Meet the 2024-2025 ProCES Student Advisory Board Members
Adriana Alvarado, Class of ’25
Whitman College
Sociology Major
Latino Studies, Environmental Studies, Global Health and Health Policy Minors
Certificate in Latin American Studies
Key organizations and clubs: Co-Chair of the Student Volunteer Council, Co-President of Princeton Latin American Student Association, Community Ambassador for the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access & Opportunity, Service Focus participant, ESL Volunteer at El Centro, CICO (call in call out) Podcast with CAF, PUMP Mentor, Eviction Lab participant
Internships: FSI Scholar (Summer 2021); World Wildlife Fund Market Institute Innovation Startups via RISE (Summer 2022); Global Seminar in Food, Climate, & Health-An Indian Exploration; Bogle Fellowship creating youth leadership & farmworker advocacy (Summer 2023)
Standout ProCES course? I have really enjoyed every course I’ve taken with ProCES because they all offer me the experience of contextualizing academic topics whether it be in a more empirical manner or artistic. I recently took SOC 314 Poverty, by America. This was a space to reflect on my role and social responsibility as an individual because how we live our lives impacts the opportunities and choices available to those around us. Overall, I take the time to encourage friends or anyone asking for course advice to take ProCES courses which ultimately redefine our expectations of how an enriching curriculum should engage with the world around us.
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work? Health inequities, food insecurity, housing (physical conditions of housing & infrastructure). I am from Delano, an agricultural community in the Central Valley of California. Growing up in a predominantly Mexican community of farm laborers and in a home with parents who themselves are farm laborers drives me to continue learning in depth about social and environmental determinants and detriments to human health and wellness in low-income communities.
Charlotte Defriez, Class of ‘26
Mathey College
Religion Major
Philosophy and in Humanistic Studies Minors
Internships: Stop the Traffik (2021), PICS Epiphany School (Summer 2023), Trenton Arts Fellow (2023-2024 Academic Year), Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project (Summer 2024)
Standout ProCES course? In Spring 2024, I had the privilege of taking ENV204, Religion and Ethics in Environmental Justice Activism. The course tied together my interest in religious theory - with readings on race, secularism, Ecowomanism, and Indigenous Ways of Knowing - and introduced me to the field of Environmental Justice scholarship. We were lucky to work with a number of guest speakers, culminating in our work with Chief Mann, Turtle Clan Chief of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, to create curricular materials around Food Justice for fourth graders.
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work? Environmental justice; access to the arts; social justice; equitable education
Cassandra Eng, Class of ‘25
First/NC West Colleges
SPIA Major
Key organizations and clubs: Current Assistant Artistic Director of the Black Arts Dance Company, the Action Matters Engagement Specialist at UMatter, a Fields Fellow at the Carl A. Fields Center, a past participant of Service Focus, the past Service Chair of BodyHype Dance Company, and a proud member of the Princeton Filipino Community.
Internships: Project PEARLS Youth Ambassador, Cassie’s Bag of Dreams Project (Summer 2019); Stop AAPI Hate Youth Campaign Intern, Cassie’s Bag of Dreams Project (Summer 2020); Research Intern for the Stop AAPI Hate Youth Campaign, Northern California Outreach Intern for the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (Summer 2021); Project PEARLS Youth Ambassador and Fundraising Intern (with support from Princeton’s Center for Career Development), Cassie’s Bag of Dreams Project (Summer 2022); Public Engagement Intern at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Summer 2023)
Standout ProCES course? Professor Frank-Vitale’s class on Central Americans and Asylum in the United States LAS/ANT362. She truly embodied the goal of ProCES by weaving together academic readings among personal narratives of asylum to keep us grounded in human-centered approaches to learning. The students in the class also had opportunities to become researchers to assist in real asylum cases as class task forces put together country briefs that would be used in court to advocate for the asylum seekers. Not only did the class spark deep self-reflection, but it was also a joy to be around such driven, knowledgeable, and kind classmates, guest speakers, and professors.
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work? I look at different social issues through the ways they relate to, and often times exacerbate, cycles of poverty. This includes racial justice, housing justice, education, health, women and children’s rights, and political power.
Ramon Espinoza, Class of ’26
Forbes College
Medical Anthropology
Statistics and Machine Learning, Archaeology, Cognitive Science Minors or Certificates
Key organizations and clubs: Chairman & President Emeritus of The Princeton Student Veterans, Ambassador of The Princeton Transfer Association, Life and Learning Consultant at the McGraw Center, Princeton Latin American Student Association, Club Rugby
Internships: DPAA (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) partnered Archaeological recovery (Summer 2023), Data Analyst at the Oxford Clinical Research Unit in Saigon (Summer 2024)
Standout ProCES course? I took Medical Anthropology in the spring of my sophomore year. The class allowed me to consider the relative view of medical care and consider the impact of imposing treatment onto patients where
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work? Food insecurity, access to higher education, Indigenous rights, nature conservation, mental health, veteran support, housing, psychedelic research
Before coming to Princeton, my experiences living in a Habitat for Humanity home and working as an apprentice carpenter in Austin, Texas—where I witnessed the impact of homelessness, especially among veterans struggling with mental illness and substance dependency—deepened my understanding of the urgent need for affordable housing and the vital role of skilled labor in tackling these issues. As a Veteran of the GWOT, I am also partial to policy reform to improve mental health through access to psychedelics.
