UAlbany Students Among 30 Selected Nationwide for UC Berkeley’s Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Junior Fellowship

Albany, N.Y. (May 3, 2012) - Two University at Albany juniors, Amaury Muñoz and Kalima Johnson, have been selected for the University of California Berkeley’s prestigious 2012 Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Junior Summer Institute Fellowship. They are among only 30 students across the nation admitted to the fellowship program each year. UC Berkeley’s Goldman School offers the Summer Institute in policy skills to empower students to better address the needs of historically underserved communities. Students participate in a rigorous seven-week program designed to improve analytical and quantitative skills vital to success at graduate programs in public policy, international affairs and law school studies.

Kalima Johnson, pictured here in Senegal, is one of two UAlbany students selected for a summer internship at UC Berkeley.

Muñoz, of Brentwood, N.Y., is a legislative affairs intern in New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s Office of State Legislative Affairs in Albany. He recently won the Dr. Juan Andrade Scholarship for Young Hispanic Leaders and was named a 40 Under 40 Rising Star by Hispanic Coalition NY. In addition, he has been awarded the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship by The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The fellowship provides funding to participants as they prepare academically and professionally to enter the United States Department of State Foreign Service. 

An honors student in public policy, Muñoz is a Campus Ambassador, a Senator-at-Large in UAlbany’s Student Association, and is active in Impact Christian Fellowship. He founded the student club Heart of Justice in 2010 to fight human trafficking. Muñoz moved to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic with his family when he was 15 years old.

Johnson, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a communication major, is a school connections intern at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. In 2011, Johnson studied abroad in Senegal where she interned in two schools and an orphanage. Since returning, Johnson has shared her experience witnessing hope in the midst of poverty with several UAlbany classes, as well as at local elementary and middle schools.

Johnson is a volunteer at the Crime Victims and Sexual Assault Center and is a Middle Earth Hotline Resource trainer, preparing UAlbany students to handle hotline calls. As a freshman, she attended the Public Policy Leadership Conference at Harvard University.

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