Meet the Fung Fellowship team!

Introducing our staff and teaching team for the 2020–21 year.

Fung Fellowship
14 min readSep 8, 2020

As we kick off the new school year and our new cohort begins to settle into the program, we want to introduce our staff and teaching team, including both the old and new faces that we are so grateful to have working on this unique experience together!

Jennifer Mangold, Director

Portrait of a woman with brown hair wearing a red and black striped shirt.

1. How long have you been a part of the fellowship and what is your role?
I joined the fellowship as part of the original start-up team (four years ago!) Time goes fast. I’m the Director and lead the strategy, development, partnerships, research, and course/program integration. I work to shape the vision of the program alongside the staff, students, and community.

2. What is your educational and professional background?
I received my MS and PhD from UC Berkeley. Go Bears! I’m trained as a mechanical engineer and have worked as a consultant, researcher, and engineer focusing on reducing the negative social and environmental impacts of products, processes, and services. I’ve worked in a variety of industries from high-tech to sustainable packaging.

3. Why is this work important to you?
My goal for the fellowship is to democratize tech and innovation across campus, opening up this space to be inclusive and supportive for all students. Co-designing the experience with the students allows our program to adapt based on student needs.

4. What are you looking forward to in the fellowship?
We have been working to launch the new Conservation + Tech track so I’m very excited to see how that track evolves and have the students jump into the work. Longterm, I’m excited for the program to grow and serve more students and am currently exploring what our third track should be. Any ideas?

5. Favorite Fung Fellowship memory?
The student interactions are always my favorite — from sharing a new idea for the program to talking through a challenge they are facing. Our fellows continue to inspire me with their commitment to developing solutions for a positive social impact.

Adrienne Greer, Program Manager

Woman with dark brown hair wearing a white shirt with a grey cardigan.

1. How long have you been a part of the fellowship and what is your role?
I have been fortunate enough to be part of the founding fellowship team that launched the program in 2016. My role as the Program Manager is to drive the student experience and support the operational and program development (behind the scenes) parts of our program.

2. What is your educational and professional background?
Before 2016, I was working in healthcare and innovation. With a master’s in Public Health from UCLA in Community Health Sciences, my professional experience was based in various healthcare settings from the VA Office of Patient Centered Care to UC Davis Health System. My favorite aspects of these roles was working directly with people while also working in program innovation.

3. Why is this work important to you?
This work is important to me because I believe in the capacity of fellows and our communities to make the world a better place. Through empathy, care for community, diverse teams and perspectives, a growth mindset, and drive to make a difference, I am continuously inspired by the fellows and their passion, creativity and capacity for impact.

4. What are you looking forward to in the fellowship?
Each year, I am excited to welcome new students into the fellowship and see how the program continues to flex and grow with each cohort. I am also thrilled to grow our alumni network and create an even larger community that extends beyond UC Berkeley’s campus.

5. Favorite Fung Fellowship memory?
There are too many to count! My favorite memories always include quality time with students — last year we went to Strawberry Canyon for the first time and we all got to try out a ropes course. I loved getting to ‘fly’ through the redwoods and get to know fellows outside of the classroom.

6. Fun fact or something you’d like to share.
The outdoors is my happy place. While fellows know me in my office at Shires or in a Zoom screen (always within arm’s distance of my laptop), my free time is mostly spent hiking on dirt trails, backpacking to a lake, or rock climbing up a new route.

Jaspal Sandhu, Senior Advisor

Man with dark hair and classes in a blue button up shirt crossing his arms.

1. How long have you been a part of the fellowship and what is your role?
I’ve been a part of the fellowship since its founding in 2016, like both Jennifer Mangold and Adrienne Greer. Joni Rubin, our first program director, was the other member of the founding team. I’ve served as the faculty lead during that entire time, across three cohorts, and our first Honors cohort. That means that I’ve been responsible for designing and leading the fellows’ learning experience. While that’s been my charge, like everything else in the Fung Fellowship, it’s been a team effort. This involved our entire program team, our fabulous GSIs — Bina, Rohit, Orianna, Surya, Katie, Mariela and Caroline, our fellows, the Fung Institute, and Coleman Fung. This academic year, I’m taking on a new role with the fellowship, one that allows me to support the growth and transition of the program by stepping outside the classroom.

2. What is your educational and professional background?
Early in my career, I trained and worked as a mechanical engineer, in product design and manufacturing. For the past 15 years I’ve been working to bridge human-centered design and public health. I am a Professor of Practice at the School of Public Health, and also Managing Partner & Co-Founder at the Gobee Group.

3. Why is this work important to you?
Dean Emeritus Stef Bertozzi reached out to me about the opportunity to join this team in Spring 2016. I was relucatant to take something new on. The reason that I signed on was because the fellowship, inspired and guided by Coleman’s vision, was really trying to disrupt the model of higher education in important ways. “Disruption” has become an overused term, but here it was really true. We had the opportunity to imagine and create an experience that shifted power to the students, that linked in-classroom learning to next generation professional competencies, that merged human-centered design, teaming, technology, and health, and that recognized the importance of relationships.

