Sandibel Borges pursued her undergraduate work at Washington State University, including two study abroad experiences -- one in the Netherlands for 10 months and another in Spain for two months. As an undergraduate, she was selected to participate in the prestigious Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program. Her faculty–sponsored research focused on the sex industry and the migration of third world women and resulted in a paper entitled "Sex as a Form of Cheap Labor: Latin American Sex Workers in Spain." Sandibel earned two B.A. degrees at Washington State University, in women's studies and in literature. As a doctoral student in the Feminist Studies Department, she plans to work with Dr. Leila Rupp and continue to focus her research on issues of globalization, the sex industry and the migration of third world women.

Alyssa Newman received her B.A. in sociology, with minors in African American studies and in demography from the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, Alyssa was a leader of the Berkeley Undergraduate Sociology Association. After completing her degree, she worked as a research assistant and evaluated instructional and professional development programs. As a graduate student in the Department of Sociology, her research interests will include mixed race identity and the negotiation of community. Under the mentorship of Professor G. Reginald Daniel, Alyssa hopes to pursue research specifically related to mixed black high school students, how they negotiate their racial identity, and their ability to develop a sense of shared identity and community among fellow mixed race students. 

Susana Peinado holds a B.A. in philosophy from Grinnell College and an M.A. in communication, with an emphasis on health, from Johns Hopkins University. She has 10 years of experience as a marketing and communication professional, and has worked as a magazine editor, a marketing consultant, a program specialist in health communication for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and as a research associate in health communication at the Research Triangle Institute (RTI International). Her research interests focus on the design and processing of health-risk messages, health communication campaigns, patient-physician communication, and health disparities. Susana will be working with Professor Robin Nabi in the Department of Communication to advance her research.

Egidio Garay is a Southern California native who graduated from the Los Angeles Unified School District and went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Azusa Pacific University. Egidio taught middle/high school social science while earning his Masters in Political Science from California State University, Los Angeles. His research interests focus on political psychology (with emphasis on cognition, affective components of decision-making, and the impact of information deficits on political decision-making). In collaboration with faculty mentor, Eric R. A. N. Smith, Egidio intends to pursue a career in academia and hopes to advance a deeper understanding of politics, as well as challenge students and the public at large to think more systematically about political phenomena in the United States.

S. Courtney Walton earned a Bachelor of Science in Communication Studies from Northwestern University and earned a Masters in Communication Management from the University of Southern California. Courtney will broaden and deepen her intellectual research pursuits under the mentoring commitment of senior departmental faculty member, Cynthia Stohl. Courtney has an extensive background in nonprofit management and more than five years experience developing and overseeing online communities. Courtney’s research interests involve working with data and research projects related to the attitudes and behaviors of adult Internet users.