Fellows Program In Public Affairs

Adriana is passionate about social policy issues, leadership development, and community engagement. A native of the Bay Area and a proud product of California public schools, she is committed to using innovative policy solutions to empower underserved communities.

Adriana holds a BA in Public Affairs and a minor in Education Studies from UCLA. As a policy fellow with the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, she helped build the initiative into the leading research center for data on Latinos in the U.S. She has also volunteered as a summer camp counselor with UCLA UniCamp, and served as a youth leader with Changiest LA, a nonprofit promoting civic engagement skills for middle and high school students.

As a Coro Fellow, Adriana conducted legislative research, implemented donor campaigns, and provided program evaluation support, honing her skills in project management and stakeholder engagement. Notably, Adriana researched and identified best practices for creating an equitable and coordinated youth sports system in Pittsburgh, sharing her findings with the City of Pittsburgh. Her passion for cross-sectoral collaboration has led her to build meaningful relationships with regional leaders. Adriana is excited to continue uplifting communities in Pittsburgh and partnering with local leaders to drive positive change.

Dillon Brown graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 2020 from the University of Southern California with degrees in Public Policy and Economics. Upon graduation, he received a Fulbright English Teaching Scholarship to live and work for a year in Athens, Greece. However, because of the pandemic, this experience would be delayed to the following year and brought Dillon back to Pittsburgh. During this time he served in Americorps as an elementary mathematics aide and taught virtual citizenship classes at Literacy Pittsburgh for local immigrants.

Dillon was excited to return from Greece to use his Coro experience as a jumpstart for a career in public service. His first placement was with the Borough of Dormont in Pittsburgh’s south hills. His second and final placements were both with the Hill District Community Development Corporation. There he reviewed amendments to their master plan, facilitated Development Review Panel meetings, advised on a federal HUD grant, and gave testimony to the URA Board. For his business placement Dillon worked at the Regional Industrial Development Corporation (RIDC) on projects related to economic competitiveness and for his fourth placement he worked at the Hear Foundation on a report covering youth sports programming within the City of Pittsburgh.

Lina Choe is a graduate from Penn State University with a B.A in Political Science, a minor in Women’s Studies, and a certificate in Diversity Studies.

As a first-generation American growing up in a primarily white area, Lina saw first-hand how socioeconomic disparities affect immigrants and people of color. During her time at Penn State, Lina developed a specific passion for improving healthcare outcomes and accessibility of underrepresented communities. In school, she was an undergraduate research assistant at JC&Research. This research lab aims to improve health and justice outcomes for those who have experienced sexual and domestic violence.

During her time at Coro, Lina was placed with State Representative Aerion Abney’s District Office, YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh, Bridging the Gap Development, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, and the Equity Impact Center. Lina has assisted with constituent services, data analysis, secured funding opportunities, and designing youth and adult arts programming.

Over the past nine months, Lina has fallen in love with Pittsburgh and is excited to continue engaging with the Pittsburgh community to drive positive change. Next year, she will attend Carnegie Mellon University to obtain her Master of Public Policy and Management.

Sancehn Marichelle Hassanin graduate from Brooklyn, NY, with a BA in International Studies and Anthropology with a concentration in cultures and communications from CUNY Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership.

Raised in Monrovia, Liberia, Sancehn survived the Liberian Civil War and the Ebola epidemic.The unique perspective and experience she encountered from the social and economic challenges and political instability during her childhood in Liberia inspired her passion for global social change. She celebrates human diversity and is working towards a more equitable world.

During Sancehn’s Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh's Office of Budget and Management, she worked with the community engagement team to hire a New Police Chief,by writing surveys, and drafting the agenda and briefing materials for Deliberative Community Forums.

During Sancehn’s non-profit placement, she revamped the YWCA Greater Pittsburgh Center for Race and Gender Equity by evaluating the current structure of the Human Resource Department and Center for Race and Gender Equity, and developed a plan for improving quality and efficiency.

During Sancehn's business placement at The Greenwood Plan, she worked in operations as a member of the senior management team by providing day-to-day management of several key functions such as reviewing Standard Operating Procedures for Operations role and software used to document and streamline processes.

At her recent innovation placement at Riverside Center for Innovation, she updated and completed an AI/Robotics Database for future projects and ecosystem and explored how Kiva administers loans to change lives.

At Sancehn's independent placement at the Department of human services, she is working with the community engagement team to hire the new Deputy Director of behavioral health. Her project includes writing out surveys, analyzing data, helping plan community meetings.

