International House Berkeley

Donagh Coleman (USA - Finland) I-House Gateway Fellowship Finnish-Irish-American Donagh Coleman holds honors degrees in philosophy and psychology and music and media technologies from Trinity College Dublin, and an M.A. in Asian studies from UC Berkeley. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the joint UC Berkeley–UCSF Medical Anthropology Program. His research focuses on tukdam, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of dying in meditation. Donagh is also a professional documentary maker for film, television and radio. He has made several award-winning films of the Tibetan cultural world and he directs radio documentaries for the Finnish and Irish national broadcasters. Hussain Kadhem (Canada) EWJ Gateway Fellowship Hussain was raised in Toronto, Canada, to which his family immigrated from Iraq. He has a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto and a master's degree known as Part III of the Mathematical Tripos from the University of Cambridge. He is a first- year Ph.D. student in mathematics who is very interested in how the mathematics of geometry and space can be used to probe and formalize our understanding of the fundamentals of nature. While at Cal, he plans to pursue research about the geometry and mathematical symmetry of quantum field theory. He will also be joining the computational research division at Berkeley Lab as a graduate student researcher, where he will be working on compiler features for high-performance computing. Hussain, who has been almost completely blind since birth, is accompanied by his guide dog of six years. Ruth Kravis (Australia) Chevron-Xenel Ph.D. Gateway Fellowship Ruth is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. She has undergraduate degrees in engineering and philosophy from the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Her research interests lie broadly in energy system decarbonization, and particularly in how control theory and optimization can help us make decisions regarding the design and stable operation of future power grids. She is also interested in the economic and social dimensions of this transition. Ruth says "I am grateful to be supported by a Gateway Fellowship during my first year and look forward to becoming part of the vibrant I-House community at Berkeley." n Yasin Sonmez (Turkey ) Eltoukhy Gateway Fellowship Yasin is a first-year Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and computer sciences. He has a B.S. with a double major in electrical and electronics engineering and physics from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. His research interests are control theory, learning- based control, autonomous control systems, and robotics. Yasin loves to travel and meet people from different cultural backgrounds. Toward that end, he has volunteered in Cairo, Egypt, spent a semester as an exchange student at Sorbonne University, Paris, and interned in Tubingen, Germany. He says, "These experiences allowed me to meet with great people from all over the world and taught me that, even though we come from very different cultural backgrounds, we are very similar in nature, and gentle communication with each other can help to solve most of our problems." Obiamaka Ude (USA) Allan and Kathleen Rosevear Gateway Fellowship Obiamaka is a first-year doctoral student in the Department of City and Regional Planning in the College of Environmental Design. She received her master of city planning degree from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT and is a U.S. Fulbright Fellow. Prior to coming to Cal, Obiamaka worked as a city planner in Los Angeles. She believes that city planners as arbiters of land use and development have a unique responsibility and opportunity to reconcile ecological and economic systems. Her work as a graduate student will examine whether sustainable textile manufacturing can mitigate soil and water degradation while also producing sustainable economies in order to resolve cycles of production that are detrimental to the environment. Anqi Yu (China) Carl and Betty Helmholz Gateway Fellowship Anqi Yu is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology. She has an undergraduate degree in journalism from the Beijing Foreign Studies University and an M.A. in anthropology from Columbia University. Her research interests concern the intersection of knowledge production and state governance, and her recent activities include monitoring the state's governance over the individual's body and its intersection with the public discourse of medical technologies and knowledge. As an anthropology student, Anqi believes that the diversity and global immersion at I-House will be continuously inspiring for her academic life. International House Times 7

• Cover