Introducing the 2025 Haas Center awardees

Bill Somerville Grassroots Community Award

• Danny Sallis, ’25
• Jocelyn Tran, ’25

Friends of Haas Award

• Luciana Herman, Program Director, Stanford Law and Policy Lab
• Crystal Surita, Preschool Director, St. Elizabeth Seton School

Kennedy-Diamond Award for Excellence in Community Engaged Learning and Research

• Paige Hill, PhD Candidate
• Caroline Murtagh, MD ’25

Marion Brummell Kenworthy Award for Student Innovation in Public Service

• Makayla Abril Butters, ’25
• Chelsey Arellano, ’25
• Karen Arellano-Cruz, ’25
• Enrique Flores, ’25, MA ’25
• Taylor Hall, ’25

Walk the Talk Service Leadership Award

• Chris Badillo, ’25
• Langston Buddenhagen, ’25, MA ’25 (Jon McConnell Walk the Talk Service Leadership Award recipient)
• Samantha Guerrero, ’25
• Dora Elia Plascencia-Macias, ’25
• Chloe Trujillo, ’25, MS ’25
• Karsen Lee Wahal, ’25, MS ’25

Awardee bios

Makayla Abril Butters

Makayla Abril Butters (she/her) is a senior majoring in English with a minor in human rights. Through Cardinal Quarter, she worked with pro-se litigants who could not afford legal representation and supported survivors of gender-based violence in their time of need. As a Liman Summer Fellow, she supported probationers overcoming their substance use disorders at Kona Drug Court in her hometown of Kailua-Kona Hawai’i. Following graduation, she will return to Kona Drug Court to engage in social work. At the Haas Center, she is the Lead Haas Center Peer Advisor and curates the Cardinal Service Digest.

Chelsey Arellano

Chelsey is a senior majoring in international relations and creative writing. Her public service interest work is centered around supporting Latinx immigrants and women vulnerable to gender-based violence. She is the co-president of Stanford PEERS and is excited to be joining this years Ford Fellow cohort!

Karen Arellano-Cruz

Karen Arellano-Cruz is graduating this summer with a degree in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and honors from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. She is a proud farmworker, mother, and first-generation college student. Karen was an Education and Youth Development Fellow through Cardinal Quarter. She participated in the Community Service Work-Study (CSWS) Summer Program, where she worked with Shine Together, a nonprofit serving young mothers. This year, she is continuing in the CSWS Program, supporting the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits and focusing on scaling impact through nonprofit consulting work.

Chris Badillo

Chris Badillo is a senior majoring in comparative studies in race and ethnicity and minoring in poverty, inequality, and policy. He is also pursuing honors in education. Chris is co-chair of Stanford in Government and a four-year resident of Otero, the public service engagement theme dorm. He has also had leadership roles in Matriculate and as a leadership and narrative teaching fellow. He is particularly passionate about education policy, having held roles within a school board office, training school board members on policy and organizing with Education Justice Academy, and at the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics.

Langston Buddenhagen

Langston Buddenhagen will be graduating in June with a bachelor's in urban studies and a coterminal master's in public policy. Raised in Oakland by two public-servant parents, values of equity and service were instilled in him at a young age. Langston is passionate about advancing equity in cities and has worked on issues ranging from public safety and housing to education and public health. At Stanford, he served as a Cardinal Quarter Peer Advisor and a member of the Haas Center's National Advisory Board. He will be a 2025-26 Community Impact Fellow  as an analyst at Ikaso, a public-sector consulting firm. Langston is  grateful to the Haas Center for shaping his understanding of ethical public service.

Enrique Flores

Enrique Flores grew up in Keizer, Oregon and is graduating with his bachelor's in political science with a minor in human rights and his master's in sociology. During his time at Stanford, he was actively involved with the Haas Center for Public Service, Stanford in Government, and Stanford Habla, where he led initiatives focused on public service, civic engagement, and community outreach. He enjoys learning new languages and training with the Stanford Club Triathlon team. In the coming year, he will continue his work in social impact as a Tom Ford Fellow in Philanthropy.

Samantha Guerrero

Samantha Guerrero is a senior studying comparative studies in race and ethnicity with a minor in linguistics. Service is a guiding principle in her life, and her two most meaningful experiences with it at Stanford have been heading the student-led tutoring group Barrio Assistance and aiding with a community-engaged learning course that operates out of East Palo Alto Academy. The friends and true community she has made through these experiences have been invaluable in shaping her time at Stanford, and she hopes to encourage other students to pursue such pathways of service.

Taylor Hall

Taylor Hall is a passionate advocate for education equity, Black studies, and community-based schooling initiatives. She studies African and African American studies with a minor in education, and she spent her junior year at Spelman College as an HBCU Exchange student. Her research focuses on expanding access to Black studies curricula and liberatory educational spaces. She has tutored students, developed culturally responsive tutor training, and served as the Haas Center's Education Issue Area Coordinator. A proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Taylor co-founded Stanford Black Rhythm & Sound to uplift African American music culture on campus. A John Gardner Public Service Fellow, she aims to found a Black independent school that centers Afrocentric curricula in her hometown of Atlanta.

