Burgwell Howard
Senior Associate Dean in Yale College, Associate Vice President of Student Engagement
Dean Howard supports the college’s growing population of first-generation students, programs such as Freshman Scholars at Yale (FSY), student-athletes, and students involved with fraternities and sororities. He also supervises and supports the cultural centers, and he serves on the Schwarzmann Center committee.
Sílvia DeCastro
Senior Administrative Assistant II Yale College Dean’s Office
Student Engagement
Sílvia DeCastro provides primary support to the Associate Dean for Student Engagement. Sílvia is originally from São Paulo, Brazil. Her first job after college was in the Department of Italian Language and Literature where she worked for the Chair and with the graduate student population at Yale from 1983-88. After working as an executive assistant in several multinational corporations in Brazil, she returned to Yale in 1995 as Executive Assistant to Sterling Professor Edward Zigler in the Department of Psychology. She then joined the Yale College Dean’s Office where she has worked as Senior Administrative Assistant II in the Office of Student Affairs; and now in the Office of Student Engagement. Sílvia is a skilled polyglot; she is fluent in Portuguese (native), English, Italian and Spanish. On her free time, you will find her near the ocean whenever possible, and travelling is always on her mind. She is, of course, a huge soccer fan.
Rubén Vega Pérez
Graduate Student Assistant, Yale College Dean’s Office
Student Engagement
Rubén is a graduate student of health policy in the Yale School of Public Health’s five-year joint BA/BS-MPH Program. He is originally from Guadalajara, Mexico and grew up in the San Diego-Tijuana international metropolitan area. Rubén is a passionate advocate for health equity and plans to both practice clinical medicine and become involved in policy after pursuing an M.D. at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai as a FlexMed Scholar. Rubén graduated from Yale College in 2017, where he lived in Davenport College and majored in Ethics, Politics and Economics. He currently also works as a research trainee at the Equity Research and Innovation Center at the Yale School of Medicine and is a student fellow of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at the Yale Law School. Rubén is proud to be part of the first-generation and low-income student community at Yale. He was part of the first cohort of First-Year Scholars at Yale and later served as an FSY counselor and class representative on the new FSY Council. Rubén loves music; you can often find him at concerts ranging from opera to indie rock in New Haven and Yale. On his free time, he enjoys running, hiking and spending time with nature.
Student Ambassadors
Pamela Banner
Yale College ‘20
Pamela is a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering in Trumbull College and is originally from the great city of Houston. She is involved in Design for America–working towards social innovation!, Kappa Kappa Gamma and Matriculate–a college application advising program for high-achieving, low-income students–on campus, and is excited to work with the Dean’s Office.
Peter Huang
Yale College ‘18
Peter is a senior in Silliman majoring in Economics and Mathematics. He has moved around a little, but he calls Boise, Idaho his home. As an undergrad, he has been active on Yale College Council, the Dwight Hall Socially Responsible Investment Fund, and the Asian American Students Alliance. Outside of classes, he can be found working as a research assistant in Hedy Kober’s Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Lab. He loves to sketch, read nonfiction, and write in his free time.
Fernando Rojas
Yale College ‘19
Originally from Southern California, Fernando Rojas is now a junior in Ezra Stiles college. Fernando is a History and Latin American Studies major, and is a member of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship cohort of 2019. He is also the co-president of Word and a founder of the Latinx Pre-law Society. Fernando is excited about working with other first-generation, low-income students at Yale to plan a variety of events.
Jonathan Salazar
Yale College ‘19
Jonathan is a junior in Pauli Murray College majoring in Political Science and Ethnicity, Race and Migration, with a concentration in Race, Law and Policy. Currently, he lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but Boyle Heights, California will always be his home. He is proud to be of Mexican decedent, particularly from Puebla. At Yale he organizes events as the Co-President and Co-Founder of Yale’s Latinx Pre-Law Society. In addition, he serves on the Student Advisory Board for the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration (RITM) and is also a Peer Liaison for La Casa.
Samantha Wood
Yale College ‘20
Originally from Wolfeboro, NH, Samantha is a sophomore in Saybrook potentially majoring in Religious Studies. In her free time, she competes with the varsity fencing team and is a member of the Yale Debate Association.
Kristen Wright
Yale College ‘18
Kristen is a senior in Timothy Dwight College. She is a first-generation college student majoring in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB) and possibly psychology. She hails from a very warm place called Boca Raton, Florida. On campus, she is involved as a choreographer and dancer in Yale Danceworks, and Yale Matriculate, where she advises high school seniors applying to colleges and scholarships. Kristin is a QuestBridge Match Scholar, and is involved in the Yale QuestBridge chapter and the Undergraduate First Generation Low-Income Partnership. She loves photography, watching movies, listening to music, reading books, attending a dance and a Capella performances, and hanging out with great friends.