People

Laureates, coordinators, and students launching the Agroecology Working Group of the Right Livelihood College during the 40th Anniversary Celebration in Bangkok, Thailand. February 2020.

Undergraduate students

Sharan Sethi

Right Livelihood Student Co-Chair

Sharan is a double major in Literature and Philosophy, minoring in History. She joined Right Livelihood College because it provided an opportunity to connect the knowledge she learned in classrooms to real social justice issues plaguing communities around the globe. She finds connecting with Right Livelihood Laureates to be a continuously engaging and fruitful educational experience. Her activist interests are in human rights and climate change. Outside of RLC, she enjoys being involved in many other organizations on campus including KZSC and Gamma Phi Beta. She hopes to continue to connect students with activism opportunities to make a difference in international causes.

Solenn Augustin

Right Livelihood Core Team Member

I’m a transfer student majoring in psychology. I previously graduated with a bachelor in Law from France. This is at that time that my interest for Human Rights grew. Being part of the Right Livelihood Center at UCSC helps me to find strength to find solutions for social changes. Being part of this community is empowering and educating. I am interested in Human Rights and public health policy. Growing up in the alpine mountains made me love seasons and nature walks which I still do during my free time. I also love to bake, kayak, do yoga and have picnics by the beach.

Fatima Hernandez Alatorre

Right Livelihood Core Team Member

I’m Fatima Hernandez and I am a Community Studies major with a proposed GISES minor. I grew up in Stockton, CA, and UCSC is my dream school. I love the beaches, nature, and community here. I hope to foster community through Right Livelihood and our weekly gatherings. In my free time, I like going to the park or beach, going on walks, rollerblading, and climbing. Social justice issues I’m passionate about are education reform, water justice, and immigration. I hope to one day go back to my community in Stockton and start my own nonprofit.

John Matter

Right Livelihood Core Team Member

I worked in Masonry construction for many years before returning to school and pursuing my degree in Anthropology. I’m really excited to engage with students on issues of sustainability and social justice, and it’s hard to quantify how much impact this can have on communities in the future. I feel the opportunities provided by Right Livelihood are unique in their intersectionality and am excited to have the opportunity to help students activate and engage on issues they are passionate about. As an activist, I’ve been through highs and lows, and I’ve seen results in areas where they seemed impossible at times, so I see tremendous potential in the Right Livelihood Center.

Megan Deevy

Right Livelihood Co-Chair Ex-Officio

Megan is from Littleton, Colorado. She’s a second-year environmental studies and global information and social enterprise studies student at UC Santa Cruz involved with Right Livelihood to make lasting social change. Social Justice issues she is interested in include climate change, sustainability, and environmental justice. She’s currently managing communications and media for Right Livelihood including our Student Fee Measure Campaign.

August Bleiweiss

Right Livelihood Core Team Member

Biography coming soon

Graduate students

Elena Losada

Elena was born and raised in California’s central valley and spent much time in Mexico and in Spain in her early years. After completing undergraduate and Masters degrees in international development and economics at Northeastern University, she spent five years doing research and policy work for international NGOs and UN agencies, as well as working at the UN Secretariat on the Sustainable Development Goals. She is now a second-year PhD student in Sociology at UC Santa Cruz, where she focuses on topics of urbanization, cross-border migration, informality, peripheralization, and human interaction with the more-than-human world. Elena is also a yoga instructor (but eternal yoga student), lover of Son Jarocho, and spends much time appreciating the coastline and mountains around her new town, Santa Cruz.

Indy Reid-Shaw

I grew up along the Eno River in North Carolina. I became involved in environmental and social justice activism at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. There, I developed a special major in Environmental Anthropology, and minor in Biology, to better understand the interactions between humans and their environments. For my thesis, I carried out a study assessing resilience strategies undertaken by Mongolia’s livestock herders facing uncertainty with climate change and other social and environmental stressors. After college, I worked on carbon mitigation initiatives at non-profits in Boston and Santa Cruz. During my Ph.D., I seek to better understand the complex drivers of change in coupled human-natural systems through mixed-method fieldwork and analysis. I consider how formal and informal institutions influence customary management and access to natural resources in the Micronesian islands of Kiribati. Ultimately, I hope to inform governance that assists communities experiencing disproportionate environmental impacts, such as small-scale fisheries

Staff

Dave Shaw

Dave Shaw is Coordinator of the Right Livelihood College at UC Santa Cruz, and a Ph.D. student in Environmental Studies. His research is focused on the ways Right Livelihood Laureates and other changemakers have been successful in creating social transformation and large scale ecosystem regeneration. Examples of this research include exploring the effectiveness of transnational alternative policy groups and epistemic communities, solutions for scaling up agroecology and sustainable agriculture, and community-based research partnerships. He co-founded the Right Livelihood College at UC Santa Cruz in 2013.

