Executive Board
President
Jasmine Yong
Hometown: Oakdale, CA
Major: Data Science
Sage Experience: Since Fall 2016 (2.5 years!)
Plans After College: Working (Hopefully in Silicon Valley!)
Favorite Sage Memory: Spookfest with my mentee! He was a firefighter, and I was Catwoman!
Fun Fact About You: When I smile, my right eye squints a little more than my left!
VP Membership
Lindsay Timmerman
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Major: Economics and Data Science
Sage Experience: 4 semesters!
Plans After College: Grad school and traveling the world!
Favorite Sage Memory: Cookie decorating with my mentee at the end-of-semester party!
Fun Fact About You: I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro!
Outreach VP
Mounika Gopi
Hometown: Fresno, CA
Major: Molecular & Cell Biology
Sage Experience: 4 semesters!
Plans After College: Medical school!
Favorite Sage Memory: Reading comic books with my mentee and listening to him talk about his favorite superheroes!
Fun Fact About You: I broke my ankle tripping over a tennis ball!
VP Finance
Kaitlyn Le
Hometown: Alameda, CA
Major: Public Health & Molecular & Cell Biology
Sage Experience: 4 semesters!
Plans After College: Having fun, traveling, spending time with friends and family, and hopefully, going to medical school
Favorite Sage Memory: I told my mentee that I want to be a doctor and then the next time I saw her, she gave me a drawing of myself in a doctor's coat tending to a patient and captioned it "Dr. Kaitlyn."
Fun Fact About You: I hiked Half Dome!
External VP
Olivia Zaller
Hometown: San Diego, CA
Major: Political Science, Global Poverty & Practice Minor
Sage Experience: Fall 2017
Plans After College: I hope to work in the Peace Corps for a few years and then eventually work for an NGO focused on the implementation of sustainable international aid.
Favorite Sage Memory: A few weeks into mentoring, a little girl in my class who had previously expressed hatred for reading asked me to listen to her read, and I noticed how much her confidence had improved in such a short period.
Fun Fact About You: I have traveled to five continents!
Internal VP
Veronica Nguyen
Hometown: Dallas, TX
Major: Integrative Biology
Interests: Urban dance
Sage Experience: 2 years!
Plans After College: Gap year and medical school.
Favorite Sage Memory: When my mentee accidentally called me "mom" on multiple occasions.
Fun Fact About You: I can do a great duck impression.
VP Communications
Cami Taylor
Hometown: Los Angeles
Major: Computer Science/Legal Studies, Minor in Education
Sage Experience: Since Fall 2017!
Plans After College: Volunteering for a year - potentially with Peace Corps or Americorps.
Favorite Sage Memory: When I went to John Muir on my mentee's birthday, she brought me a gift. She made this bracelet for me the night before with my name on it. It was so sweet of her, and she was excited to match.
Fun Fact About You: I'm a twin!
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DeCal Coordinator
Bryce Lennan
Hometown: San Diego
Major: History, Minor in Education
Sage Experience: 7 semesters!
Plans After College: I plan to attend graduate school to obtain a master's degree in education and a teaching credential in social sciences. After that, I want to be a high school teacher!
Favorite Sage Memory: Playing "catch" in the gym on a rainy day, even though the only ball my mentees and I had was in our imaginations. Surprisingly fun once you get into it!
Fun Fact About You: I can juggle!
School Directors
Schantell Williams
Acorn Woodland
Hometown: Stockton, CA
Major: Gender and Women's Studies and Disability Studies minor
Sage Experience: For 4 semesters
Interests: Running track and field at Cal
Plans After College: Attending medical school
Favorite Sage Memory: When my mentee came and hugged me for the first time in excitement, she was happy that I came back to be her mentor and had a heart to heart with me
Fun Fact About You: I love learning ASL
Megan Benedicto
Jefferson
Hometown: Manila, Philippines
Major: Molecular and Cell Biology
Sage Experience: 3 semesters!
Plans After College: Don’t know yet! I want to explore more interests while I’m here at Berkeley to find out.
Favorite Sage Memory: End of the year party with all the kids from my classroom. We all wore pajamas and made blueberry pancakes.
Fun Fact About You: I talked to Robert Irwin (Steve Irwin's son) about snakes!
Sweta Parija
Emerson
Hometown: Sacramento, CA
Major: Public Health
Sage Experience: 3 semesters
Interests: cooking and baking!
Plans After College: Hopefully, med school
Favorite Sage Memory: Introducing my mentees to Harry Potter and seeing their growing excitement and love for it!
Fun Fact About You: I don't like ice cream
Caroline Kim
New Highland
Hometown: Weston, MA
Major: Legal Studies
Sage Experience: 4 semesters!
Plans After College: Law School or Medical School
Favorite Sage Memory: The first time I played soccer with my mentees and his friends. They kept saying they wanted a grown up to play, so I jumped in. All the kids were really quick and had footwork skills like Messi’s hahah. But even though they showed me up, I could not have been prouder to see them work together like that.
Fun Fact About You: I love open water swimming!
Ala Mahmoud
Sankofa
Hometown: Malibu, CA
Major: MCB emphasis in Developmental Genetics
Sage Experience: 3 Semesters
Plans After College: I hope to go to medical school and become a physician.
Favorite Sage Memory: Playing a big game of football during recess with a bunch of the students. I was the quarterback for both teams and towards the end of the game I threw a pass to my mentee and he caught it for the final touchdown and we celebrated together. After that he really opened up to me and mentoring him became even more enjoyable.
