Undergraduate Director’s Fellows

Nikhe Braimah
ISPS Director's Fellow 2024

Nikhe Braimah (he/him) is a junior in Branford College majoring in history. Originally from the Bay Area, he is interested in building sustainable solutions to the housing crisis in America’s cities through housing policy, urban development, and homelessness prevention. Recently, Nikhe has worked with the New Haven Fair Rent Commission, the New Haven Homeless Advisory Commission, and the Housing and Health Equity Lab at the Yale School of Public Health.

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ISPS Director's Fellow 2024

Sarah Izel Copeland is a junior in Pauli Murray College from Jacksonville, FL. As an Ethnicity, Race, and Migration major, she is particularly interested in asylum policy, migrant identity, immigrant integration, and mixed methods research approaches, along with processes of decolonization and resistance. At Yale, Sarah conducts research for the Yale Policy Institute, Yale Law School’s Lowenstein Project, and the MacMillan Center on topics related to migration and Latin America.

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ISPS Director's Fellow 2024

Elizabeth Dejanikus is a junior in Timothy Dwight College from Seattle, WA. She is majoring in political science and humanities, and is particularly interested in comparative politics and constitutional law. On campus, she works for the Yale Law Journal, leads First-year Outdoor Orientation Trips (FOOT), and, as of late, dabbles in theater.

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ISPS Director's Fellow 2024

Matthew Jennings is a junior in Pauli Murray College from Killingworth, Connecticut. He majors in history and political science with an interdisciplinary concentration in the American judiciary and jurisprudence. Matthew is passionate about finding public policy and legal solutions for issues like LGBTQ+ discrimination and ballot access. At Yale, he founded and co-leads the Yale Undergraduate Law Journal and works at the Yale Office of Undergraduate Admissions and the Yale Law School Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law.

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ISPS Director's Fellow 2024

Katherine Johnson is a sophomore in Ezra Stiles college majoring in Political Science. She is from Atlanta, Georgia, a city which has inspired many of her policy interests. Katherine is passionate about serving underserved communities and is particularly interested in social justice, promoting quality education in communities of color, and climate policy. At Yale, Katherine is on the board of the Generational African American Student Association.

ISPS Director's Fellow 2024

Nida Khan is a Junior in Morse College majoring in Urban Studies. She is a native of Balochistan, Pakistan but has called ten different cities home. She is interested in the power of the built environment to shape a sustainable and equitable future. Through her work as a peer mentor in the disability and transfer communities, an intern with the Yale Law Journal, and research on neuroaesthetics and urbanism, she hopes to contribute positively to her community, both locally and globally.

ISPS Director's Fellow 2024

Jenny Lee is a junior in Saybrook College studying Economics and Ethnicity, Race & Migration, informed by her experience as a 1.5-generation Korean American raised in Seattle. Lee studies community movements anchored in Asian American feminisms, disability justice, and ethnic studies education & literature. Deepened by her commitment to combating domestic and gendered violence, her work has brought her to conducting research at Reproductive Freedom for All (NARAL) and engaging in political education at the Yale Asian American Cultural Center.

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ISPS Director's Fellow 2024

Sovy Pham is a sophomore from Atlanta, Georgia majoring in American Studies and Urban Studies. Her primary policy interests include land-use reform, zoning equity, and socio-spatial relations in urbanity. She is also interested in critical cartography and questions of
territory/sovereignty. On campus, she serves on the Yale College Council, plays Saybrook intramural sports, and directs the FOCUS on New Haven program.

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ISPS Director's Fellow 2024

Kate Reynolds is a junior in Branford College studying History. She is interested in the intersection between public education, electoral politics, and the law. At Yale, Kate previously served as the Print Managing Editor of The Politic and the Communications Director for the Yale College Democrats. She’s passionate about improving the efficiency of local government — particularly within her hometown of New York City, where she spent last summer as an education policy intern at a city agency. In the future, she hopes to work in journalism or public policy.

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ISPS Director's Fellow 2024

August Rios is a sophomore in Timothy Dwight College majoring in sociology, with a broad fascination for cities. As a low-income student from a large family of eight, he is particularly interested in identifying policy solutions to the affordable housing crisis. August is currently serving as a data and legislative affairs intern at the City of New Haven Fair Rent Commission, a data collector at the United Way of Connecticut, and a YULAA project lead at Statewide Legal Services.

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