I School Ph.D. student Ji Su Yoo was awarded the Soros Fellowship today, an honor given to outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants from all over the world who are pursuing graduate school here in the United States.
Ji Su is among 30 fellows across the United States announced today by the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, including four other UC Berkeley students and alumni. Winners receive a two-year fellowship of up to $90,000 towards their graduate education. Since the first Soros Fellowships were awarded in 1998, 25 fellows have received their graduate degrees at UC Berkeley.
Meet Ji Su Yoo
Ji Su Yoo was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and raised in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, before her family moved to Los Angeles, California. She owes her commitment to social justice to her parents and sisters, who migrated to give her educational opportunities.
Ji Su graduated from Harvard College with an AB in social studies. Leveraging both her agility with data and her strong social sciences perspective, Ji Su is pursuing a Ph.D. at the Berkeley School of Information, where she focuses on the intersection of technology and inequality and social computing using mixed methods.
Ji Su is interested in exposing how technology and its use in critical decision-making processes may reflect or exacerbate existing political and social inequalities. She advocates for increasing diversity in tech education and industry, especially since emerging technologies can disproportionally impact marginalized communities. Ji Su is also identifying ways to use and build technologies to reduce barriers to information and resource access among people of color, people with disabilities, and immigrants. Her long-term goal is to continue conducting research that will inform public interest issues.
About the Soros Fellowship Program
“At a time when all forms of immigration are under attack, it’s more important than ever to be celebrating the achievements and contributions of immigrants and refugees from across the world,” said Craig Harwood, who directs the Soros Fellowship program. “Our country and universities are enriched by the ingenuity that comes from abroad. When we honor and invest in New Americans our nation is stronger — the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellows are a perfect demonstration of that.”
This was the first selection cycle that the Soros Fellowship was open to all immigrants, regardless of their immigration status, who have graduated from both high school and college in the US. The fellowship has been open to DACA recipients since 2014.