Fun Fact About You: I love the outdoors.
Darby Shore
Washington
Hometown: San Rafael, CA
Major: Cognitive Science
Sage Experience: Since Jan 2018
Plans After College: Work in the Bay Area for a bit and then go to grad school!
Favorite Sage Memory: For a while, my mentee was very closed-off to me and shy, but I remember the exact day when that changed. Zoe walked around that day with a huge grin telling every single one of her classmates that my name was Darby and that I was HER mentor.
Fun Fact About You: I have a desert tortoise named Bubbles who will likely outlive me!
Berkeley Arts Magnet
Darain Noveir
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Major: Neurobiology
Sage Experience: Since Fall 2016
Plans After College: Medical School
Favorite Sage Memory: My mentee is very active and loves running. As soon as he sees me entering the school, he waits for me at the track. No greetings. Just “ready, set, go!” and we race around the playground a few times until we get tired. I never let him win, so he tells me that we have to race every day until he beats me. On my last day, he will.
Fun Fact About You: I can make my eyes vibrate?
John Muir
Alysha Jamieson
Hometown: San Jose, CA
Major: MCB emphasis neurobiology
# of semesters: 1!!
Fun fact: I spent my last two summers teaching in Kenya and I would love to return every single year!
Plans after college: Spend a gap year exploring the world and then attend medical school or teach
Favorite Sage memory: My mentee had the hardest time remembering my name, but the day she remembered it she came running across the blacktop as soon as she saw me, yelling “Alysha!!!” and jumped right into my arms. She said she had been practicing saying my name with her mom every single night for a week just so she could remember it the next time I came.
Oxford
Carolyn Hong
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Major: Chemistry
Sage Experience: 2 semesters!
Plans After College: Dedicated to sustainable energy.
Favorite Sage Memory: Watching my mentee, Alyssia perform in her school dance performance and seeing how proud and confident.
Fun Fact About You: I have an 8 year old brother!
Rosa Parks
Sean O'Neil
Hometown: Richmond, VA
Major: Environmental Science, Class of 2019
Sage Experience: Since Fall 2015
Plans After College: I will be a secondary school biology teacher in Richmond, CA, through Teach for America.
Favorite Sage Memory: My mentee's dad telling me he called me his best friend
Fun Fact About You: I can make balloon animals!
Sylvia Mendez
Omar Cacho
Hometown: South Gate in Los, Angeles, CA
Major: Mathematics, Minor in CalTeach
Sage Experience: This is my sixth semester with Sage.
Plans After College: Moving back to LA and going to grad school or teaching math
Favorite Sage Memory: My favorite Sage memory would have to be either when I saw my mentee for the first time since the summer break, and he fell to the ground with excitement or when I took a group of students to Berkeley Bowl and supervised them while they worked together to do a scavenger hunt!
Fun Fact About You: I have donated my hair to cancel organizations twice and plan on doing it again in the future.
Finance & Marketing Team
Aidan Flood
Hometown: Silver Spring, MD
Major: Data Science
Sage Experience: 2 semesters1
Plans After College: No set plans yet, but I want to travel for at least a year right out of college.
Favorite Sage Memory: When my class finally all knew my name and swarmed me yelling "AIDAN" and all tried to pull me down until I pretty much toppled over.
Fun Fact About You: I'm interested in Music, College Basketball, Movies and Hiking!
Sabrina Marvin
Hometown: Kauai, Hawaii
Major: Political Economy, Behavioral Economics, and Psychology
Sage Experience: 3 semesters!
Interests: Research, Running, and Cooking
Plans After College: Working in corporate finance or human resources in the US or abroad.
Favorite Sage Memory: Playing UNO with my mentees.
Fun Fact About You: I went to boarding school on the island of Hawaii.
Stephanie Ross
Hometown: Toronto, Canada
Major: Economics
Sage Experience: 4 semesters!
Interests: Traveling, watching food/cooking documentaries, and going to concerts
Plans After College: Travel and live abroad for a while
Favorite Sage Memory: My favorite sage memory was participating in a cooking class with my mentee at John Muir Elementary School.
Fun Fact About You: My first language was French.
Lauren Coffey
Hometown: Villanova, PA
Major: Economics
Sage Experience: 4 semesters!
Plans After College: Hopefully either law school or business school
Favorite Sage Memory: Hanging out with my first graders last semester!
Fun Fact About You: I love yoga but I still can’t touch my toes.
Founder
Alejandro Velez
With the realization that there was a great need for a mentorship program that grounded itself in forging powerful, long-lasting relationships with the youth in the greater Berkeley and Oakland community, Alejandro founded Sage in 2008. Alejandro began Sage with a vision of creating a program in which UC Berkeley mentors could be paired up with an elementary student and serve not only as teachers but also as friends and role models. To this day Alejandro is very close to his mentee, Cleveland.
Since his graduation, he has gone on to have a very successful career driven by the same entrepreneurial spirit to find ways to better the world around him. Alejandro now serves as the co-founder of Back to the Roots, an Oakland-based business that sells mushroom kits and AquaFarm fish tanks to retailers nationwide. Since co-founding BTTR, Alejandro has even been named as one of Inc.’s 30 Under 30, Poder's 2010 Influential Hispanics Under 40, Forbes’ 30 Under 30, CNN’s 10 Next Entrepreneur’s to Watch, and been recognized by President Obama!