Across two appointments, I interpreted federal, state, and local policies and examined county procedures regarding the largest food assistance and welfare programs in the nation. On behalf of over five million low-income Californians, I published official state guidance to all 58 counties. I advanced program accessibility, data integrity, and economic self-sufficiency, thereby improving opportunities to nutritional assistance and cash aid. I balanced oft-competing, evolving policy and economic objectives of welfare advocacy organizations and federal entities by coordinating projects with intra- and interdepartmental agencies; research, legislative, and operational leaders; and external data scientists. I attended meetings to coordinate multi-million-dollar projects in automation (CalSAWS) with county administration and state oversight. I developed public-facing notices of action, letters and forms to implement work requirements associated with CalFresh (food stamps) and CalWORKs (welfare). I enhanced programmatic uptake by coordinating proposals with the Office of Legislation. Moreover, I oversaw, presented, and responded to changes in policy to aggressive stakeholders at all levels of governance—federal (USDA/HHS), State (CalHSS/CDSS), and county (welfare departments). Lastly, I prepared briefs in response to litigation to enhance program sustainability.

Consulted for, and prepared issues memos and presentations on behalf of, a labor organization, focused on identifying solutions to compelled arbitration, fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, and abandonment of stakeholders while enhancing worker unionization.

As a think tank consultant of investment in the EB-5 lending industry, I serve as a team leader on a major collaborative effort to model statistical and qualitative research / field methods pertaining to the role of EB-5 lending as a pathway to citizenship for internal and external stakeholders. This 26-week professional endeavor comprises managing the highly sensitive lending practices and culturally oriented policies at a regional center (RC) in Orange County targeting clients, mainly, Asian American investors. Collectively, we provide key consultative services to the American Lending Center (ALC) regarding best practices of EB-5 investment capital deployment. We strategize this project by not only communicating with lawyers and professional lenders and investment firms but also analyzing financial documents of RCs and economic development agencies among other archival data. We prepare policy memos and undertake field work on a strict timeline. Given linguistic barriers, I serve as a liaison between our client (Stella Zhang) and other stakeholders (immigrant investors and the EB-5 industry more generally) in communicating/coordinating submission of relevant documentation about policy recommendations and research findings. Our action plan has set a rigorous course of collaboration with our client and academic and ALC stakeholders that culminates in a public presentation. Periodically, I submit status reports to stakeholders that demonstrate progression in our analysis.

(Also affiliated with others - The College Blueprint, TutorMeEducation, and EDUBUS): I facilitate and coordinate meetings with immigrant ESL clients by collaborating internally with customer service operations and interpreters. I also direct my students/clients via personal development and deployment of instructional materials narrowly tailored to suit equitably their needs while externally reporting periodic updates to company stakeholders and customers. In situations difficult for students, parents, and other personnel, I actively calm and diffuse situations. Further, I respond to inquiries via electronic and in-person correspondence with clients and stakeholders regarding the practices of companies to attract their business. Additionally, I prepare regular summaries of student activities and report statistical and qualitative progress reports to company staff and, to this end, formulate action plans and timelines for my students and accordingly compile data to which I submit to management for higher-level assessment. Throughout all of my work, I evaluate my own progress and that of my students. Beyond my instructional role, I also serve as a company liaison by preparing data and memos as well as interpretive services between management and private clients who do not speak English proficiently. I conduct research from a myriad of sources on immigrant / ESL student needs to better develop my own instructional practices. I monitor my own behaviors to assure that they do not reproduce educational inequity and comply with ETS requirements and company policies.

In an apprenticeship context under the guidance of Dr. Fowlie at UC Berkeley, I served on a team of students of environmental economics in a simulation of management of energy resources using statistical, econometric analysis and policy analysis, i.e., the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Throughout this simulation, I determined, in collaboration with my fellow team members the accurate mixtures of energy sources, such that emissions would decrease below a threshold level as designated by California law. On a biweekly basis, we periodically evaluated the progress of meeting our climate action plan on a (hypothetically) legally binding timeline. In so doing, we formulated our action plan on the basis of meeting our objective of zero emissions of greenhouse gases while optimizing the amount of various renewable and non-renewable energy sources based on free market prices and command-and-control policies. We applied knowledge of law, science, and policy to exchanging credits in a market of pollution. We then evaluated whether we would meet the goal of the optimization of pollution credits. We ultimately communicated our findings of progress to groups of external stakeholders with whom we had to trade pollution credits to achieve our legal objective through status reports and memos. During the process, I served as a liaison between doctoral researchers and team members, among other stakeholders. Finally, we summarized and made recommendations about our results.

In the Committee for South African Solidarity (COSAS), I advocated on behalf of internal and external stakeholders to address the crisis-level governmental problems of South African post-apartheid corruption. I represented underserved institutions of education deprived of fundamental school supplies and other basic needs by developing presentations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, mostly in Alameda County. Defending these critical positions to a wide variety of audiences, I served as a liaison between international clients and community stakeholders as well as management. Specifically, I fundraised for the acquisition of thousands of books to be delivered to the appropriate personnel both domestically and internationally. I not only worked as a team led by Nicole Richards but also performed independent work, calling members of the academic and residential metropolitan community to solicit donations and responding to inquiries about our public-oriented mission. I addressed concerns about domestic policy by inextricably linking them to foreign policy problems in less developed sectors of the South African economy. I developed materials that recruited businesses, individuals, faith-based groups, student clubs and others who donated the supplies, services and funds to make the COSAS campaign grow. Finally, I edited and published our organization's newsletter, South African BEACON, as a collaborative effort, through extensive research on Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Different from most of my other job duties, I worked for over three years at In-N-Out. The speed and quality demanded of me by my supervisors and that which I demanded of my trainees reflect some of the most work-intensive days of my life. I progressed to Level IV only after regularly interacting with clients and coworkers, whom I treated with the utmost personal respect and dignity regardless of their personal backgrounds. My job consisted not only of training personnel in a managerial capacity but also of calming upset customers and taking long and intricate orders with remarkable efficiency and effectiveness. Furthermore, I collected budgetary information each workday by ascertaining that the customer sales aligned seamlessly with the report yielded by electronic software. I responded to surprisingly detailed inquiries about the history of our store from stakeholders and clients alike. I extended an arm of consultation by evaluating the successes and failures of certain projects our store undertook, such as the "Slave to Nothing" fundraising program. I prepared summaries of work status and changed roles repeatedly throughout the day, collaborating with coworkers and managers coming from uniquely diverse backgrounds. While I always knew that my career did not arch indefinitely towards the associate position I held there, In-N-Out nevertheless provided me with constant exposure to personnel and customer service.

I first began my position in the L.A. County Library as a volunteer staffer, guiding community stakeholders and providing information about library events, procedures, and services. During this time, I monitored and tracked resources related to all library projects. Later, I participated on the L.A. County Teen Advisory Board, where I facilitated meetings with groups of peers and public officials to coordinate projects designed for adolescents. A year after I first began, during which I primarily worked independently, I directed the first-ever college preparatory program at no cost targeted at young adults who did not equitably possess the resources necessary for post-secondary education. For this project, I recruited the most talented student leaders to assist me in a two-year, all-summer-long program, where I collaborated and corresponded with library management and aspiring college students. Periodically, I updated and edited the instructional activities with internal stakeholders to ensure their accuracy and compliance with L.A. County Library policy. In collaboration with a team of my assistant peers leading the instructional "boot camp" with me, I clarified expectations with customers and external stakeholders while providing consultative services and recommendations about vocational opportunities to them. In this project consultant role, I also analyzed and compiled data to measure academic success on a strict summer timeline to accommodate students across the County.