People

Steven C. Pitts

Emeritus Associate Chair

Steven Pitts is the creator and host of Black Work Talk, a podcast that looks at the struggles to build Black workers’ collective power and to challenge racial capitalism.

Steven recently retired from the UC Berkeley Labor Center where for 19 years he focused on leadership development and Black worker issues. While there, he produced several reports on Black workers and job quality; launched a Black union leadership school; and co-founded the National Black Worker Center – a network of Black worker centers around the country. (Learn more about Steven's work at the Labor Center.)

Prior to coming to the Labor Center, Steven taught economics for 15 years at the Houston Community College. Before teaching at the community college, he worked in a machine shop in Houston (Hughes Tool Company) for eight years and was active in the United Steelworkers of America local trying to build a stronger and more democratic union.

Kamaljit Gill

HRTP SF Rework the Bay, Worker Power in Workforce project

Kamaljit Kaur is a graduate student pursuing her Masters in Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy. At the Labor Center she is a graduate student researcher with the Worker Power in Workforce Project. Previously she was a community organizer where she learned about economic inequalities and inequities. She has also worked with a workforce training organization to understand the High Road Training Model in California. For fun she likes to listen to podcasts, go on long walks, and bake.

Andrew Jaeger

Andrew is a PhD candidate in sociology at UC Berkeley. His dissertation analyzes the political economy of climate change in California. He’s happy to be working at the Labor Center with Pamela Egan developing California's High Road Training Partnerships.

Juan David Merlo

Juan David is a first-year Master of Public Policy student in Sanford School at Duke University. He is a consultant at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, developing an economic transition plan for the Bay Area's oil refinery region to support the transition toward clean energy. Before joining the team, Juan David was the Adviser and Private Secretary for Bogotá's Secretary of the Environment in Colombia. He also worked on creating the "Clean Growth and Sustainable Development" bill with the Colombian Ministry of Finance, designing fiscal policies to raise more than 1.7 billion USD in green taxes and instruments. Juan David also supports the National Department of Statistics in building the national accounts and economic indicators for bioeconomy and circular economy.

Mathew Omogo

Green Economy Program

Mathew Omogo is a first year Master of Public Policy (MPP) Student at the Goldman School of Public Policy in UC Berkeley. My policy research interests are in the intersection of Public Finance and Energy Policy - especially financing equitable transition to clean energy and decarbonization to help achieve carbon neutrality as per the UN SDG No. 7 targets. He has two years work experience in the banking and finance industry, having worked with Guaranty Trust Bank (Kenya) Ltd as a Relationship Officer in the Kenyan banking and finance industry. Mathew also has extensive qualitative and quantitative research experiences acquired during undergraduate studies in USIU-Africa University in Nairobi, Kenya. In Spring semester 2022, Mathew and his three classmates worked on a consultancy project for the city of Alameda on: “Financing and Funding Mechanism to Facilitate Building Decarbonization and Electrification of Residential buildings, and expansion of EV infrastructure in the city”. This is an independent policy analysis study that would see the city of Alameda achieve equitable full building decarbonization and expansion of EV infrastructure by 2030.

Laura Pathak

Future of Work and Workers

Laura is a summer Graduate Student Researcher with the Technology and Work Program. She is a 3rd year PhD student in Social Welfare at the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare. Prior to graduate school, Laura worked as a Program Director in a Berkeley-based community non-profit serving Latinx immigrants, and as a Product Manager at a non-profit healthcare technology startup developing mobile technology-based health interventions for low-income patients. More recently, Laura worked for a government consulting firm, where she supported several projects in social and public health policy. Laura’s current research focuses on data ownership and data privacy ethics, policies and practices, and how they impact marginalized populations, particularly immigrants.

Dean Rene

HRTP SF Rework the Bay, Worker Power in Workforce project

Dean Rene is an ethical leader with over 10 years of program evaluation, strategy, and people management experience in the public sector. He graduated with a Master of Public Affairs degree at the Goldman School of Public Policy in May 2022. He is a current Master of Information Management and Systems student at the School of Information. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maine at Farmington.

Laura Schmahmann

High Road Partnerships Program

Laura is a PhD student within the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation focuses on perceptions of the value of different jobs and the role of job creation and economic development strategies in reinforcing these perceptions of value in the context of a post-industrial society. In 2021, Laura led the development of a database of minority-owned businesses across the Bay Area as part of a study by the Urban Displacement Project which mapped the vulnerability of minority-owned businesses in the wake of Covid-19. Prior to commencing her PhD, Laura worked as an urban planner for eight years in an economics and planning consulting firm in Australia. She managed a wide range of projects for local, state and federal governments including economic development strategies, housing studies and integrated transport and land use strategies.

MT Snyder

MT Snyder is a master’s student at Cornell’s Industrial and Labor Relations School. At Cornell, she is the Secretary of the Graduate Labor Organization and worked as a research assistant for The Worker Institute on the Labor Leading on Climate Project. Previously, MT worked as a job coach for refugees and immigrants with a Bay Area non-profit. MT graduated from Tufts University with a degree in Middle Eastern and environmental studies.

Vivian Vázquez

Vivian Vázquez is a graduate student researcher with the Low-Wage Work program. She is a first-year Master of Public Policy student at the Goldman School of Public Policy. Before graduate school, she was a researcher and evaluator of workforce development programs. During her undergraduate studies, Vivian researched the workplace experiences of immigrants with the Worker Institute at Cornell.

Jon Hiatt

Visiting Scholar

Jon Hiatt is a union lawyer, who currently serves as Of Counsel to Solidarity Center, based in Washington D.C., while also a Visiting Scholar at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Previously, Hiatt was General Counsel of the Service Employees International Union from 1987-1996, General Counsel of the AFL-CIO from 1996-2009, and then Chief of Staff and Executive Assistant to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka from 2009-2017.

John Logan

Visiting Scholar

John Logan, Ph.D., U.S. labor history, University of California, Davis, is an expert on the anti-union industry and anti-union legislation in the U.S., and comparative labor issues, particularly how multinational companies treat employees and unions differently in the U.S. compared to European countries.

Katie Quan

Senior Fellow

Katie Quan is a senior fellow at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. Formerly chair and associate chair of the Labor Center, she retired in 2016, but continues to work at the center on special projects involving research on global labor strategies and executive education for union leaders. In 2010 she co-founded the International Center for Joint Labor Research at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, and was its co-director for four years. In 2014 she received a Fulbright grant to study the apparel supply chain in China at Peking University. Prior to joining the staff of the Labor Center in 1998, Katie Quan was a seamstress, organizer, and international vice-president with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, and its successor, UNITE. Learn more about Katie's career and her research.