Student Fellowships at Work

As state budgets continue to decline and student tutitions climb, private support is more important than ever.  Whether you contribute to the Dean's or Departments' Innovation Funds or endow a student fellowship for long term support, your gifts directly impact students who now pay more than $20,000 a year in tuition.  

Make your gift online today  [1] to help support students like these:



Joshua Low is persuing his master’s degree in Public Policy at UCLA Luskin, emphasizing on Housing and Community Development.  He was recently awarded a fellowship from the David Bohnett Foundation to work for the City of Los Angeles in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s Performance Management Unit.  The PMU serves as the Mayor's internal audit team with a mission to ensure timely and effective implementation of key initiatives.  In this capacity, Josh develops metrics for success, analyzes program data and works with departments to strategically assess future policy options.  Through this work, Josh provides the Mayor with information necessary to make key decisions and move the City of Los Angeles forward. 

Prior to entering graduate school Joshua spent seven years working for non-profit and community-based organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area as a fundraising professional.  Through these positions, Joshua managed the fundraising for several multi-million dollar projects including the $10 million renovation of a former furniture store into a  collaborative multi-non-profit facility focused on community economic development and asset building in San Francisco’s Mission District.  Joshua’s  political activism led him to work for the Barack Obama Campaign for Change in 2008 as a field organizer in Wisconsin where he led the voter outreach efforts for St. Croix County.  His duties included volunteer recruitment and management, designing outreach events, canvassing, phone banking and building coalitions with local democratic efforts.  Joshua graduated from San Diego State University in 2003 with a BA in political science.

Jennifer Vallejo, a second- year MSW student, received the  Marjorie Hays Fertig and Ralph D. Fertig Fellowship award this year.  Jennifer grew up in in a multi-cultural family where Spanish was her primary language and at the age of 10, Jennifer relocated to her father’s native country of Ecuador.  During her three years in Ecuador, she witnessed the inequalities people of color experienced in South America, planting a  social justice seed which eventually drove her to pursue her MSW at UCLA Luskin. 
 Before returning to pursue her MSW, Jennifer earned a BS from UCLA in Microbiology, moved to Japan to teach English, taught first grade in Boyle Heights, and managed a tutoring company providing free tutoring to disenfranchised families under the No Child Left Behind Act.  It was this last role working with foster children and families in Boyle Heights that made Jennifer realize her true calling of Social Work. 

Currently an intern with the Department of Mental Health’s Psychiatric Mobile Response Team, Jennifer works in crisis intervention and provides families with support during extremely difficult situations involving their loved ones.  Her goal is to continue working in disenfranchised communities providing mental health services in both English and Spanish, particularly in crisis work.  Despite the demands and the intensity of the work, at the end of the day, Jennifer believes  there is nothing more rewarding than helping clients find some peace of mind.

Madeline Wander, a second-year Masters of Urban and Regional Planning student, received the prestigious Harvey Perloff Fellowship this year.  Madeline graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles in 2008 where she majored in Urban & Environmental Policy and minored in Mathematics.

While at Occidental, she pursued her passion for social equity and community organizing through internships at the Coalition for Economic Survival and One LA - IAF.Following graduation, Madeline organized for Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign in Colorado and then for Housing LA, a broad coalition pushing for the City of Los Angeles to adopt policies that ensure both the production and preservation of affordable homes.

Now, Madeline is pursuing her MURP at UCLA and is a graduate research assistant at USC’s Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE). Her academic interests include transportation and environmental justice and research can be seen in her recently published article in Technology and Planning Today [2]. She loves bicycling, cooking and living car-free in Los Angeles.