School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 41-60 of 131 Results
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David Sengthay
Master of Arts Student in Public Policy, admitted Spring 2024
FLISSC Student Staff, First Generation Low IncomeBioDavid Sengthay is a community and electoral organizer from Stockton, California, committed to building power in underrepresented communities and advancing civic engagement at the local level. His work focuses on making local government more transparent, inclusive, and accountable through voter outreach, digital advocacy, and public demonstrations.
He has managed electoral campaigns in Stockton, including a City Council race that mobilized over 5,000 households in low-income neighborhoods of color. He has organized demonstrations supporting public education, LGBTQ+ rights, and immigrant justice, and built youth coalitions focused on reproductive wellness and culturally responsive mental health services. As a youth organizer, David centers the leadership and lived experiences of queer, Southeast Asian, and BIPOC communities—communities to which he belongs and remains deeply accountable.
At Stanford University, David serves as Chair of the Undergraduate Senate and previously led the Appropriations Committee, overseeing the allocation of over $6 million in student group funding. He also serves as the Director's Fellow at the First-Generation and/or Low-Income Student Success Center and coordinates new student programming for incoming FLI undergraduates. Across these roles, he works to ensure that students historically excluded from institutional decision-making are represented and empowered.
David is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts with Honors (B.A.H.) in Urban Studies and a Master’s in Public Policy at Stanford University. Supported by Stanford’s VPUE Major Grant, he is conducting IRB-approved fieldwork in Stockton in partnership with Empowering Marginalized Asian Communities (EMAC). His honors thesis investigates restorative justice and the criminalization of Cambodian-American youth through a case study of Southeast Asian youth organizing. After graduation, David plans to return home to serve in local government—first as a Program Manager in Stockton’s Office of Economic Development, and eventually as an elected official. His long-term goal is to craft policy solutions that expand opportunity, counter disinformation, and restore trust between communities and the institutions meant to serve them. -
Michael Senko
Ph.D. Student in Linguistics, admitted Autumn 2025
BioStarting in Fall 2025, I am a first year PhD student in the Stanford Department of Linguistics. My research is supported by an EDGE Doctoral Fellowship from the Stanford Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education.
I received a B.S./M.A. in Linguistics & Communication Studies from Northwestern University in 2022, where I worked with Rob Voigt and Annette D’Onofrio. Prior to starting my PhD, I worked as a teacher first in Taiwan through the Fulbright program and later in New York City. I have taught everything from TEFL and math to computer science and religion.
I’m broadly interested in how social and linguistic information is integrated. I use sociophonetic and computational methods in my research to shed light on the cognitive dynamics underlying language users’ utilization and perception of variation. My previous work has focused on variation in the uptake of new (pro)nominal forms on Twitter and in the stressed vowel of "Chicago." -
Serena Shah
Ph.D. Student in History, admitted Autumn 2021
Research Assistant, History DepartmentBioSerena is a PhD candidate in History in the United States field. She is in her fifth year and she works on the history of ideas in the nineteenth century, especially Americans' ideas about antiquity. Her dissertation investigates the history of oriental scholarship in the United States. It examines Americans' post-Civil War investment in pre-classical antiquity, and the 3,000-4,000 year-old history of the Bronze Age Orient (the site of the most ancient "Eastern" civilizations, or the modern Middle East). She is also currently writing a research article on Greek and Roman slave-naming practices and the classicism of American slavery.
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Sandro Sharashenidze
Ph.D. Student in Political Science, admitted Autumn 2024
BioSandro is a graduate student in political science who is interested in the intersection between international security, macroeconomics, and formal theory. Before joining Stanford, Sandro worked as a trading analyst and managed an education-focused NGO in Tbilisi, Georgia. He has a bachelor's in economics and a master's in international relations from the University of Chicago.
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Jie Shen 沈劼
Ph.D. Student in East Asian Languages and Cultures, admitted Autumn 2021
BioJie Shen 沈劼 is a Ph.D. student in Chinese Archaeology, in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University. She mainly focuses on the crafting technology of bone artifacts in ancient China. Using the use-wear analysis, residue analysis, and experimental archaeology, Jie explores the variation and development of bone crafting techniques, and how the crafting industry was involved in social progress such as the formation of the early state. Also, she is interested in the religious and political meaning of animal-related artifacts, which are significant for understanding the human-animal relationship.
