2009-2010 David Bohnett Fellows
Office of the Mayor, City of Los Angeles
Cathy Lam Dang
Master of Social Welfare, Specialization: Macro/Welfare Policy
Undergraduate Program: Loyola Marymount University, Sociology
Cathy Dang is a first year student committed to pushing forward social change to improve welfare policy. She hopes to work directly with individuals and families to gather critical information on the impact of welfare policies on underserved communities. In particular, she will explore the implications of welfare reform on low-wage workers and working class families. As a daughter of refugees from Vietnam, her personal experiences have driven her to seek social change and improve the quality of life for immigrants, low-wage workers, and working class families.
Cathy is actively involved with numerous community based
organizations and unions such as the Community Labor Environmental
Action Network (CLEAN), Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE),
Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), and the National Asian
Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF).
Frank Lopez
Master of Public Policy, Specialization: Economic Policy
Undergraduate Program: UC Santa Barbara, BA in Business Economics with a certificate in Technology Entrepreneurship
Frank Lopez is a first year MPP student at UCLA where he studies urban and regional economic issues specific to California and Los Angeles. Frank is currently an intern in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Office of Housing and Economic Development where he is assisting the Mayor’s economic policy director in the development of a green economy strategy for the City of Los Angeles.
Prior to his enrollment at UCLA, Frank worked
for the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Management Service Bureau
in Washington DC. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Frank worked as a
community organizer and fundraiser for a non-profit organization in
Santa Barbara County. As a community organizer, Frank contributed to the
city’s passing of its first living wage ordinance and the election of a
county supervisor, school board member and two city council seats.
Frank plans on pursuing a career in Los Angeles government after UCLA.
Priya Zachariah
Master of Arts in Urban Planning, Specialization: Regional and International Development
Undergraduate
Program: Bachelor’s in Architecture, School of Architecture, Center for
Environment Planning and Technology, India + ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
Priya Zachariah has worked as an architect in South Asia and the Middle East providing building solutions for clients in both the private and the public sector, with a focus on project and design management. In Kuala Lumpur, she worked on developing proposals under the UNDP-PPPUE framework to create equity through ICT solutions for low-income communities in Benin, Nepal, Fiji and Mozambique. Working at the confluence of ICT, construction and urban management, she realized the potential of transposing ideas between diverse domains and between the private and the public sectors, a direction that she is keen to pursue as a student of Urban Planning at UCLA.
Having lived and worked in rapidly developing Asian countries on the one hand, and in Europe and Australia on the other, has led Priya to believe that purposeful and practicable regional policies will help address income and infrastructure disparities, both regionally and globally. Her coursework in graduate school is focused on regional and international development; she is interested in the development of green technology as an economic sector and whether this can define a new model for infrastructure development and equitable economic growth for Los Angeles and Southern California.