OURS National Scholarships

Alexandra Feldman

Alexandra Feldman (Political Economy, ’22) is a native of Southern California. She first visited Beijing during a 4-week Chinese language immersion program after her sophomore year in high school, and has continued studying both Chinese and Chinese literature since then. While attending Berkeley as a Regents’ Scholar, she became the Head News Editor for the Daily Californian and began writing poetry and short stories. As a Literature and Culture student at the Yenching Academy, Alexandra plans to explore the differences between the Chinese fantasy genre and Western fantasies, looking specifically […]

Arun Johnson

Arun Johnson (CBE, ’23) from Redwood City, CA, has long been interested in sustainable chemistry. He began researching carbon capture, fusion energy, and nanomaterials for cleaning car exhaust in high school, winning an Emergent Ventures grant and the Pioneer Tournament. As an undergraduate, he has been performing research on the use of nanomaterials for selective water purification in Prof. Jeffrey Long’s group. He is also the Vice President of the Biofuels Technology Club, which converts waste cooking oil from the dining halls into diesel fuel. He is interning at Terraform […]

Nitish Dashora

Nitish Dashora (EECS, ‘24) was born and raised in Columbus, OH. He is extremely interested in machine learning algorithms for general intelligence, namely those concerned with robotics. He has been researching AI algorithms for high-speed, off-road self-driving at Berkeley AI Research (BAIR). He has also been working with the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience to explore semantically meaningful learning representations in computer vision. He recently worked at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory with autonomous racing and published as a first author in the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). He […]

Satyam Sharma

Satyam Sharma (intended Math, ORMS, and Business ,‘25) will continue pursuing his love of languages and cultures with the CLS program in Tbilisi, Georgia this summer. A freshman from Southern California, Satyam is ecstatic to make lifelong friends through the scholarship and develop a firsthand understanding of ongoing crises in the region.

Mengyu Dong

Mengyu Dong (Political Science/History, ‘15) is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences. Originally from Beijing, China, Mengyu has conducted research and reporting for numerous publications in the U.S., Europe, and her home country since graduating from Cal. Her work focuses on information control, grassroots resistance, and minority rights. She aspires to bring quality journalism to both English and Chinese audiences through open-source investigation and data-driven storytelling. In addition to journalism, she strives to improve access to education for children in rural China. She […]

Amarpreet Kaur

Amarpreet Kaur (Social Welfare, ’22) will spend the summer studying Punjabi in Chandigarh, Punjab, India. She has spent the past few years working at the intersections of social welfare, public policy, and advocacy. Amarpreet has worked with the NAACP in Washington, D.C. and the Brennan Center for Justice, as well as other organizations. Amarpreet will use her Punjabi language skills to continue to advocate for the Punjabi-Sikh community in the United States and abroad through policy and government affairs.

Pedro Rodriguez

Pedro Rodriguez (Sociology, ’23) grew up in Delano, California, a grape-growing region in the Central Valley. The son of agricultural laborers, he has also worked in the fields since the age of seven. These personal experiences are the source of his academic and public service interest in the areas of workers’ rights, immigration documentation, and environmental health and safety.

Adil Raniwala

Adil Raniwala (Political Science, ‘22) is a Muslim American student dedicated to grassroots organizing and assisting his local community. He will use his knowledge of the Muslim student experience and project management gained from the Muslim Student Association West organization to run Project Peacemeal. Adil hopes to attend law school and pursue a career in intellectual property law.

Garrett Oman

Garrett Oman (History, ’23) is a junior who hopes to use knowledge from his historical studies and experience in public service to bring Project Peacemeal to fruition. His studies are currently concentrated on the history of colonial North America. Oman is also a cadet enrolled in the UC Berkeley Army ROTC program. He will attend Cadet Summer Training at Fort Knox this summer with the aim of commissioning as an officer in the Spring of 2023.

Andrew Lu

Andrew Lu (MCB, ’17) was born in Taiwan and raised from a young age in Houston, Texas. He is currently in the third year of the UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program (MD-PhD). He is specializing in the rapidly growing field of synthetic biology, building artificial cell behaviors to better understand design principles of natural systems. Andrew discovered and embraced his life’s work as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, after taking a leave of absence after his sophomore year to evaluate his original plan to major in Computer Science and work […]