Michelle Fausto

Michelle Fausto is a recent graduate of the University of California Los Angeles, where she studied Political Science and Labor Studies. During her time at UCLA, she interned at the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission, a local organization through which she engaged in citywide anti-homelessness advocacy and direct service work in food distribution and vocational training. Michelle also completed the Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) program last summer, where she devised a policy memo addressed to the San Francisco Food Security Task Force concerning the growing number of food insecure individuals in San Francisco, California. As a first-generation, low-income daughter of Mexican immigrants, Michelle’s experiences growing up in a disinvested agricultural community in the Coachella Valley and living in poverty-stricken Los Angeles have directly exposed her to poverty- and hunger-related issues that she hopes to work on during her time as an Emerson National Hunger Fellow.

Field placement: UCI Basic Needs Center

Irvine, California

Policy placement: American Public Human Services Association

Washington, D.C.