We encourage New Leader Scholarship recipients to maintain contact with fellow recipients, mentors and board members.

Click on any recipient or scroll down to see all bios.

2002 Recipients
·  Haleh Badkoobehi	·  Gabrielle Falzone
·  Vicky Gomez	·  Jennifer Pilor Ibardoloza
·  Svetlana Lunskaya	·  Cesar Moreno

2002 Recipients (current as of Autumn 2008)

Haleh Badkoobehi

HALEH BADKOOBEHI (See 2003 entry, awarded a second scholarship)
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Gabrielle Falzone

GABRIELLE FALZONE, 37, graduated from San Francisco State University with a major in Psychology and a minor in Classics. Using her own experience as a teenage runaway, she has been successful in developing programs for troubled homeless youth, incorporating her interest in Greek mythology as part of a successful outreach approach . She graduated magna cum laude, was admitted to Psi Chi, the Golden Key Honor Society and to Phi Beta Kappa. In addition to fostering three teens, Gabrielle received a Master's Degree and teaching credential from New College's multicultural teaching program. She taught at two different charter schools in San Francisco and currently is tutoring African American students in Oakland, taking classes at Berkeley Community College and deciding whether to continue her career in teaching.
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Vicky Gomez

VICKY GOMEZ, 30, the single mother of an eleven-year old boy, graduated from San Francisco State University with a double major in Health Science and La Raza Studies. She was accepted into several Master's programs in Public Health but decided to defer her enrollment indefinitely due to pressing family commitments.
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Jennifer Pilor Ibardoloza

JENNIFER PILOR IBARDOLOZA (See 2003 entry, awarded a second scholarship).
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Svetlana Lunskaya

SVETLANA LUNSKAYA (See 2005 entry, awarded a third scholarship)
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Cesar Moreno

CESAR MORENO, 27, graduated from U. C., Berkeley in Political Science and History. As a young person growing up in the Bakersfield area, he and his family worked in the fields, which his mother continues to do. His background has strongly influenced his desire to become a political advocate for his community. Cesar was awarded a Social Justice Fellowship at the John F. Kennedy Center at Harvard University in their summer, 2002 program. He spent the following year in Spain and Mexico in the U.C., Berkeley Study Abroad Program. . Cesar has been working for the AFL-CIO as the policy and Communications Analyst for the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, based in Washington, D.C.
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