Gen-Z Teams
Policy Team
Saanvi Shetty & Shreya Karnik
Saanvi and Shreya host the Voices of Gen-Z podcast! Being close friends for many years, they have developed a dynamic that they like to call "unmatched". They enjoy talking about some serious politics as well as laid back ones like how Disney shaped us.
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Alyana Santillana
Alyana Santillana (she/her) is a high school student from Northern California. She follows politics very closely and is passionate about educating fellow Gen-Zers about the importance of being politically active. Her favorite topics to write about are politics and pop culture. She has a very diverse taste in music and is an avid fan of classic film. She is very passionate about creating a change for the betterment of our generation.
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Sejal Mehta
Sejal Mehta (she/her) is a sophomore in high school from Chicago, Illinois. She is passionate about current events and international relations after living overseas for over eight years. At VofZ, Sejal is a podcaster and she also enjoys listening to podcasts in her free time. She aspires to be a women in business and diversify the industry.
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Emme Armijo
Emme is a 17 year old bisexual who uses She/Her pronouns. She is an advocate for human rights as well as climate change. She is very into politics and is always down for a good discussion/debate. Growing up she has been involved in her local church, high schools ASB as well as her high schools theatre program. Some other hobbies of hers include singing, dancing, soccer, swim and playing with her two baby nephews. Emme hopes to pursue a career in communications + impact others lives and help change the world for better.
Operations Team
Alyssa Wong
Alyssa Wong is a high school student in Hong Kong and uses she/her pronouns. She discovered the joy of podcasts after her dad knocked over her DIY miniature dollhouses. During the long, tedious process of rebuilding a mini Parisian bakery and seaside beach house, Alyssa realized glueing tiny furniture together was a lot less boring while listening to true crime podcasts. Aside from being a podcast editor at VofZ, she is also the podcast initiative co-lead at Medicine Encompassed (@medicine.encompassed). She is an aspiring doctor, Barbie doll collector and guppy fish farmer. Find her on Instagram as @papisadelapong and find her doll account as @totallyspecialbarbie.
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Sejal Mehta
Sejal Mehta (she/her) is a sophomore in high school from Chicago, Illinois. She is passionate about current events and international relations after living overseas for over eight years. At VofZ, Sejal is a podcast editor and she also enjoys listening to podcasts in her free time. She aspires to be a women in business and diversify the industry.
Creatives Team
Archana Pisupati
Archana Pisupati (she/her) is a junior in high school from San Jose, California. Some of her most defining personality traits include trying new speciality lattes, avocado toast, being a vegan treehugger, and dissociating with people who do not know how to use the correct your/you're. She's an aspiring journalist and an ardent climate activist who hopes to use Voices of Gen-Z as a platform to gain more journalistic experience. She enjoys writing anything from a poem to a rhetorical analyses and uses writing as a way to passionately express herself. She is so grateful for this platform because it gives her freedom to produce content on her many passions including Asian representation advocacy, cultural appreciation, climate activism, and more!
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Neha Aitharaju
Neha Aitharaju is junior in high school from Seattle, Washington and uses she/her pronouns. Avocado toasts, playing the piano and miniature things are just some of her most defining traits. She is passionate about current affairs and politics after living overseas for ten years. Aside from working with VofZ, she spends most of her time on the basketball court training. As a student athlete, Neha aspires to pursue a career in engineering and advocate for minority rights.
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Aliza Medhi
Aliza (she/her) is a high school senior from Lucknow, India. She works as a graphic designer at VofZ, hoping to use design as a medium to advocate for minority rights. She is passionate about social and political activism, leftist theory, film and persian cats. She is currently writing a coming of age novel, and has started a local campaign to fight voter suppression.
Ava Jones
Ava Jones is a sophomore in high school and she uses she/her pronouns. She enjoys creating graphics for virtually any topic and is especially passionate about advocating for human rights and ending climate change. Ava loves art and spends a lot of time drawing and painting outside of VofZ. She also spends her extra time dancing and running on her school’s cross country team.
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Christine Tao
Christine Tao (she/her) is a fourteen year old from New Rochelle, New York. She enjoys painting, sports, and being mediocre at a lot of random things. She is passionate about intersectionality and sustainability.
