Sammy Raucher

Sammy Raucher, a Los Angeles native, is passionate about LGBTQ+ rights law and policy, as well as the intersections between social issues and data technologies. At UC Berkeley, she majored in political science and minored in data science. She hopes to devote her leadership and sociotechnical skills to a career defending and expanding civil rights for marginalized communities, especially the LGBTQ+ community, in her home state of California and the greater United States. She is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa and an alumna of the Democracy Camp and UC Washington programs. 

During her time at Cal, Sammy dedicated herself to public service on campus and at the state and federal levels. After working as a Legislative Research Associate in an ASUC Senate office during her sophomore year, Sammy was elected to serve as one of 20 ASUC Senators during her junior year. In this role, she represented over 30,000 undergraduate students, advocating for basic needs, student wellness, and STEM Ethics. Sammy has also engaged in politics at the state level as an Equality California Comcast Legislative Fellow by conducting policy research and drafting communications for the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus and State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman’s office. In addition, Sammy spent the fall of her senior year working in Washington, D.C. for Rep. Adam Schiff’s office as an LGBTQ+ Victory Institute Congressional Intern. There, she devoted much of her time to supporting the Congressman’s LGBTQ-related constituent correspondence, social media posts, and legislation. 

Since her freshman year, Sammy has also worked as a Human Contexts and Ethics Curriculum Developer and Team Lead in UC Berkeley’s Data Science department, where she has led the creation and revision of social justice-oriented Data Science curricula affecting thousands of students each semester. In addition, she has worked as a Course Assistant for Legal Studies 123: Data, Prediction, and Law and presented on integrating ethics in computing curriculum as a student panelist at the Mozilla Teaching Responsible Computing Summit. Through these experiences, Sammy has developed a unique socio-technical perspective to bring to the future political and social justice work she hopes to do, which has become increasingly intertwined with data and technology. 

Sammy has also served on UC Berkeley’s Student Advisory Council for Undergraduate Education for two years and has sustained her love of music by playing violin in the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra throughout college.