2025-2026 Labor Studies Scholarships and Prizes

Cyril Jonathan Clement (he/him), Medical Anthropology and Environmental Studies

Clement was inspired to help immigrants navigate the convoluted U.S. healthcare system as a volunteer with the Community Health Board Coalition, an organization devoted to improving the health outcomes of underserved populations. During his time in the UW Department of Anthropology Honors Program, he undertook a year-long research project studying the role of health insurance navigators in enrolling Washington state’s migrant, refugee, and undocumented residents for health insurance. He interviewed over 30 navigators about their experiences supporting immigrant communities and the systemic constraints that shape healthcare. 

Zeke Cohn (they/them), Civil Engineering

Cohn’s passion for civil engineering is rooted in their desire to undo the damage caused by infrastructural injustice and systemic inequities. They aim to intersect their experiences as a labor activist with an education in civil engineering to create a world that is built with people as the first priority. As a member of Socialist Alternative, they started learning more about labor history and how they could best exert power as workers. Cohn has fought for rent control, helped raise support for unionizing workers at Amazon warehouses, went on strike with UW academic employee union UAW 4121, and has given speeches on abortion rights, trans rights, and workers’ rights. 

​Nadir Tokombayev (he/him), Bioengineering

Tokombayev believes that people shouldn’t have to fight for healthcare - that they should be free to build a future for themselves and those they love. Working to support marginalized communities in his family’s home country of Kazakhstan, he joined a startup company developing AI Electrocardiogram diagnostic software for rural hospitals. He is continuing to develop accessible health technology as a researcher in the Lutz Lab at the University of Washington. By developing a low-cost, paper-based test for autoimmune thyroiditis, a disease that disproportionately affects people in impoverished conditions, he aims to bring accessible healthcare to his communities back home. 

​Emily Gonzalez Garcia (she/her), Law, Societies, and Justice

The daughter of farmworkers, Garcia developed a passion for fighting for immigrant rights after witnessing xenophobia and racism. As an incoming first-year student at the University of Washington, her goal is to become an immigration lawyer, fighting injustices and supporting immigrant families like her own. She wants other families to have the necessary resources to fight for their rights in the United States, and believes deeply that everyone should have the opportunity to create a better life for themselves. 

​Alison Steichen (she/her), Comparative History of Ideas, Political Science, Labor Studies Minor

A Seattle dockworker and union member of ILWU Local 19, Steichen is passionate about human rights and social justice. As a student, she studied abroad in the Mediterranean and Mexico City, immersing herself in efforts to develop cross-cultural understandings during global crises and researching how legal and social frameworks affect marginalized communities. In 2024, she founded the Women on the Waterfront Oral History project, working with the Harry Bridges Center and the Labor Archives of Washington to document the stories of the first women to work on the Seattle waterfront. She currently serves on the Local 19 Executive Board, working to help shape union policy, represent member interests, and lead community engagement efforts. As an undergraduate student at the UW, she plans to explore ways to strengthen solidarity across racial, gender, and generational lines within waterfront industries.

​Rowan Herbst Minino (they/them), Journalism and Public Interest Communication

As a budding journalist, Minino has written for several local Seattle publications, including the Capitol Hill Blog and Seattle Gay News. As they have learned more about Labor Studies, their passion has shifted towards working-class representation in newsrooms. Attending a movement broadcasting intensive hosted by the media collective Press On, Minino was inspired to pursue labor journalism and became the main labor reporter for the Shasta Scout, a rural non-profit newsroom in California. Minino continues to work freelance as a labor reporter, and participated in a summer 2025 internship at the Bellingham Herald, where their work included interviews with local farmworker leaders.

​Vanessa Alvarez (she/her), Spanish

As a child growing up in Anchorage, Alaska during the 2008 recession, Alvarez witnessed how the power of community can address poverty and hardship. Her experiences motivated her to create community among working-class tenants in the Seattle area as an organizer for the Puget Sound Tenants Union. Drawing on her knowledge of organizing traditions in Latin America, Alvarez has centered ethics of care while organizing renters in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood and the city of White Center. Her interview with a Starbucks union organizer in Chile recently appeared in the publication Labor Notes. In 2025, she will serve as a Bridges Center Labor Research Intern with the MLK Labor Council. 

Rachael Benson (she/her), Social Work

Growing up as a daughter of an immigrant mother and military father in a low-income household, Benson’s lived experiences shaped her understanding of injustice. She observed how her family and others in marginalized communities navigated complex systems with limited resources and recognized the shared struggles that connected her community members. Galvanized by her experiences, Benson developed a lifelong commitment to social justice, working for 15 years as a domestic violence victim advocate, housing stability specialist, and now as a telecommunicator in emergency services. Pursuing a Master of Social Work degree at the UW Tacoma, she intends to expand her capacity to address the systemic, interconnected issues that perpetuate injustices through policy advocacy, program development, and direct practice. 

Johnny Nguyen (he/him), Nursing Science

As a PhD student, Nguyen’s studies are dedicated to creating safer working conditions for immigrant workers and small businesses. His passion for supporting immigrant workers stems from his mother’s personal experience as a nail salon technician, a field of work predominated by Vietnamese immigrants. There, he witnessed the disparities that impacted this community, ranging from chemical hazards to discrimination. Nguyen has worked previously with the King County Public Health Reserve and also worked as a bedside nurse in California, where he joined the California Nurses Association. He currently works with a multidisciplinary team at the Northwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety as an occupational health nurse trainee. 

