Rozette De Castro

Rozette grew up in the sunny sugar cane capital of the Philippines- Negros Occidental but now calls the Bay Area home. She graduated from the University of California- Berkeley with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science. She is a first-generation transfer student and Filipina-American.

While on campus, she was deeply involved in UC-Berkeley's Asian Pacific American Student Development (APASD) center and Pilipinx Academic Student Services (PASS) that are geared towards creating recruitment and retention programs for underrepresented communities. These spaces were where Rozette became more passionate about community advocacy. Her senior year, she created and led various programs and workshops to help community college students successfully transfer to 4-year universities and is proud to have helped create the first summer mentorship program for incoming Asian Pacific American(API) transfer students. Through this experience, she then went on to intern in Washington, D.C at the Univeristy of California Federal Governmental Relations office as a Matsui Fellow- where she worked on various higher education, immigration and health care policies. After D.C. she then flew to Sacramento, CA to finish her Matsui Fellowship at Cal-EPA State Water Resources Control Board- where she was analyzing water related measures and propositions for the State of California. She then flew back to D.C. to work for CAPAL, an AANHPI non-profit that's mission is to increase representation for Asian American, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the public sector field through summer internships. 

She was previously a RAY Fellow at Ocean Conservancy's Trash Free Seas program, working on projects ranging from community engagement and international policy analysis. In her free time, Rozette loves to try out different recipes online, check out cute coffee shops and restaurants and watching shows on her Netflix to watch list. Although her ideal free time would definitely be hiking up California's coastal hiking routes or snorkeling in the beautiful waters of the Philippines.