Alumna awarded congressional hunger fellowship
Alum Anika Nayak, BA ’23, is spending 2025-2026 year fighting hunger as a recipient of the Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellowship.
The one-year nonpartisan program seeks to inspire and train change agents to create a country where access to nutritious, affordable, and culturally appropriate food is recognized as a basic human right.
The fellowship is named for the late Republican representative Norvell William Emerson, known as Bill, who crossed political lines to bring people together in the fight to end hunger. His work in Congress advanced numerous anti-hunger initiatives, including The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). The Congressional Hunger Center, founded in 1993, oversees the fellowship.
During the program, participants spend five months working with community-based organizations throughout the United States. In mid-April fellows return to Washington for a second placement with organizations or government agencies focused on national anti-hunger and anti-poverty policy.
Nayak is one of 11 Emerson fellows and has been spending the first part of her fellowship at DC Hunger Solutions, where she engaged in policy research. She will spend the latter part of the year doing research with one or more organizations that work to end hunger and poverty.
She hopes other UC Berkeley School of Public Health graduates will apply for the program.
Before moving to Washington for the fellowship, Nayak worked in both public health research, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, and in journalism, at STAT health care news.
