Each year, the Graduate Division Dean's Office benefits from the hard work of Rosenberg-Hill Fellows, who support the Division's administrative operations as well as conduct studies that will benefit graduate students and postdocs at UCSF for years to come. Past fellows have worked on projects like developing curricula for graduate studies courses, compiling and curating anti-racism resources, and contributing to other ongoing research projects in graduate education.
Rosenberg-Hill Fellows – drawn from PhD candidates in UCSF's social science doctoral programs – also benefit from working in the Graduate Division. In addition to the financial benefits of the fellowship, they gain meaningful experience in university administration at a research-intensive institution, which helps prepare them for academic careers.
In September, we were pleased to welcome two fellows to the Graduate Division Dean's Office team for the 2023-2024 academic year: Berty DC Arreguin and Kourtney Nham.
Berty DC Arreguin is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Sociology program, where her faculty mentor is Dr. Howard Pinderhughes. Berty is originally from Fresno, CA, and she attended Fresno State University as an undergrad, where she double-majored in Sociology and Chicano and Latin American Studies.
Berty’s dissertation research here at UCSF focuses on Latinx mothers living and coping with diabetes. She is conducting her research in three areas in California: The San Joaquin Central Valley where she grew up, the Los Angeles area, and the San Francisco Bay area, where she currently resides. Berty wants to understand the emotional journey that comes with living with diabetes, the bi-directional relationship between Latinx mothers and their adult children, the emotive experiences that may come up for them while living with diabetes, and to ascertain whether and how their emotive experiences may affect their motivation to manage their diabetes. She believes that conducting research on lived experiences in health and illness using a Sociology of Emotions approach and an intersectional lens can help illuminate how Latinx mothers experience the phenomenon of diabetes and how they and their families cope with it.
As a Rosenberg-Hill Fellow, Berty will support Dr. D’Anne Duncan and her team with various projects. She remarked, “I look forward to working on JEDI research projects with the JEDI team, and co-facilitating the GRAD 210 course with Dr. D’Anne Duncan!”
After completing her doctoral degree, Berty would like to continue conducting research on health inequalities and teach at a state university. When she’s not engaged in her research and academic work, Berty likes to travel, attend concerts, practice self-care, and be in community with family and friends.
Kourtney Nham is a third-year doctoral candidate in the Sociology program, working with faculty mentor Dr. Janet Shim. She completed her undergrad at UCLA, where she majored in Human Biology and Society, with a minor in Asian American Studies.
Here at UCSF Kourtney’s research interest broadly centers on the relationship between militarism, imperialism, and health. For her dissertation, she aims to focus on toxic exposure and contamination on and around two former military bases in California – in particular, sites on these bases that have been reused/redeveloped in carceral capacities. In situating these sites in their material histories as well as attending to their reuses, they hope the project will provide insight into the longue durée of militarized state violence and the reproduction of multiple forms of toxicity and harm across spatial and temporal scales.
Kourtney will work with Graduate Dean Nicquet Blake as a Rosenberg-Hill Fellow, including support for the Responsible Conduct of Research course as well as carrying out event/program evaluation projects to strengthen Graduate Division's responsiveness to student feedback and needs. “I am also excited for the opportunity to think through how UCSF can better support and integrate social and population science students within the campus community,” remarked Kourtney.
In the future, Kourtney hopes to have a faculty or research position at an organization dedicated to advancing health equity. Outside of school and research, you can likely find Kourtney knitting or crocheting, reading in the park, or supporting decarceral and anti-deportation efforts at community organizations.
“We are excited to have Berty and Kourtney on our Graduate Division team as Rosenberg-Hill Fellows this year,” said Dean Blake. “We benefit from their insight as current students, as well as from their growing expertise as social scientists. I’m looking forward to what we can accomplish together in the months ahead with their help.”