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Jo Purcell
Jo Purcell is a freshman in high school from northern California. She uses she/her pronouns, and is a graphic designer for VofZ. Aside from VofZ, she enjoys doing art of all kinds, especially drawing, painting, and making jewelry. She hopes to travel the world one day, and make a career in art/graphic design.
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Jennifer Xia
Jennifer Xia (she/her) is a high school senior from Johns Creek, Georgia who works as a graphic designer and writer for VofZ. She values accurate and thorough reporting along with creative and cohesive design work as an aspiring journalist. She works mostly with her school newsmagazine as a student journalist where she loves to dabble in the multimedia aspects of the industry which has brought her multiple recognitions from the National Scholastic Press Association and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. She's also a strong supporter of the Oxford Comma.
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Sara Ashkanani
Sara Ashkanani (she/her) is a student from Bahrain, she was born and raised there. Sara is passionate about raising awareness no matter what the case is! she wants our voices to be heard. Sara feels like Gen-Z is always looked down on. Her interests lie in graphic designing and psychology.
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Tyra Parker
Tyra Parker is 16 year old girl, that is currently taking her A levels in london, graphic communication being one of her courses, and she uses she/her pronouns. She is a graphic designer for Voices of Gen-Z, with her favourite thing to design being moodboards and covers. She draws inspiration from futuristic and grunge aesthetics, as well as music videos. Outisde of VofZ, she is also a typesetter for manga and webcomics in a handful of groups. Tyra enjoys graphic designing and hopes that in the future it is something she still does. She joined VofZ in hopes of being able to help spread awareness, and to be apart of the change that is needed in the world.
Outreach Team
Brianna Crawford
Brianna Crawford is currently a high school sophomore in the Los Angeles suburb of Monterey Park. She comes from a culturally mixed family and prefers the pronouns she/her. Brianna is a passionate advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement, equal rights for women, and climate change. In her free time, she enjoys running for her school’s track team, sewing, playing the ukulele or piano, and exploring the outdoors with her family. She has always had an entrepreneurial spirit starting from a young age and has a blooming passion for entrepreneurship/business management. Brianna aspires to own a business of her own someday.
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Pournami Varma
Pournami Varma is a senior in high school from Seattle, Washington and uses the pronouns she/her. As part of VofZ’s Outreach Team, she enjoys reaching out to environmentally-friendly influencers, small businesses and other non-profit organizations for partnerships. She has a burgeoning interest in current affairs and international relations and is extremely passionate about issues regarding regarding the environment, politics and healthcare. She is an aspiring public-global health major and hopes to venture into connecting her interests with that of entrepreneurship in the fields of law, global business or policy making.
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Rachel Friedman
Rachel (she/her) is 16 years old and a junior at Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie, Washington. She enjoys writing, sewing, thrifting and playing piano. In her free time she puts a lot of her effort into volunteering to help climate change. Rachel is social media manager for her local CCL (citizen climate lobby) chapter. Being a leader is a huge part of Rachel’s life as she has been involved in opportunities like camp counselor, student government, debate team, green team and more! Rachel’s goal is to educate as many people as possible on climate change because she believes that since global warming and climate change isn’t taught in schools (at least in Washington) it is still an extremely important subject to really understand. Global warming effects OUR future and she wants to be the change that helps in a positive direction!
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Photographers
Joy Xing
Joy Xing (she/her) is a 17-year-old photographer and filmmaker from Toronto, Canada. She loves Wes Anderson movies, clay sculpture, Studio Ghibli and ancient history. Her short films have been awarded at various international film festivals, including the Independent Shorts Awards, New York International Film Awards and IndieX Film Fest. Her work has been featured by UNICEF, The Malala Fund, Voices of Youth, XQ America and several youth-run magazines. Apart from being a photographer for Voices of Gen Z, Joy is also an executive member of COVID-19 Photos For Teens (a platform for elevating the work of young photographers). She specializes in fine-art portrait photography and hopes to spread more awareness of various social issues through her work. You can find her on Instagram at @_joyxing.