system, the grocery stores, and various art creations ranging from the highly commercialized to the subversive. She writes about these observations on her blog. She is currently collaborating with three dancers and four graffiti artists on a performance piece that will take place in a street artists squat December 14. Next, Robyn will go to Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, where she will continue her dance studies in the Silvestre Technique. Robyn applied this fall for the Fulbright Fellowship 2014, and in the upcoming year she hopes to continue her investigation of identity and dance in Senegal. Her Fulbright proposal is titled: “Rhythm in Dakar: The Kinesthetic Exchange of Dance within a Globalized Context.”

The Departmental Citation winner for 2013 for both American Studies and Theater, Dance & Performance Studies, for his honors thesis Eli wrote a historical paper, and wrote and directed a play based on that research. Eli is currently a reporter for San Francisco’s public radio station, KALW. Tune in to Crosscurrents, weekdays at 5 on 91.7.

Since October 2013, Theresa has been working as a substitute teacher for a high school Advanced Placement English Literature class, where she loves using her American Studies background to draw on history, movies, and culture as ways to engage students and show them that what they are reading is more than just a series of words on a page. She has also been a section leader and course assistant for a number of American Studies courses, including: AS 188D: San Francisco Detectives and AS 188K: American Horrors: Monsters in US Cinema and Literature (Summer 2013); AS 111/ English C136: The Great Exhaling (Spring 2014); AS 101: World War II (Fall 2014); and AS 101: World War II and AS C111/ English C136: The Gilded Age (Fall 2015). In August 2016 Theresa will begin the Master’s in History program at San Francisco State University, and on completion will apply to Ph.D. programs.

Shortly after graduation in May 2013, Patricia packed her car and drove solo heading East with an eagerness to take what she learned at UC Berkeley and explore an expanding world. Her road trip took a total of ten days, during which Patricia camped under the stars in Utah, danced in cowboy saloons in Wyoming, and witnessed electric skies over Nebraska. In 2016 Patricia graduated from Northwestern School of Law, and and co-founded CompassBlu, LLC, a synergistic and diverse consulting firm that connects people to their purpose, producing results that inspire global change.

Robert Cancio is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Loyola Marymount University, and he is the Head of the Veteran and Military Family Research Laboratory, a grant-funded lab that focuses on the intersection between the social and behavioral pathways underpinning resilience and susceptibility to adverse health conditions that disproportionately affect racial/ethnic priority in military populations and communities of color. Robert is also the Principle Investigator for the Tobacco Research Team, which collaborates with a variety of community-based organizations to inform social change through applied community-based, geographic, and health-related research. He was recently awarded $853,800 for three years from The University of California, Office of the President, Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, for a project titled Youth Vaping in Los Angeles: Youth’s Perceptions, Behaviors, and Outlet Density.

During the summer following a May 2013 graduation, Jen worked as a public housing organizer for a community-based organization in the Lower East Side of New York City. She is currently working toward a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning at UCLA, with a focus on community economic development and housing. She is most interested in learning about alternative development models and plans to continue organizing for more equitable communities.

After finishing her last semester in December of 2012, Dani spent her final academic time abroad in the United Kingdom studying food science at the University of Leeds. She has recently moved back to Southern California to focus on Clinical and Translational research. She is currently working as a Public Administrative Analyst for Phase 2 and 3 Clinical trials for novel treatments in both Sarcoma and Lung Cancer. Dani has also recently been published in the Journal of American Medicine Dermatology for an epidemiological paper looking at the scope of exposure to indoor tanning. Dani continues to bring food, nutrition, and medicine into conversation working on research that focuses on the role of BMI and overall survival in cancer patients while she applies to medical school.

Following graduation in May 2013, Jennifer spent a year working as a math tutor and saving money in order to move to Oahu in pursuit of a slower, balanced lifestyle, the Aloha Spirit, and warmer weather. In Fall 2014, she will begin to work towards a Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Hawaii, hoping either to conduct mathematics research or to become a community college professor. In either case, Jennifer will offer free math tutoring (and possibly dance lessons) to those who are not able to afford it. She strives to emphasize education for the sake of learning, and to challenge the commodification of education that strictly purports the acquisition of a financially rewarding job.