CORYNA OGUNSEITAN
TRAINING & EDUCATION
UCSF & UC Berkeley: Doctoral student in Medical Anthropology, 2022-present. GPA: 4.0
UC Berkeley: Masters Degree in Social Welfare, 2020-2022. GPA: 4.0
Yale University: Bachelor’s Degree in Literature with distinction, 2013-2017. GPA 3.73
AWARDS & FELLOWSHIPS
Harold Varmos Global Scholars Fellowship: Selected for global health research fellowship to attend COP 30 in Belem, Brazil, for dissertation research on climate anxiety and grief, 2025.
Cave Canem Regional Workshop: Selected for regional poetry workshop for Black poets by the Cave Canem Foundation, 2023.
San Francisco Multicultural Student Stipend: Awarded by the San Francisco Department of Public Health to students from diverse backgrounds completing internships in behavioral health services for marginalized communities, 2022.
Brian Gialketsis Queer Environmentalist Scholarship: Merit scholarship for students engaged in environmental issues awarded by Berkeley’s Student Environmental Resource Center, 2022.
Charles O’Shea Memorial Scholarship: Merit scholarship awarded by Berkeley’s Department of Social Welfare, 2021-2022.
Maxine Meldrum Fellowship: Merit scholarship awarded by Berkeley’s Department of Social Welfare, 2020-2022.
Blue Mountain Center: Artist’s Residency, Summer 2020 (postponed to 2021)
Francis Bergen Memorial Prize: Awarded by the Yale Literary Magazine for the most credible contribution to the volume, 2017.
Norman Mailer Writing Awards: National Finalist, Four-Year College Creative Nonfiction, 2016.
PUBLICATIONS & PRESENTATIONS
Academic Publications & Presentations
“Effects of a Novel Psychosocial Climate Resilience Course on Climate Distress, Self-Efficacy, and Mental Health in Young Adults.” Sustainability, 2025.
“Fanon in Today’s Clinic.” Decolonization and Afterlives of Fanon Conference, Spring 2024.
“Beyond the Visual: Sensing the Polycrisis” in Sensing and Resisting Environmental Crises. forthcoming 2026.
Public Writing
“distilling loss” and “distilling happiness” AGBOWO, 2025 (poetry)
“If God Is Real, Why Am I So Blue?” and “Memos from Earth”. bad buddhists, 2025 (Poetry).
“Passage” in The Offing, 2025. (Fiction in translation).
“The Pandemic Completely Redefined My Relationship with Nature.” Electric Literature, May 2022. (Literary nonfiction).
“3am in Paris” in Off Assignment, November 2022. (Poetry).
“gutenberg discontinuity” in Synapse, October 2022. (Poetry).
TEACHING
Graduate Student Instructor, UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Department: Fall 2024, Spring 2025. Designed curriculum for and taught a course on “Bridging and Belonging” to undergraduates. Course concepts include relationship building across difference; societal power dynamics; othering and belonging; racialization; and healing justice.
ORIAS Speaker Series: 2023-present: Delivered interactive workshops based on my research on climate anxiety and climate grief to high school students.
Instructor, EduExplora: Summer 2023, 2024, 2025: Designed curriculum for and taught an environmental justice course for middle and high school students called “At Home in the World: Nature Writing through Climate Crises.”
Graduate Student Instructor, UC Berkeley Gender & Women’s Studies Department: Spring 2022. Led two sections of 25 students each, graded assignments and held office hours, in an upper-division lecture class: “Gender, Race, Sexuality and Global Political Issues”
Reader, UC Berkeley: Gender & Women’s Studies Department, Fall 2021. Graded assignments, held office hours, and supported 50 students in an upper-division GWS lecture class: “Feminist Environmental Ethics.” English Department: Fall 2020. Graded assignments, held office hours, and supported 50 students in an upper-division English lecture class.
Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Fellow, Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná: 2019. Created and taught seven English as a second language courses for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students in Curitiba, Brazil. Co-taught immersive workshops on LGBTQIA+ issues in health care and Indigenous history in the U.S. Other classes included Conversation Club, Creative Writing, Debate in English, and Arts & Culture.
