For more information on the program, please contact ssfellow@usc.edu.
Research Assistants
Imani Musembi
I am a highly motivated senior at the University of Southern California, majoring in Computational Neuroscience and specializing in Applied Analytics and Web Development. I am well versed in programming languages including Python, HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL, NoSQL, and SPSS. On campus, I’m a Graduate Research Assistant for the Rossier Center for Education, Identity and Social Justice, a Research Assistant for Radical Play, and Vice President of Operations for the USC Science Outreach program.
Outside of my academics, I also enjoy creative writing, hiking, and designing escape rooms for my peers. Currently, my top career aspirations are working as a content analyst in the entertainment industry or working as a data scientist for a biotech startup.
Alex Kyriakakis
Alex Kyriakakis is a fourth year undergraduate student pursuing a B.S in Human Biology. She is interested in the intersection of social justice, education, and science. At USC, Alex has been involved with Med-ucate where she helped develop a health education course curriculum for high school students in Liberia. In addition, she has tutored biology for local middle school students through Joint Educational Project. In her free time, Alex enjoys reading, running, and trying new restaurants.
Eileen Yang
Eileen is a third-year student majoring in Applied Math and Linguistics, minoring in Dance and Artificial Intelligence Applications, and specializing in Applied Analytics. She has also worked with various professors on other research projects at USC, and plans on further developing her research abilities as a PhD candidate in the future. Her extracurriculars include serving as Secretary for both USC Taekwondo and USC Kung Fu as well as Treasurer for Undergraduate Students in Linguistics at USC.
In addition to academics and extracurriculars, Eileen enjoys finding new books to read and new places to eat. She hopes to eventually become a professor of linguistics at a research institution like USC.
Sustainability Solutions Team
Shivi Anand
Shivi Anand is an undergraduate student at USC pursuing the BS Global Geodesign major, Applied Analytics minor and Hayes Barnard Sustainability Fellowship. She has a passion for environmental sustainability which she explores at city-scale through geodesign, at the scale of a business firm through past work, and increasingly at the international scale. With experience in spatial science research, Shivi enjoys being exposed to cutting edge sustainability research at SSF, where she coordinates programming for the postdoctoral fellows.
Evan Morris
Evan is a Digital Media and Visual Design Specialist in the Office of Sustainability, helping to achieve the goals of USC’s Assignment: Earth Sustainability Framework by optimizing sustainability-focused digital communications across the university.
Evan has worked in education, tech, healthcare, publishing, and journalism. Prior to USC, he headed up a consulting firm that specialized in product launches and content audits. He holds an A.A. in English from Cabrillo College and a B.A. in Creative Writing with a concentration in Poetry from San Francisco State University.
Leadership
Colin Maclay
Faculty Director, Presidential Sustainability Solutions Fellowship
Research Professor and Director of Annenberg Innovation Lab, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
Colin M. Maclay is a specialist in innovation and change, and a hacker of academia. He has long sought to understand how radical advances in communications capacity, information generation and processing interact with people, organizations and institutions to influence societal and planetary wellbeing. Maclay focuses on environmental justice, climate change and sustainability, building upon long standing engagement with civic media, libraries, journalism and cultural strategies, as well as past work in digital transformation, mis and disinformation, online expression and privacy, and technology and policy infrastructures.
Maclay’s approach recognizes that while media and technology are complicated – and humans more so – their interaction is profoundly complex. He seeks to connect scholarship and practice, bridge disciplines and sectors, and challenge hierarchies and orthodoxies. Maclay revels in connecting diverse people and ideas in the pursuit of exploring wicked problems, developing novel insights and associated strategies for learning and change. Maclay created and leads the USC Civic Media Fellowship, co-leads the Media As Socio-Technical Systems research community (MASTS), is a co-founder of the USC Arts & Climate Collective, co-hosts the How Do You Like It So Far podcast, and serves on the USC Presidential Working Group on Sustainability.
Previously, he was Founding Director of the Digital Initiative at the Harvard Business School, an effort to understand and shape the digital transformation of business and society through collaborative research, teaching and engagement with the practice. He spent a decade helping build and scale Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, including its transition to a university-wide center and significant growth. He co-founded the Global Network Initiative, an innovative multi-stakeholder effort to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy online. He has advised and served on the boards of numerous private, governmental and non-profit organizations. Maclay has done research, given invited talks and organized seminars and workshops events on five continents; and created and been featured in diverse media.
Maclay holds a BA from the University of Wisconsin, MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School and a PhD from Northeastern University.
Anthony Carlos
Senior Manager for Postdoctoral Affairs, Office of the Executive Vice Provost
Dr. Anthony Carlos is the Senior Manager for Postdoctoral Affairs in the Office of the Executive Vice Provost at USC. In this role, he manages operations for postdoctoral scholars and their faculty supervisors, clinical residents and fellows, works with campus partners across the academic units and provides guidance to ensure compliance with Provost postdoc policies. He oversees several academic initiatives, including the Provost’s signature programs for postdoctoral scholars and provides administrative and operational leadership for postdoctoral programming on campus. Dr. Carlos has been committed to the academic research and professional success of USC postdocs for many years, including as Chair of the USC Postdoctoral Association prior to joining the Provost Office. He was on the leadership team that launched the inaugural SoCal Postdoc Symposium, which brought together the postdoc communities from across Southern California’s universities and various industries. In addition, since Dr. Carlos joined USC, he has directed efforts to reshape the office’s administrative operations, has provided clarity to office workflows and processes and has helped strengthen internal and external partnerships.
Dr. Carlos’ research specialty focused on biochemistry and molecular medicine. During his postdoc at the Norris Cancer Center of USC Keck School of Medicine, he studied the role of molecular chaperones in endoplasmic reticulum stress, and cell surface trafficking deficits in different disease states, including in viral infection and cancer. Much of his work was funded through research awards from NIH National Cancer Institute Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities (NIH/NCI CRCHD), leading to publications in ASBMB’s Journal of Biological Chemistry, the Journal of Neuroinflammation and the Journal of Infection.
Dr. Carlos holds a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, where he studied molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases.