A letter about Anita from Research Director Rachel Erstad:

I met Anita Zeng in LABOR 480, Applied Labor Research for the Labor Movement, in the Winter quarter of 2023. Anita did great in LABOR 480, doing a workplace analysis of one of her employers and working collaboratively with her group to support the Imagine Institute. When the class ended, I was excited to hire her as the Bridges Center’s first undergraduate Research Assistant for our applied research team. 

Since Anita started in April 2023, she has taken on a leadership role in several projects. She took the lead on analysis and writing for “Lattes & Labor..”, the report on the perception of Starbucks on campus. She provided research support for our “Building Futures..” pre-apprenticeship report. Additionally, Anita has provided research support to the Office of Labor Standards, the Fair Work Center, Working Washington, and others. She has served as a consistent and driven team member. Additionally, if you’ve tuned into an episode of our podcast “Building Bridges,” you have Anita to thank. She came up with the idea, put together a proposal, and recruited Maya Cruz to team up to interview guests together. 

In the last year, we’ve had a total of ten Research Assistants across the three UW campuses. It’s been wonderful to see the team grow and collaborate across campuses and communities.  Anita played a big part in our first year as an applied research team. I'm excited to celebrate Anita's acceptance into UCLA’s Law School with an interest in labor law. She begins classes this fall. Building Bridges will continue, as will the research team that Anita helped shape. The Bridges Center research team and everyone at the Center wish Anita the best as she begins the next step of her journey. We will miss you, Anita, and thank you so much for your work and collaboration over the last 15 months.