The California Council on Science and Technology welcomes the second class of the S&T Policy Fellows.

Newsha Ajami - Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee: received a Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from the University of California, Irvine, a M.S. in hydrology and water resources from the University of Arizona and a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering from Tehran Polytechnic. She is a hydrologist specializing in sustainable water resource management, hydrological modeling and flood forecasting. Previously, she was a post doctorate researcher with the Berkeley Water Center at UC Berkeley.

Michael Bedard-Hearn - Assemblymember Nancy Skinner: received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in physical chemistry, specializing in energy transfer, and a B.S. in chemistry from Santa Clara University. For the last 3 years, he has worked in the Energy Frontier Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, studying plastic-based solar cells.

Peter Cowan - Senate Environmental Quality Committee: received a Ph.D. from the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley in 2010. He received a M.S. in biological sciences from Stanford University and a B.A. in biology (magna cum laude) from Kalamazoo College. He is a fire ecologist specializing in plant evolution and diversity.

Malaika Katrina Singleton Duran - Senate Office of Research: received a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of California, Davis and a B.A. in biology and psychology that was jointly awarded from Rutgers University-Newark College of Arts & Sciences and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Recently, she was a graduate student researcher at UC Davis in Dr. Janine LaSalle's lab, which focuses on the genetics and epigenetics of autism spectrum disorders.

Michelle Leinfelder - Senate Transportation & Housing Committee: received a Ph.D. and M.S. from the Department of Horticulture at Cornell University and a B.S. in crop science and management from the University of California, Davis. She recently served as a graduate research assistant at Cornell, investigating sustainable management, soil quality, and resource valuation in orchard systems.

Anthony Marino - Assemblymember Jerry Hill: received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in English and chemistry from Davidson College. He recently completed a science policy fellowship at the National Academy of Sciences where he focused both on communicating chemistry in old and new media and on the industrial process, graduate education, and regulatory aspects of green chemistry.

Kenneth Spence - Assemblymember Nathan Fletcher: received a Ph.D. in entomology from the University of California, Davis and a B.S. in biology and Spanish language from Morehouse College. He is an agroecologist specializing in invertebrate ecology and sustainable pest management. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at UC Davis. He previously served as a graduate student researcher and teaching assistant at UC Davis. He is fluent in the Spanish language.

Hillary Q. Thomas - Assemblymember Fiona Ma: received a Ph.D. and M.S. in entomology from the University of California, Davis, and a B.S. in environmental sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. She recently served as a post-doctoral scholar at UC Davis working on management of emerging invasive pests in California agriculture.