OURS National Scholarships

Scholarship: Strauss Scholarship

Pedro Rodriguez

Pedro Rodriguez (Sociology, ’23) grew up in Delano, California, a grape-growing region in the Central Valley. The son of agricultural laborers, he has also worked in the fields since the age of seven. These personal experiences are the source of his academic and public service interest in the areas of workers’ rights, immigration documentation, and environmental health and safety.

Adil Raniwala

Adil Raniwala (Political Science, ‘22) is a Muslim American student dedicated to grassroots organizing and assisting his local community. He will use his knowledge of the Muslim student experience and project management gained from the Muslim Student Association West organization to run Project Peacemeal. Adil hopes to attend law school and pursue a career in intellectual property law.

Garrett Oman

Garrett Oman (History, ’23) is a junior who hopes to use knowledge from his historical studies and experience in public service to bring Project Peacemeal to fruition. His studies are currently concentrated on the history of colonial North America. Oman is also a cadet enrolled in the UC Berkeley Army ROTC program. He will attend Cadet Summer Training at Fort Knox this summer with the aim of commissioning as an officer in the Spring of 2023.

Miyako Iwata

Miyako Iwata is a junior majoring in political science at U.C Berkeley. Miyako is ardent about getting students excited about voting. Her Strauss scholarship project, the Pac-12 Voting Challenge uses the healthy rivalries between colleges to get young people civically and politically engaged. As Miyako states, my end goal is one and the same: to make our democracy better. Miyako is a Newman Civic Fellow, a Lead Vote Everywhere Ambassador, and a Voter Registration Manager for the ASUC. She is also a Cal Alumni Leadership Scholarship recipient.

Ashley Miller

Ashley Miller is a senior at UC Berkeley majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Global Education Reform Policy. She is interested in pursuing a future with domestic and international education issues, believing in early childhood advocacy in the education system to relieve the cradle to prison pipeline and to alleviate poverty. Notably, through her involvement as a Break Leader with the Alternative Breaks program in their New Orleans trip to the Gulf Coast in 2014, Ashley demonstrated a strong background in social justice work in developing a cooperative […]