Daphne Gallegos (she/her), Health Sciences

Raised in a family of Mexican farmworkers and service workers, Gallegos is driven by a desire to ensure that immigrants' lives and labor are seen, valued, and protected. Her efforts began as an undergraduate at Whitman College, where she conducted qualitative research on sexual health education access. She observed how structural problems marginalized women and saw how these barriers affected labor issues. Now, as a PhD student in Health Sciences, she continues this work by investigating how racism makes workers vulnerable to harm while also studying care-seeking behaviors among street-based sex workers in Seattle. Across her work, Gallegos aims to build a research agenda that critiques the existing systems while also contributing to changes in policy and community resilience. She eventually wants to lead a research lab focused on worker health, protections, and dignity across sectors in order to reimagine solidarity and contribute to the labor movement.

Sarah Porter (she/her), Social Welfare

Through years of caregiving for her parents with disabilities, Porter learned the importance of overlooked forms of labor that are crucial to the promotion of growth, healing, and survival, and has found a passion for peer support and relational care. As an undergraduate, she helped build a nonclinical peer support space for students experiencing suicidality on a campus with limited mental health resources. As a doctoral student in the School of Social Work, she established two PhD peer mentoring awards recognizing relational labor and secured funding for holistic mentoring initiatives. She also served as Union Steward for the School of Social Work in UAW 4121 for over three years, advocating for the rights and fair representation of student parents and international students. As a clinical social worker, she provided trauma-informed case management to unhoused neighbors through University District Street Medicine and Harborview Medical Center’s Mobile Health outreach to tiny home villages. 

​Gioia Robinson (she/her), Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences

Robinson’s passion for labor and social justice issues stems from her experience studying abroad in Polynesia, where she witnessed the effects of French nuclear weapons testing on Tahitian communities. The experience shifted her view of health inequities from a purely biomedical perspective to understanding them as deeply rooted in historical, sociopolitical, and ecological systems. As a PhD student, her research investigates the environmental and social impacts of U.S. nuclear weapons testing on the Republic of the Marshall Islands, highlighting how the country has been affected by exposure to radiation and the exploitation of labor. In addition, Robinson works with the Department of Health and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to develop analytical methods for radionuclide detection to help inform workplace safety protocols. She also serves as a mentor for the Students for Nuclear Justice student group on campus, supporting Asian Pacific Islander students interested in occupational health research. 

​Justin Hirsch (he/him), Marine Affairs/International Studies

For over a decade, Hirsch has served as a member of ILWU Local 19 in elected labor relations positions. He has held the positions of representative of the Seattle Joint Accident Prevention Committee and member of the Seattle Longshore Joint Labor Relations Committee, bargaining with employers over issues of member grievances, contractual jurisdiction, and many others. Among his achievements is a written policy that provides lactation accommodation to lactating parents across all 29 U.S Pacific Coast ports from Bellingham to San Diego. As a graduate student pursuing two Master’s Degrees and researching maritime labor, he intends to continue his work on labor relations and become a more empowered advocate for workers. 

Best Paper in Labor History: Harjot Singh

Navigating Marginalization: Seattle’s Communities of Color in the Twentieth Century

Analyzing oral histories of long-term residents of Seattle, Singh’s paper illuminates the impacts of racial discrimination on interracial activism across the city’s Black, Japanese, and Desi-Asian communities. Exploring historical divisions between communities and the politics of allyship, Singh asks how struggles for justice can be rekindled in the present day. 

Best Paper in Labor History: Friday Elkan

Labor Exploirtation in the Cura Annonae

Through primary sources, archeological evidence, and scholarly theories, Elkan’s paper examines the foundational role that the exploited labor of slaves, freedmen, fieldworkers, and porters played in the administration of the Ancient Roman food supply (the cura annonae). 

Best Paper in Labor History: Hetty Meissner

Anna Louise Strong in Her City of Light, 1916-1921

Meissner’s paper examines the life and activism of Anna Louise Strong, an American journalist and activist, particularly her years in Seattle from 1916 to 1921. The paper highlights Strong’s impact on several major historical events in the labor movement, including the Everett Massacre and the Seattle General Strike, and examines the decline of labor activism in the U.S. political climate following World War I.

Best Undergraduate Paper: Nina Zafra, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies

"Why Do We Like to Play at Labor? Exploring How the Identities of Femme-Presenting and Feminized People of Color Impact Gameplay Decisions in Stardew Valley"

Through observational methods and gameplay analysis of eight participants playing the “cozy” video game Stardew Valley, Zafra’s paper investigates how and why femme-presenting and feminized people of color play at reproductive and care labor. Arguing that the “coziness” of Stardew Valley is reliant on feelings of escape from racial and gender discrimination, Zafra prompts exploration into how and why feminist studies should account for femme-presenting, cozy gamers of color. 

Best Graduate Paper in Labor Studies: Celine Liao, Sociology

Rhizomatic Labor and Connective Action: Feminist Student Activism in China's Illiberal Opportunity Structures

Liao’s paper examines how feminist student activists in China navigate anti-democratic political and academic institutions following major government crackdowns on civil society. While existing scholarship suggests that such structures prevent activism, this research identifies alternative pathways for mobilizing. Drawing from observations and interviews with student activists, Liao analyzes practices of networking, curating connections, managing in/visibility, utilizing student identity as a protective shield, drawing resources from outside institutions, and cultivating horizontal ties – also known as rhizomatic labor.