4. What are you looking forward to in the fellowship?
Aside from the very exciting growth of our program beyond human health, we’re finally in a position to tap into our alumni community in meaningful ways. Our first fellows completed the program in 2018, so they know better than us what value the program has brought to their professional lives. I’m looking forward to the possibilities of connection and cross-fertilization across the years.

5. Favorite Fung Fellowship memory?
This is such a tough question! I’ve got dozens of strong memories of my experiences with fellows. On the theme of connections, I remember when TeJae Dunnivant and Jeremy Hammer, two fellows from our very first cohort, returned to Jacobs Hall to speak to our new cohort. Miko Fogarty and Nate Tilton, who had just joined the fellowship, interviewed TeJae and Jeremy about their experiences as entrepreneurs. (Two years on TeJae is still working on Baloo, and Jeremy is co-founder and CEO of Harness.) Thanks to Miko and Nate, it was a fun, honest conversation that felt more like a family reunion than a guest lecture. That September evening, I realized how our community could be so much bigger than a single cohort.

6. Fun fact or something you’d like to share.
I’ve been to 42 US states and I’m really excited to get to the ones I haven’t visited yet. I’m looking at you, Montana and South Carolina.

Dan Zevin, Conservation+Tech Advisor

Man wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses.

1. How long have you been a part of the fellowship?
Almost 1.5 years.

2. What is your educational and professional background?
It’s all here.

3. Why is this work important to you?
I am continuously fascinated by the extraordinary variety of lifeforms on Earth, including how each species has developed its own set of unique behaviors and adaptations for survival. It’s all the more remarkable when you realize that the Earth is still the only planet known to support life in an almost incomprehensible vast universe. Yet we continue to push the life-sustaining abilities of our planet to ultimately untenable limits. For me, it’s impossible to sit back and just let that happen, and I want to inspire others to feel the same. There is after all, no other place to find what we have here, and once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

4. What are you looking forward to in the fellowship?
For the short-term, I want to learn in more detail what motivated our students to enroll in this class, what ultimately they hope to achieve as a result, and how I can help. In the long-term, and as this new course “evolves” and engages more students, I hope we end up with a very connected and active community of young people who highly value their newfound identities as citizens and stewards of the Earth, and who are ready to take on leadership roles in keeping the Earth a healthy, life-sustaining planet.

5. Favorite Fung Fellowship memory?
When Jennifer Mangold, our Director, told me she’s ready to launch the new Conservation + Technology course earlier this year. Rarely does one see one’s ideas for something “bigger”/”better” become reality!

6. Fun fact or something you’d like to share.
I was once wrestled to the ground by an escaped cheetah.

Dana Ragouzeos, Health+Tech Lecturer

Woman with short dark brown hair and glasses.

1. How long have you been a part of the fellowship and what is your role?
Two months! I will be teaching the class on Design, Health, and Tech.

2. What is your educational and professional background?
I studied Architecture for my undergraduate degree and industrial/interaction design for my graduate degree. For the past 10+ years I’ve worked as a designer for health care organizations. I’ve worked as a designer internally to Mayo Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, and UCSF, and I’ve worked with multiple other health care providers throughout the US in my most recent consulting work. I’ve also taught at California College of the Arts and Cal State East Bay.

3. Why is this work important to you?
I LOVE the work I do. It is a mix of everything I enjoy and feel passionate about: Design, health, children, social welfare, and working with people to channel their own ideas, passions, and expertise into something tangible. I am thrilled to be able to bring my experience in health care and design into the classroom at Berkeley. I consider teaching some of the most creative and enjoyable work I’ve ever done.

4. What are you looking forward to in the fellowship?
I most look forward to meeting the students and getting to know their own life experiences, the interests and expertise that they bring to the table. This convergence of the topics of health, design, and tech provides opportunities that everyone has encountered at some point in their life, whether consciously or not. Everyone brings something to contribute to a class like this. I look forward to providing opportunities to explore these topics and experiment through hands-on, creative, project-based learning. This is both a challenging time to be a student and an incredibly pertinent time to be delving into this subject matter.

5. Why are you excited to join the fellowship?
I am excited about the collaborative approach that the fellowship staff takes as we all plan for this year. It’s a great team to be a part of. I think there are a lot of incredibly relevant current events and topics we can integrate into the classroom, and I look forward to processing it all together.

6. Fun fact or something you’d like to share.
I’ve always been a design researcher…when I was a kid, I (tried to) create secret tape recordings of my mother’s book group.

Aakash Desai, Conservation+Tech Lecturer

Man with dark hair and beard wearing a light grey shirt.

1. How long have you been a part of the fellowship and what is your role?
I joined this year. I’m excited to be part of the team. I’ll be the lecturer for the Conservation and Technology course.

2. What is your educational and professional background?
I graduated from UC Berkeley back in 2013 with two master’s degrees in Environmental Engineering and ESPM Society and the Environment. I then spent five years as an educator in public high schools in Oakland, CA. I now work part time as an experience and exhibit developer at the Lawrence Hall of Science in addition to my work with the Fung Fellowship.

3. Why is this work important to you?
I feel, now more than ever, that I want to think deeply about how I ought to connect, create and collaborate with other people. We are seeing institutions and systems failing all around us and I believe it is our responsibility to be part of conversations and processes that can point towards a better way to do things. I am inspired by the opportunities that these times of crisis are revealing the way towards building more resilient and nurturing systems of education, governance and economics.

4. What are you looking forward to in the fellowship?
I’m looking forward to connecting with people around emotionally and intellectually complex issues. The fellowship attracts an impressive and diverse group of people. I’m excited to learn about each person’s unique experience and way of seeing the world.

6. Fun fact or something you’d like to share.
In my spare time, I produce music.

AJ Velasquez-Mao, Health+Tech GSI

Man with dark hair wearing a blue shirt posing with a medium-sized dog.

1. How long have you been a part of the fellowship?
I started this summer to aid in adapting course materials for remote learning and look forward to continuing as a GSI and leading lab sections for the first-year Health + Tech track in the fall!

2. What is your educational and professional background?
I’m an engineer by training and an entrepreneur at heart. I’ve had exposure to a wide range of stages in product development- from working on mature products in the pharmaceutical industry, to building and selling a hospital table in my own startup, to working on long-horizon medical innovations through academic research. Currently, I’m in my fourth year of the UCB-UCSF Bioengineering PhD program working to eliminate cardiovascular mortality from hemodialysis.

3. Why is this work important to you?
I share in the Fung Fellowship’s mission to train the next generation of technology leaders through real-world design. Having been a part of both rockstar and sinking-ship teams, I recognize the importance of teaching adaptability and team management skills before entering the “real world.” This program is designed to provide a safe place to fail as you discover your best team and leadership styles, so I want to see you be daring as you try out new strategies and learn about yourselves!

4. What are you looking forward to in the fellowship?
I’m looking forward to being a part of a diverse, innovative, and stimulating community. I hope to inspire and be inspired.

6. Fun fact or something you’d like to share.
I can eat a Big Mac in three bites. I won’t show you, but just know that I can.

Andy Rothstein, Conservation+Tech GSI

Man with brown hair wearing a white button down shirt.

1. How long have you been a part of the fellowship and what is your role?
I am new to Fung Fellowship and will be the GSI for our new Conservation + Tech track.

2. What is your educational and professional background?
I have my BSc in Natural Resources from University of Vermont and a MSc in Biology from Western Washington University. I currently am a PhD candidate in Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management in the Rosenblum Lab where I work on applications of genomic technologies to conservation and wildlife diseases.

3. Why is this work important to you?
Conservation is an interdisciplinary endeavor that thrives on applicable innovation. Making tech work, however, requires holistic framing of conservation issues where outcomes meet the needs of people and nature.

4. What are you looking forward to in the fellowship?
I am looking forward to supporting students tackling some of the most pressing issues in conservation. By highlighting tools currently being used and matching teams with outside partners — I am excited to see all the innovative thinking and designs that will undoubtedly advance partner projects and the future of conservation. I’m excited to be a part of the inaugural Conservation + Tech track for Fung Fellowship! I can’t wait to watch projects come alive with new ways to support on the ground efforts with outstanding student leadership!

6. Fun fact or something you’d like to share.
I’m an avid Philadelphia sports fan and I like to make sourdough on free weekends. Reach out if you want any recipes!

Jack Kerby-Miller, Honors GSI

Man with brown hair wearing a black sweater.

1. How long have you been a part of the fellowship and what is your role?
I’m excited to be a part of the Fung Fellowship for the first time this year! I’ll be the Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) guiding and teaching the Honors program teams through their project development cycle.

2. What is your educational and professional background?
Prior to Berkeley, I worked as a sustainable design consultant for consulting engineering firms and with startups in the built environment. I studied Environmental Science and Chemistry at Middlebury College (Economics Minor) in undergrad, blending the liberal-arts with project-based learning through the D.o.E. Solar Decathlon. I’m currently pursuing an MBA at Berkeley Haas, focusing on deploying capital to bring renewable energy and clean technology to scale.

3. Why is this work important to you?
The most meaningful experiences I had during undergrad came through applying human-centered design to real, challenging problems in close teams, and I’ve witnessed how those skills and relationships can launch an impactful career. The Fung Fellowship is providing that opportunity for a new cohort of young leaders, who will build a better world, and I want to be a part of that effort.

4. What are you looking forward to in the fellowship?
I’m looking forward to getting to know the Honors Fellows, and watching them grow as teammates, innovators and people, as they develop their projects. I’m excited to work with a team and a cohort of folks who want to take their lessons out of the classroom and bring a fresh perspective to solving the world’s big challenges.

6. Fun fact or something you’d like to share.
I climbed a mountain pass with a grizzly bear sow and her two cubs yesterday. She was foraging for moths. (Editor’s note: Yesterday means August 11.)

Edited by Lauren Leung
Learn more about the Fung Fellowship at
fungfellows.berkeley.edu.

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Fung Fellowship
Fung Fellowship

Written by Fung Fellowship

The Fung Fellowship at UC Berkeley is shaping the next generation of health, conservation, and technology leaders for a better world. 🌱

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