Charlotte Chang was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. When she was young, she actively hoped to become a parakeet, but never succeeded. She was, however, the guardian of three parakeets (budgerigars) named Bert I, Bert II, and Ernie.
As a biology major at Pomona College, Charlotte is focusing on ecological and evolutionary biology with a minor in Mathematics and a concentration in Chinese. Her hope is to someday combine her knowledge of ecological systems with her passion for environmental and social justice to do her part to ensure that everyone has access to clean and healthy ecosystems.
To that end, Charlotte has worked on a recent campaign for workers' rights at Pomona College (Stand With Staff), and helped organized protests and meetings with College officials to preserve the college's field station (the Bernard Field Station), home to an ecologically pristine Coastal sagebrush habitat. She has been a member of the Women's Union, Students for the Bernard Field Station, the Students of Color Alliance, the Asian American Resource Center (AARC), and AAMP (2007-2008 cohort).
Charlotte belived that AAMP is unique in its ability to help Asian American students realize their full potential for critical consciousness. She is thus returning to the program next year as one of the three head mentors, alongside Ellen and Koichi.
Outside of Pomona College, Charlotte was selected for summer research programs since her first year. She worked in the lab of Professor Andre Cavalcanti using bioinformatics to investigate the evolution of the canonical genetic code (three stop codons) in the summer of 2007. As a sophomore, she was one of 22 students chosen to participate in a research program at the Harvard Forest funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). She studied the bioavailability of sodium chloride and its effects on ant community composition. This summer, she will be in Valley County, Montana, assessing the effects of different ranching practices on grassland and riparian birds. She has greatly enjoyed seeing the mud nests of Barn Swallows, and recently saw her first American Goldfinch!
Ellen Lê is originally from Bedford, MA, a suburb of Boston. At Pomona College, where she is currently a senior mathematics major, she has been involved in various activities, including Worker's Support Committee, Pomona Student Union, and a season on the Women's Varsity Lacrosse team. However her most rewarding experience by far has been AAMP. Ellen was an AAMP mentor in 2007-08. She has also served as Pomona College student representative on the 5-College Asian American Advisory Board (5-C Ad-Board) and the Asian American Resource Center (AARC) Advisory Board.
the 2008 summer internship program run by OCA National, an
APA-advocacy non-profit based in DC. She interned at the US E.P.A.
Headquarters, under Piyachat Terrell who is the Executive Director of
the White House Initiative for Asian Americans. While interning, she
worked on the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) Workgroup on Asian Pacific Americans, ordered by EEOC Chair Naomi Earp, which addressed the current and problematic glass ceilings for APAs at the managerial and executive levels in the Federal workplace. She has been a featured speaker at the Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC) Annual Conference and the Asian American Environmental Symposium at USC. She also claims she wrote most of the Wikipedia entry on the Model minority [myth] - especially the Wiki charts. And she is blacklisted by the Republican Party for taking a silly picture with Bush Jr.'s right hand woman, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao.
Ellen will be in Berkeley, CA this summer doing research at the Mathematical Sciences Research Insititute (MSRI).
Koichi Matsuda was born in Brookline, MA but spent all of his life that he remembers in Charlotte, NC.
In high school he first got involved with his school's Diversity Coalition and the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) which runs Anytown: an annual, weeklong diversity and leadership camp focused on high school-aged youth throughout the country. Since that first year he has been back 4 times as a Counselor and this summer will serve as an Advisor to the program.
Pomona College was Koichi's first experience of California, and he recently spent 9 months in Japan, studying at Tokyo International Christian University, taking cooking classes at the Tokyo Macrobiotic Center and working on an organic vegetable and tea farm.
At Pomona he was selected as an AAMP Mentor '07/'08 as well as working 2 semesters for the Women's Union, and serving as Head Coordinator for Power Dynamics Awareness Council (PDAC). He was also integral in PDAC's transformation into the Social Action for Justice in Education (SAJE).
This summer Koichi will be doing research for his thesis on the Philosophy of Eastern Medicine.