Luciana Herman

As the program director for the Law and Policy Lab, Luciana Herman works closely with faculty to develop their practicums as immersive, hands-on policy projects that train students in policy analysis to benefit real-world clients. She coordinates the activities of the Policy Lab, including operations, practicum deliverables and publications, social media, skills workshops and other programs. In her teaching role, Dr. Herman has co-taught the Copyright Policy Lab Practicum supports all practicums with targeted workshops and consultations to help students improve their policy analysis and communications skills. 

Paige Hill

Paige Hill is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science with concentrations in comparative and American politics. She is pursuing a PhD minor in comparative studies in race and ethnicity and is a graduate affiliate of the Immigration Policy Lab and the Inclusive Democracy and Development Lab. Prior to Stanford, she worked in immigration law in Philadelphia and completed a pre-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University’s Niehaus Center for Globalization. Her research interests include comparative immigration policy and political identity formation with a focus on diasporic and immigrant communities in the US and Europe. Paige’s research is supported by the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE) Fellowship, the Research, Action, and Impact through Strategic Engagement (RAISE) Fellowship, and The Europe Center.

Caroline Murtagh

Caroline Murtagh is a graduating MD student and Knight-Hennessy Scholar at the Stanford School of Medicine. Prior to medical school, she worked with the international health organization Partners In Health in Liberia, where she supported post-Ebola health system strengthening efforts, and in rural Florida, where she helped coordinate the COVID-19 response. She  completed a Fulbright research project in Uganda, studying blood donation systems. Caroline has been COVID Director for Vax Crew and a researcher in Dr. Jennifer Newberry's lab, where she led a research team to understand the impact of professionalization policies for community health workers in California and the role of collective organizing in the workforce. After graduating, Caroline will attend the Contra Costa Family Medicine Residency Program.

Dora Elia Plascencia-Macias

Dora will be graduating this year with an honors bachelor’s degree in sociology and minors in human rights and Spanish. She will obtain notations in Cultural Rhetorics and Cardinal Service. Throughout her time at Stanford she has been committed to community empowerment and social justice, especially with uplifting Latine voices. Dora has been a Haas Center Peer Advisor, Community Organizing Fellow, and president of the Latine pre-law society. She also interned with Court-Appointed Special Advocates. These experiences reinforced her dedication to equity and systemic reform. After graduation, Dora will take a gap year to prepare for law school, continuing to amplify community voices and advance justice at personal and structural levels.

Danny Sallis

Danny Sallis got involved with public service on campus during his freshman year as a resident of Otero and since then he has been involved in confronting issues ranging from food security to immigrants’ rights. He is passionate about building connections between people and groups working on interconnected issues. Graduating this spring with a degree in computer science, he is excited about applying computational methods to issues in sustainability while centering environmental justice.

Crystal Surita

Crystal began her career in early childhood education, working at Redwood City Child Development with youth ranging between 11 months and five years old. She joined the Seton community in 2014 and was brought onto the Stanford Early Math Teaching and Learning Program. She feels honored to be a part of something that benefits so many people. She enjoys getting to see how the program benefits her students and watching them develop into amazing young adults who have a life-long love of learning.

Jocelyn Tran

Jocelyn Tran pursued studies in psychology and education, with passions for mental health and youth development. She has committed herself to public service through Education Partnerships' Ravenswood Reads program, as a tutor and then as a fellow. This engagement has shaped her perspective on the value of literacy and language acquisition, as well as her approach to fostering reciprocal relationships between community partners, families, tutees, tutors, and her team.  As she continues her journey into graduate studies in clinical/counseling psychology with a concentration in marriage and family therapy, she aims to provide culturally responsive care and strengthen relational well-being within marginalized communities.

Chloe Trujillo

Chloe Trujillo is a coterminal computer science student. During her time at Stanford, she has worked with the Haas Center for several years to support programming at the intersection of technology and public service, and she is currently the Public Interest Technology Issue Area Coordinator. Prior to working at Haas, she ran several initiatives to provide resources to homeless shelters in her hometown of New York City.

Karsen Lee Wahal

Karsen is a senior pursuing a bachelor's with honors in economics and mathematics and a master's in computer science. He cares about tackling big questions in economics and policy, and has previously served in a wide variety of roles in policy, research, and technology. His passion for public service and investment in student life have led him to serve as a Haas Center Peer Advisor, a member of the Haas Center National Advisory Board, a residential assistant in the Otero Public Service theme dorm, and Vice Chair of Fellowships and Stipends at Stanford in Government. The Haas Center has been Karsen's home away from home on campus, and he is grateful for the chance to have contributed to and learned from the Haas Center’s wonderful community.