Synai Ferrell, Class of '26
Yeh College
African American Studies Major
Journalism Minor
Key organizations and clubs: Daily Princetonian, RAQS Dance Company, African American Studies Undergraduate Board of Advisors
Internships: PICS Office of Senator Chris Van Hollen (Summer 2023), Heirloom Gardens Project (Summer 2024)
Standout ProCES course? In Fall 2023, I took ANT 263: Justice which examined the rights and retributions of criminal justice systems worldwide. It was very transformative to learn about how different countries regulate law and how law disproportionately affects minority communities. Also, we spent time with returning citizens in New Jersey to understand the social and legal barriers that formerly incarcerated people experience in the U.S. With their input, we brainstormed methods that can reform discriminatory practices in the criminal justice system.
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work? Racial justice, criminal justice reform, environmental justice, and journalism.
Yassine Gaye, Class of ‘26
NC West
Chemical and Biological Engineering Major
Internships: Project Rousseau (Summer 2024); NASA Space Flight Center (Summer 2023); CUNY Research Scholar Program (Summer 2022); LSAMP (Summer 2021)
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work? Social justice, immigrant integration, food insecurity, access to higher education
Siyeon Lee, Class of '27
Butler College
History Major
Computer Science & Journalism Minors
Internships: Derian Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project (Summer 2024)
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work?: As a History major, I am constantly thinking about the varying ethical implications of different ways of retelling the past. In a field that has been deeply saturated by extractive research, community-engaged commits me to write (hi)stories that are reparative as much as they are rigorous.
Adam Sanders, Class of ‘25
Butler College
Religion Major
Journalism and Humanistic Studies Minors
Key organizations and clubs: I’m the News and Culture Director at WPRB Princeton, the nonprofit community radio station located on campus. I host the biweekly “News and Culture” radio show that airs stories about community life, arts, and public affairs in New Jersey and Philadelphia. I also am involved at the Center for Jewish Life in the LGBTQ*J affinity group and as a Community Action leader. I was a member of Service Focus.
Internships: ProCES Derian Intern at The Trenton Project (Summer 2022); Undergraduate Research Fellow, Princeton University Center for Culture, Society, and Religion (Summer 2023)
Standout ProCES course? My favorite ProCES class has been HIS 388: Unrest and Renewal in Urban America. It was my first experience doing intensive local historical research and enlightened me to the complex historical narratives in my own backyard.
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work? I’m quite passionate about local journalism and the public arts and humanities! My ProCES and Princeton experience have been really shaped by my commitment to using news, documentary, and radio as medium for bridging communities.
Liliana Sofia, Class of ’27
Forbes College
Prospective SPIA Major
Prospective African American Studies Minor
Key organizations and clubs: Black Student Union Board Member, ROOTS Member, Princeton Equestrian Team
Internships: Court of Common Pleas in Montgomery County Intern (January 2024), Young Advocate at Young Invincibles (Spring 2024)
Standout ProCES course? I took POL 210 with Anna Stilz in Fall 2023 and was selected to participate in a partnering ProCES program where I would form a structured lesson plan with other students in the class to analyze Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" with high school girls from a community-based program called Homeworks Trenton. It was an extremely fulfilling experience, and was how I got involved with ProCES. Working with Homeworks Trenton also made me interested in other community partnerships with the university, which ProCES obviously has a huge hand in.
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work? Social justice, environmental justice, access to higher education, housing, disability rights, etc. Growing up in New York City and having moved around a lot, I have grown to be very passionate about New York's school system, which is the most segregated in the entire country. This fact, despite New York also being the most 'diverse' place in the world, really puts into perspective the amount of discrimination that takes place here, including housing discrimination, redlining, racial steering, gentrification, white flight, and many other things. With that being said, I believe that some of the biggest issues not just in NYC but across the country, like generational and systemic inequity, lie in the lack of equal education (and educational funding, for that matter) and the lack of acknowledgment of the sheer disproportionality across so many different groups of people by representatives and the Legislature.
Kiara Marie Wassoodew, Class of ‘25
Mathey College
Molecular Biology Major
Key organizations and clubs: BodyHype Dance Company, Expressions Dance Company, Princeton Health Literacy and Equity, Entrepreneurship Club, McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning
Internships: Teaching Assistant for the Dance Department’s course, “An Introduction to Contemporary Dance” at the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University (Spring 2022), Research Assistant at Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd In-Vivo Pharmacology Lab on Immuno Oncology, Mumbai, India (Summer 2022), Analyst, Outreach Coordinator, and Volunteer for the HIV Prevention Team at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Pretoria, South Africa (Summer 2023).
Standout ProCES course? I took Medical Anthropology, a ProCES course, in the spring of my sophomore year, where I was able to view healthcare and medicine from a biosocial and anthropological perspective. I also had the opportunity to partner with UrbanPromise Trenton, where I supported a research project on ecological health in Trenton, the subsequent vulnerabilities that children face towards asthma and lead poisoning, and the consequences of this on children’s educational success. As a pre-med student, this course was critical in helping me view healthcare from a more holistic perspective, and recognize the intersections that exist between deep-rooted public health issues and clinical medicine.
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work? I am very passionate about understanding child and maternal health from a molecular-level to uncover the biological basis behind vulnerabilities and disease, while simultaneously exploring the macroscopic nature of health issues that affect both children and their mothers.
Jaden Wedderburn, Class of 2026
Yeh College
Anthropology Major and African American Studies Certificate
Internships: David Rose ‘88 internship for Community Engagement (Facilitated youth mentorship and empowerment programs in the city of Trenton); Vote 100 Internship; ELab internship through the Keller Center
Standout ProCES course? This year I am very excited to take SPI 331 Race and Public Policy
What are the passions that motivate your community-engaged work? I’m from an underserved community and have always searched for ways to give back in any way that I can.