2016 William K. (Sandy) Muir, Jr. Leadership Award Recipient
Alex Mabanta is a double major in Political Science and Rhetoric and minor in Human Rights from Saratoga, California. With a huge passion for Berkeley, both the university and the city, he splits his time between class and City Hall on a mission to "bring human rights home."
At age nineteen Alex was appointed to the Peace and Justice Commission, a legislative body charged with crafting human rights ordinances for the city of Berkeley. As the youngest commissioner in the city’s history, together with law professors and disability stakeholders he crafted a law to enable Berkeley to...
2020 William K. (Sandy) Muir, Jr. Leadership Award Recipient
Nicole Mendoza is a Los Angeles native graduating in May 2020 with a major in Political Science and a minor in Public Policy. She is passionate about advocating for progressive policies to advance gender and racial equity. In her free time, she enjoys biking, baking, and listening to music.
During her time at Cal, she led a new advocacy program at the YWCA Berkeley/Oakland, teaching students about grassroots organizing and lobbying. The team conducted original research on Berkeley housing and presented new data to city legislators to promote more affordable housing and protections...
2014 William K. (Sandy) Muir, Jr. Leadership Award Recipient
Shelby Nacino graduated Summa Cum Laude with Highest Honors from the Political Science Department in May, 2014. After graduation she worked as a staffer for a local school board campaign and as a researcher for faculty in the Political Science department. Shelby started Berkeley Law in August and currently volunteers with the Tenants Rights Workshop. She is also involved in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. While she was a student, Shelby served in several campus leadership positions: Vice President of the Resident Hall Assembly, a campus tour guide...
2023 William K. (Sandy) Muir, Jr. Leadership Award
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 ...
2024 William K. (Sandy) Muir, Jr. Leadership Award
2024 Democracy Camp in DC
Mansour Taleb-Ahmed (he/him)
Mansour’s journey began in a high school where whispers of "far-fetched" threatened his Berkeley dream. Extraordinary challenges marked his undergraduate journey. Arriving in the US in January 2020, he faced the pandemic in absolute isolation, knowing no one in the country and having no access to see his family back home. In community college, he also questioned his place in academia as he didn’t see many people who looked like him in his classes. Yet, fueled by a desire for representation, he turned his ambition into action; as a Campus Ambassador and...
2014 William K. (Sandy) Muir, Jr. Leadership Award Recipient
Daniel Tuchler graduated Magna Cum Laude with High Honors in May, 2014, with plans on pursuing work as a political consultant. At Cal he served in several campus leadership positions including President of the Cal Berkeley Democrats. He was also on the Strategic Planning Committee of the Public Service Center. Daniel worked for several Bay Area political consulting firms and on various candidate and issue political races, including leading a voter contact effort in Nevada during the 2012 presidential election cycle. He spent one summer working for the US...
2015 William K. (Sandy) Muir, Jr. Leadership Award Recipient
Brandon M. Wong graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Political Science Department in May, 2015. At Cal Brandon spent the spring 2015 semester at the UC Washington Center, where he interned at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) as a 2015 Matsui Center Washington Fellow. After graduation he interned in State Senator John Moorlach's office doing everything from meeting with interest group representatives and constituents to writing position letters to concerned voters. Says Brandon, "It was interesting to witness a politician and his staff gain their footing and...
2017 William K. (Sandy) Muir, Jr. Leadership Award Recipient
Eric Yang ('17) is a senior at UC Berkeley studying Political Science. He is originally from Vancouver, Canada and is attending law school next year. He is passionate about using legal means to make a positive impact in his community. Eric believes it is very important for the legal system to be fair to everyone and wants to ensure the underprivileged have an equal voice within the system.
On campus, he was a caseworker for the Associated Students of the University of California Student Legal Clinic. As a caseworker, Eric did legal research for clients that needed help on a range of...
2018 William K. (Sandy) Muir, Jr. Leadership Award Recipient
Youstina is a Political Science Major, and a Global Poverty and Practice Minor from Cairo, Egypt, graduating from Cal in May 2018. She has extensive service experience working on projects related to international human rights, refugee protection, and accountability for atrocities.
During her time at UC Berkeley, she worked closely with ICC investigators and prosecutors, open-source intelligence experts, and international human rights lawyers to verify and utilize open-source intelligence for legal accountability. At the Open-Source Investigations Lab of Human Rights Center, she was...
