Rocio Perez
ROCIO PEREZ (she/her/hers) s a second-year Master of Public Policy student at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, graduating in 2023. She is a returning Fellow with the UCLA LPPI Research Department.
Prior to graduate school, Rocio interned for the Center for American Progress and was an Emerson Hunger Fellow for the California Association of Food Banks and Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). During her time with LPPI, she assisted the Casey Family Programs with creating fact sheets about Latinos’ wellbeing in various issue areas including education and health across 14 states. Most recently, her research “Pandemic-EBT in California: Lessons and Opportunities to End Hunger for Latino Families” which analyzed the impact of P-EBT on recipient families including immigrant families that received PEBT and public charge concerns, was published in the Harvard Kennedy School Journal of Hispanic Policy. As a first-generation student, Rocio’s combined lived experience and work experience motivates her to pursue a policy analyst role working at the intersectionality of immigrant rights in the health sector and labor market.
She was born in the Westlake McArthur Park neighborhood of Los Angeles and graduated from UC Davis with a B.A. in Political Science and Sociology.