Jayanthi K. Daniel is a masters’ student in the Social Welfare department of the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA. She is interested in non-profit management and policy development and evaluation, and is focused on becoming an advocate for underrepresented populations, particularly older minority adults. During her time at UCLA, Jayanthi looks to establish an expertise in clinical “micro” skills in order to build relationships as a method of enacting more effective advocacy for populations in the “macro” systems of policy and governance.

Before enrolling at UCLA, Jayanthi worked as a journalist for 10 years in New York City. She began her career at the New York Sun newspaper, and subsequently worked for Saveur magazine, a monthly culinary periodical, and Africa.com, a start-up news website. In 2014, Jayanthi began volunteering at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, working in the hospital’s geriatric emergency department. At Mount Sinai, Jayanthi decided to switch careers to social welfare, seeing that a population of older adults required an entirely different set of interactions from hospital staff. She came to understand that beyond the hospital setting, adults needed policies directly related to their experience in growing older in America.

Jayanthi received the David Bohnett Fellowship for the academic year of 2016-17. She will be working in the Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles, in the Office of the Chief of Staff. She will be utilizing her skills as a writer and editor to better enable the Mayor’s Office to work on behalf of the incredible city of Los Angeles.