Student

Michael Banerjee

2025-2026 BELS Fellow

Michael Banerjee is a Ph.D. candidate in Jurisprudence and Social Policy at UC Berkeley Law, studying the legal history of universities and academic freedom. A 2019 graduate of Harvard Law School, from 2022 to 2023, he served as the law clerk to Vermont Chief Justice Paul L. Reiber, and, from 2023 to 2024, he served as the administrative law clerk to Hawai'i Chief Justice Mark E. Recktenwald. His work has appeared in California Legal History

Photo credit: Steve Tressler, provided by Penn State.

Nandina Babic

2025-2026 BELS Fellow

Nandina Babic is a Ph.D. student in Jurisprudence and Social Policy. Her research interests include punishment, surveillance, and the criminal legal system. Her dissertation explores how local actors attempt to rein in police use of technology in the Bay Area. Prior to Berkeley, she received a B.A. in Law, Societies, & Justice and Political Science from the University of Washington, Seattle.

Dhurata Osmani

PhD Candidate
Sociology

Dhurata Osmani is a third year Sociology PhD student whose research interests lie within political sociology, the sociology of emotions, and conflict. Dhurata has previously conducted research on the role of emotions in Kosovo, focusing on how gendered constructions of nationalism and liberal feminism shaped the post-conflict climate. Currently, Dhurata is interested in interrogating how the American post-war state sought to control emotions to attain its hegemonic status.

Joohyun Park

BELS Fellow

Joohyun Park is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her interests are gender, law, medicine, and social movements. Her dissertation project examines how the victim identity is constructed and contested within the legal and medical arenas that address sexual violence in South Korea.

Peyton Provenzano

PhD Candidate
Jurisprudence and Social Policy

Peyton Provenzano is a second-year JD student and fourth-year PhD student in the Jurisprudence & Social Policy Program at Berkeley Law. Her legal focus is on 4th Amendment Jurisprudence, with an emphasis on the police use of force. Peyton's work is situated at the disciplinary intersections of Law & Society, Critical Criminology, and Critical Race Theory. Peyton's current research and policy advocacy is centered on community-based alternatives to the police for psychiatric emergencies, intimate-partner violence, and community-level violence.

Adriana P. Ramirez

Adriana P. Ramirez is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at UC Berkeley. Her research interests lie at the intersection of migration, citizenship, Latin America, political sociology, race and ethnicity, and youth. The influence of growing up as a migrant student between Mexico and the U.S. and being the daughter of farmworkers is seen in her work that explores transnational migration dynamics. Her current work explores what happens when young migrants leave the U.S. to “return” to their sending communities, and the impact of migration on...

Rebekah Jones

Rebekah Jones is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Political Science. Her current research agenda investigates the development and consequences of local crime policy in the U.S. Her dissertation project examines how cities embedded in the federated structure of the American political economy prioritize and devise their crime policy agendas to respond to our nation's high levels of lethal violence. More broadly, she is interested in how the economic incentives of political elites interact with local political institutions...

Diana Reddy

PhD Candidate
Jurisprudence and Social Policy

Diana Reddy is a lawyer and Doctoral Student in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on questions at the intersection of work law, law and political economy, law and social movements, and social stratification and inequality. Diana's scholarship has been featured in the Yale Law Journal Forum, the Emory Law Journal, and other outlets.

Diana received her J.D., magna cum laude, from New York University School of Law where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar. She has an MA in Sociology and a BA in...

Reiley Reed

Reiley Reed is a PhD candidate at the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare. Her research interests include the pregnancy surveillance and criminalization, and the historical and ongoing role of social work in perpetuating reproductive oppression. Reiley’s mixed methods dissertation research explores social workers’ experiences with and perceptions of reporting abortion and substance use in pregnancy to government authorities. Reiley received her Master of Public Health and Master of Social Welfare from UC Berkeley and her BA in Psychology from UC Santa...

Sarah Lee

Sarah Lee is a PhD candidate in History at the University of California, Berkeley, studying modern America with a focus on spatial and carceral California history. Her dissertation, "To Control the Law of Fresno: Police, Race, and Space in California’s Central Valley," examines how police professionalization and segregation developed in rural California in the 20th century through a case study of her hometown, Fresno, California.