Alumni

Isaac Recinos

Hi, I’m Isaac Recinos, A Senior in Anthropology. I grew up in various communities across the US but I call Los Angeles home. I want to pursue anthropology as a graduate student. Through Right Livelihood, I am connecting with other people who see the importance of grassroots efforts for societal change as well as the importance of academia’s place in an active role in those efforts.

Benjamin Scheer

My name is Benjamin, I graduated with MCD Biology and joined Right livelihood to help facilitate community spaces and engagement.

Carmela Ceniceroz

The courage and ambition of the laureates of the Right Livelihood Award inspire me. Learning of the accomplishments individuals have made all over the world to improve their community’s lives gives me hope for the future of humankind and the earth. I am thrilled that the Right Livelihood Club has given me the opportunity to incorporate activism for social change and sustainability into my undergraduate education. I am passionate about all that embodies ‘right livelihood’, pursuing an honest occupation that not only respects the environment but allows all beings to flourish. The knowledge that other individuals around the world share these same ideals and are willing to dedicate their lives to systematic change motivates me to create change within my community. I am entering my senior year here at UC Santa Cruz studying Anthropology.

Emily Rose Friedman

I was born and raised in Los Osos, California where I became fascinated with the natural world around me and my place in it. Currently, I am a fourth-year politics student interested in creating a more just and sustainable society. Transferring to UCSC not only strengthened my passion for environmental and social justice but also gave me the opportunity and tools to pursue these endeavors. Becoming involved with Right Livelihood has become a crucial avenue of my pursuit to integrate activism with my academics. Through the Right Livelihood College, I am connecting with diverse and like-minded individuals who inspire and encourage me to use my voice to seek change.

Sara Durghalli

Sara Durghalli graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a concentration in Global Information and Social Enterprise Studies and a minor in Education. While finalizing her degree, Sara spent time organizing diverse events, including the Right Livelihood Conference and Common Ground Speaker Series, where she took on the role of planning, coordinating, hosting, and raising funds for Common Ground events and outreaching to various audiences and speakers. These experiences solidified her commitment to social and environmental justice and pledge toward acting in ways that are anti-oppressive and accountable to historically marginalized groups.

Sara is currently a Randall Lewis Health and Policy Fellow working on a project with the City of Riverside and acts as Co-Founder and Events Liaison for the Arab-American Coalition for Equity in Los Angeles. She is working to increase Arab-American representation in social justice work while she completes her Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. After completing her degree she hopes to work on projects that seek to improve city services, optimize decision-making by local governments, address urban issues such as environmental pollution, public health issues, and inspire urban citizens to improve their quality of life.

Jordan-Hunter Jimenez

Jordan-Hunter Jimenez (she/her) is from San Diego, California and is a recent University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) graduate. She received a bachelors degree in Anthropology and minored in Global Information and Social Enterprises Studies. By finding an interest in social justice communities and a passion for open dialogues between her peers and mentors, she found the Right Livelihood College (RLC) at UCSC. For over two years she connected with and worked alongside RLC students, Right Livelihood Foundation leaders, and Laureates, which promoted the fostering of a global community of collaborative thinkers and change makers. And in her fourth year of undergrad she completed a fellowship program focusing on collaboration with non-profits to help analyze and solve key information and communication challenges around issues of social justice and environmental sustainability. Since graduating she has applied for a clinical psychology masters program at the University of San Francisco with the intention embarking on a rewarding career path to be a local change maker within her community.

Ethan Mulberg

Ethan Mulberg attended UCSC from 2019-2021 achieving his bachelor’s degree in Sociology with a concentration in Global Information and Social Enterprise and a minor in Legal Studies. While at university he developed a special interest in supporting the Right Livelihood college while working with the Everett Program and the RLC students. He wanted to form connections with people who are making great changes in social and environmental justice. We all come from different cultures, backgrounds, and time zones but we come together to make the right livelihood possible. Upon graduating he continues to promote and teach the core values of the Right Livelihood in his community.