Faculty

Alice M. Agogino
Education Director

Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and serves as the Chair of the Graduate Group in Development Engineering and Education Director of the Blum Center for Developing Regions.  Agogino has served in a number of other administrative positions including Chair of the UC Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Director of the Instructional Technology Program. She also served as Director for the Synthesis Engineering Education Coalition and continues as PI for theDesignExchange educational portal. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and has served on a number of committees of the National Academies, including the Committee on Women in Science, Engineering and Medicine.  With over 280 peer-reviewed publications, Agogino has supervised 157 MS projects/theses, 50 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers. She has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards, including 2017 ASME Design Theory and Methodology Award, 2015 ASME Ruth and Joel Spira Outstanding Design Educator Award “, AAAS Lifetime Mentoring Award, 2013; Pi Tau Sigma Professor of the Year, 2011; Chancellor’s Community Service Award, 2010; Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring, 2007.

(510) 642-6450 | agogino@berkeley.edu

Chetan Chowdhry
Director of Student Programs

Chetan Chowdhry manages and serves as the Lead Academic Advisor for the Global Poverty & Practice minor. Prior to joining the Blum Center team, Chetan served as a Graduate Coordinator with the University of Maryland Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy Office. He holds a Master’s degree in Counseling and Personnel Services from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Environmental Analysis & Design from UC Irvine.

(510) 664-4423 | cchowdhry@berkeley.edu 

Ricardo G. Huerta Niño
Faculty

Ricardo G. Huerta Niño is a Lecturer in the Global Poverty & Practice minor, and has taught at UC Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning and San Francisco State’s Urban Studies and Planning Department. He also has served as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues and as an Affiliated Scholar at the Center for Research on Native American Issues. His most recent professional experience includes serving as a consultant for economic development with Kaiser Permanente, a consultant for city planning in San Rafael, and as Oakland’s Director of Collective Impact in the Office of the Mayor. His research and practice interests include community and economic development, environmental justice, public health, sustainable development, international development, philanthropy, planning theory, education, youth development, and ethnic studies. He received his PhD and MCP from the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley and is also a graduate of UC Davis (BA), Stanford University (MA), and UC Berkeley’s International and Area Studies (MA).

ricardo1@berkeley.edu

Khalid Kadir
Faculty

Khalid Kadir is a Continuing Lecturer at UC Berkeley, teaching courses in the Global Poverty & Practice (GPP) program, Political Economy, and Civil and Environmental Engineering. He received his PhD in 2010 from Berkeley in Civil and Environmental Engineering, where his research focused on pathogen removal in natural water and wastewater treatment systems. While completing this research, Khalid was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to work on water and wastewater treatment systems in Morocco. During this time, he began studying the complex role that engineering expertise plays in the politics of international development and poverty alleviation. His current research focuses on engineering pedagogy, the political economy of public higher education, and water and sanitation in humanitarian contexts.

In 2013 Khalid was selected as a Chancellor’s Public Scholar to create and teach an innovative interdisciplinary course tackling issues of environmental and social justice. In the course, students coming from technical disciplines are trained to recognize and engage with the social and political roots of problems that have technical components. In recognition of his work on this unique course and of his teaching in the GPP program, Khalid was awarded the 2014 Chancellor’s Award for Public Service for Service-Learning Leadership and then in 2019 he was awarded the American Cultures Teaching Award. Finally, in 2017 Khalid received UC Berkeley’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the campus’ most prestigious honor for teaching.

In addition to his teaching and research, Khalid has remained engaged with applied practice, working on a number projects ranging from water and sanitation engineering to poverty action work, both internationally and domestically.

kadir@berkeley.edu 

Cecilia Cissell Lucas
Faculty

Cecilia Lucas is a Lecturer in the UC Berkeley Peace and Conflict Studies Department and Global Poverty & Practice minor, where she teaches sections of GPP 196. Her interdisciplinary research sits at the intersection of Education, Ethnic Studies and Performance Studies, and examines issues related to white U.S. citizens’ engagement with racial justice and decolonization projects. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the Social and Cultural Studies program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education and holds a BFA in Theater and Performance Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

cecilialucas@berkeley.edu.

Kris Kohler
Faculty

Kris Kohler is a sociologist and a lecturer in both the Master of Development Engineering program and the Global Poverty and Practice undergraduate minor. Kohler’s research and teaching has centered on transnational activism and social movements, international development (or “underdevelopment,” as he notes), and global sociology. He has lived and worked in two dozen countries, most notably in Zambia, and has served in the Peace Corps, worked as a rural health volunteer, and is a United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Open Pedagogy Fellow. Kohler also has over 80 courses under his belt, including lectureships at San Diego State, UC Santa Barbara, Montgomery College, UC Merced, Stanislaus State University, and Mount St. Mary’s University. Kohler holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology from UC San Diego and a B.A. in Black studies and political science from UC Santa Barbara. 

kkohler@berkeley.edu 

Clare Talwalker
Faculty

Clare Talwalker is a Lecturer in Global Studies and Political Economy and core faculty for the Global Poverty & Practice minor. She is co-editor with Ananya Roy of the UC Press book series Poverty, Interrupted. Trained in cultural anthropology, her research focuses on India, social inequalities, and postcoloniality. She writes also about student engagement in aid work and poverty alleviation. She offers classes on ethnographic methods, political economy, the anthropology of liberal human rights, and India. Talwalker grew up in Mumbai, India. She earned a B.A. at Dartmouth College and her Ph.D. at Duke University. 

ctalwalker@berkeley.edu

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