Alumni

2022 Berkeley Social Welfare Distinguished Alumni Awards

September 12, 2022
Headshot of Bridget FreisthlerBridget Freisthler, PhD'03

Currently Professor and Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development at the Ohio State University College of Social Work, her areas of expertise include child abuse and neglect, drug and alcohol use, drug distribution systems, geographic information systems (GIS), spatial analysis and service availability....

Interview & Resume Resources

Resume Resources How to Write a Perfect Social Worker Resume Interview Resources 5 Ways to Ace Your Social Work Job Interview 20 Interview Questions Every Social Worker Needs to Know...

Alumni in Action: Niels Tangherlini (BA '99)

Niels Tangherlini (BA '99) works to improve homeless outreach in San Francisco

Niels Tangherlini (BA '99) is an example of the impact that one person can make when determined to fill an unmet need in the community. Niels is a paramedic captain for the San Francisco Fire Department. Working with high-need populations for a decade, Niels saw countless cases of individuals who turned to the 911 system over and over again, going in and out of crowded emergency rooms with no real solution to their suffering.

One such case that touched Tangherlini deeply was a homeless man who had been a...

Berkeley Social Welfare Distinguished Alumni Awards

Eligibility

All Berkeley Social Welfare alumni (BASW, MSW, DSW & PhD) may be nominated. Current Berkeley Social Welfare staff & faculty are excluded.

Nomination Process

Any member of the Haviland Community (student, alumni, staff and/or faculty) may submit a nomination.

Nomination period is TBD.

Selection Process

Dean's Alumni Advisory Board members (DAAB) will review nominees and make recommendations to the Dean of Berkeley Social Welfare for a final decision. More than one Distinguished Alumni may be recognized annually.

Brandi Howard

Brandi Howard is a macro-level social work practitioner committed to equity and policy and systems change. The Chief of Staff and Interim Vice President of Programs at the San Francisco Foundation, Brandi is a natural systems thinker and equity leader, she provides leadership of their organizational culture and development work to center equity and results at the Foundation. Brandi started her career at the Foundation as the Program Officer for the Koshland Program, a 5-year program that elevates community and civic leadership and supports neighborhood transformation.

Before joining...

Peter Hecker

Peter Hecker is a retired lawyer, who practiced business litigation with New York City and San Francisco based law firms for 42 years. He is a 1970 graduate of Carleton College, Magna Cum Laude, with Distinction in Comparative Modern Literature, and a 1973 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, Order of the Coif. He and his wife Cynthia live in North Berkeley. They have two adult daughters.

As an adoptive parent since 1983, Peter has a long-standing interest in social welfare issues, particularly as they relate to families and children. Even before then,...

Roy Earnest

Roy Earnest has served as a gerontological social worker and program administrator since 1978 in a wide variety of community based non-profit senior services as well as a 15 year tenure from 2002 to 2018 at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency that is best known for the AmeriCorps program. This broad range of experience has given him an in-depth perspective on the continuum of services for older adults in the United States.

After retiring from CNCS in 2018, he joined the staff of the Center for Age Friendly Excellence (CAFE) in August 2019...

John Wu

John graduated with his BASW in 2021, and he is currently an MSW candidate with a concentration in Strengthening Organization and Community at the School of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley. Before coming to UC Berkeley, John served four years in the United States Marine Corps and eventually assumed a leadership role as Field Artillery Section Chief. During that time, he learned how to become an effective leader and advocate for the welfare of his Marines, and that is also when he developed the vision and career goal to continue serving his fellow veterans after his military service. John is...

Socorro Reynoso

Socorro ‘Soco’ Reynoso, LCSW is the proud daughter of her Black mother from Mississippi and her Mexican father from Los Angeles. She is a licensed clinical social worker and the owner of Soco Rey Therapy. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a Masters in Social Welfare and Claremont McKenna College with a Bachelors in Psychology. She has been a social worker for 11 years and a therapist for eight.

While working in social services and in group homes, Soco learned that the people who were in need of the most help and who looked like her weren’t receptive to services and she knew why —...

Celina Ramirez

Celina is a graduate of UC Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare, class of 1992. Her focus was children and family services. She earned a Spanish major from the University of the Pacific. Throughout her career, she has worked with the underserved providing quality service to families impacted by community violence, by leading parenting groups in local schools, family court as well as providing individual and family therapy.

With a recent focus in medical social work, she has been involved in discharge planning, bridging care from the hospital to the community for patients with...