Tonya (Tone-yá) McClendon received her undergraduate degree in Business and in African American studies from California State University Northridge and received her masters degree in Public Policy from UCLA. She was awarded as the 2022 Public Policy Student of the Year, the 2022 Global Public Affairs fellowship for professional development, the 1st and 2nd year recipient of the Luskin Graduate Fellowship and was honored with the Excellence in Academic Scholarship and Mentorship at the Sadie T.M. Alexander Conference for Black Women in Economics and Related Fields from the Sadie Collective Organization in 2022. During her time at Luskin she served on the Luskin Summer Racial Justice Working Group, board member for the Luskin Black Caucus and as the Outreach and Recruitment Chair for Luskin Policy Professionals for Diversity and Equity, while also working as graduate student researcher and publishing multiple research articles and op eds in educational and political journals. Tonya is a first generation college student from Inglewood, CA and is passionate about pursuing policy that centers liberation of Black and Brown communities- particularly through criminal justice reform and economic empowerment. She currently works in community centered non-profits where she focuses on workforce development and civil rights for formerly incarcerated folks but has plans to continue her education by obtaining her Juris Doctorate

Please see Tonya’s LinkedIn profile for more information.