Princeton in Africa Fellow, Ashinaga Africa Initiative: 2017-2018. Served as a teacher, mentor, and administrator at Ashinaga’s Uganda-based scholarship program for Sub-Saharan African students. Managed applications for five students applying to U.S. colleges. Taught SAT Writing, Critical Reading and Writing, and Independent Wellbeing. Planned social activities and weekly workshops on global affairs for students. Developed curricula for LGBTQIA-inclusive sexual education programming, intensive academic preparation courses, and mental health awareness. Designed and delivered anti-racism training for staff. Planned a weeklong community service trip for twenty-three students. Supervised ten interns for two months. Facilitated implementation of student and intern feedback into programming.
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Research Assistant, UCSF Center for Health Equity: Spring 2021. Conduct literature reviews and write summary tables on topics including maternal mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, inequitable access to mental health care, impacts of racism on mental health during the pandemic, and the impact of abortion on black women’s reproductive health outcomes.
Trumbull Class of 1955 Summer Travel Fellowship: Conducted research in Spain on the history of Islamic presence in Andalucía. Conducted interviews with experts and activists on Islamophobia in modern Spain, and anti-Islamophobia advocates, 2016.
COMMUNITY SERVICE & OTHER EXPERIENCES
Program Director, Beloved Community Circles, Summer 2025-present; Program Manager Fall 2023-Summer 2025: Currently working to manage programming for Beloved Community Circles, a decentralized network of communities dedicated to practicing mindfulness and working towards climate and racial justice together. Developing curriculum for six month training for organizing and mindfulness. Designed website and Mighty Networks online community forum. Fundraising, outreach to partner organizations, communications and administrative management.
Graduate Student Representative, The Green Initiative Fund at UC Berkeley: 2022-2023. Voting member on Berkeley’s TGIF committee, which funds sustainability projects on campus.
Summer Garden Manager, UC Berkeley Student Organic Farm: Summer 2022. Support managing garden projects and planning events at Berkeley’s student-run farm. Coordinate pop-up healing acupuncture and herbalism center in collaboration with Freedom Community Clinic.
Clinical Trainee, UCSF Alliance Health Project: 2021-2022. Completed a yearlong clinical trainee program learning time-limited dynamic psychotherapy to work with queer and trans clients as a mental health provider. Provided individual psychotherapy for 5 clients per week. Facilitated Mindfulness Practice Group. Performed intake assessments.
Practice in Transformative Action, East Bay Meditation Center: 2020-2021. Completed a yearlong mindfulness training program. The program teaches trainees to lead mindfulness meditations, with a focus on bringing the tools of mindfulness to social justice.
Social Work Intern, Brown and Toland Physicians: 2020-2021. Care management and patient outreach for 5-10 clients per week. Conduct biopsychosocial assessments, connect clients with behavioral health care providers as well as housing, income, transportation, food, and caregiver resources. Experience in complex care management for clients with severe mental health diagnoses, substance use, and chronic disability. Advocate on behalf of patients to their primary care providers. Training in harm reduction, assessment of older adults, resource navigation, and somatic trauma healing. Competency in Epic medical software.
Somatics, Trauma, and Resilience Training, Strozzi Institute: 2020-2021. 10-week training course on somatic approaches to working with individual and collective trauma, with particular emphasis on unpacking the emotional and psychological impacts of systemic oppression.
Trauma-Informed Yoga Teacher Training, Collective Resilience Yoga: 2020. Training on trauma-informed practice into yoga instruction, with an emphasis on social justice.
Summer Intern, One Story: 2016. Read 50 fiction submissions weekly and helped with event planning, and proofreading for one of the nation’s largest literary magazines.
Summer Intern, PEN America | Glossolalia: 2016. Copyedited, solicited funding, and managed social media and distribution for PEN America’s new journal of literary translation.
Languages: Full professional proficiency in Spanish and Portuguese.