Ella Piper (she/her), originally from San Francisco, graduated from UC Davis in three years with majors in Spanish and International Relations, minoring in Human Rights. Ella served as Director of Kesem UC Davis–a nonprofit supporting children through a guardian’s cancer with free summer camp and year-round programming. Ella was also a legal intern for the SF Public Defender’s Office, assisting attorneys on felony cases and drafting successful letters for resentencing through the Post-Conviction Freedom Project.

As a Coro Fellow, Ella gained experience in the public sector by working at the Office of Equity and Engagement for Allegheny County, gathering resources serving immigrant communities. With Big Brothers Big Sisters–Ella’s nonprofit placement–she developed a plan for an organizational podcast. While at her third placement, K2 Creative, Ella compiled investigative research on 100+ media outlets. Ella’s innovation placement was with the Pittsburgh Hispanic Development Corporation where she worked to develop program descriptions and conducted policy research. During her final placement, with ACTION Housing, Ella drafted the policy manual for a $12.9M federally-funded program.

Ella is excited to continue learning in Pittsburgh and looks forward to exploring the intersection of advocacy, community building, and policy through the lenses of various sectors.

Reign Ramirez (she/her), is a first generation college graduate from California State University, East Bay. Working full time to complete a BA in Political Science, she gained a greater understanding of the battles marginalized communities face while trying to better their lives. Motivated by her own experiences around socio-economic issues, she focused her college education on where labor and immigration policies intersect.

As a Coro Fellow, she has assisted the Office of the Mayor in building a department-wide strategic plan that will be implemented for the next 5 years. She has worked with The Forbes Funds to plan events that create space for nonprofits to increase their capacity. Additionally, she consulted MSA Safety on designing a tool to encourage diversity in their hiring practices. At the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Reign worked to enhance board member engagement and secure potential funding sources for the nonprofit. Reign's commitment to community building and advocacy is evident in her involvement in various community events. Her collaborative efforts with community members have strengthened her skills in community outreach and advocacy.

For leisure, Reign enjoys going on hikes, riding her road bike, journaling, and anything requiring creativity.

Emma Siegel is a graduate of Rice University where she majored in History with a minor in Global Health Technology. She spent this past year in Anchorage, Alaska as a member of the Alaska Fellows Program with the Institute of the North where she most notably designed an online educational platform for Alaskan land law and co-wrote a paper on the Owner State Model.

Her particular interest in design and identifying intersections across disciplines has lent itself to her work within and beyond the classroom. As a Global Health Technology minor, her teams designed an oral cancer screening training model and insulated billboard vinyl for temporary shelters. Emma’s participation in the Loewenstern Fellowship with the Alaska Humanities Forum and Tukuy Pacha, the IsraAID Humanitarian Fellowship in Dominica, and Design for America speaks to ways in which she embraced interdisciplinary opportunities.

As a Coro Fellow, Emma has honed in on this interdisciplinary focus both as a Legislative Aide to District 1 Councilman, Bobby Wilson, and at the Arts Education Collaborative, ULEADx, MSA Safety, and at Brocade Studios for her final placement. At Brocade Studios, Emma has supported the interpretive planning efforts of the organization for Dorothea Dix Park as well as an upcoming strategic plan for the Hill District Community Development Corporation.

Kristen M. Vogel, M.A. (Yogini A.) (she/her/they) is a cross-sectoral cultural consultant and a global gender equity specialist. A global citizen with nearly a decade of professional experience in diverse cultures, Kristen is an advocate for equitable policy and women’s representation and voice. A transnational feminist anthropologist, she values diverse perspectives in/on leadership and recognizes indigenous matriarchies as valuable models for the achievement of gender parity at all levels of decision-making (UN SDG 5.5). Having worked across local governments, nonprofits/ NGOs, social enterprises, and civil society and multilateral organizations in Ghana, Costa Rica, India, and the U.S., she quickly adapts to new languages and cultures. As a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs, Kristen creatively implemented equitable policy across sectors through national legislative research and network building for pay equity, the creation of scalable culture-centered operations models for racial and socio-economic equity, data vizualization for transparent budgeting, and implementation of strategic City procurment processes for innovation equity. Kristen is currently a Public Policy Advocate with Black Women’s Policy Center, where she is co-writing a pay equity guidebook for Greater Pittsburgh employers.

Kristen is also a yoga student/teacher, horseback riding teacher/ trail guide/ wrangler, barista and an aspiring social entrepreneur, among other things.