Josiah Beharry is a Ph.D. student in Interdisciplinary Humanities at UC Merced and a policy and communications professional with a deep commitment to educational equity and public service. His research explores the intersection of education, gender studies, trauma studies, linguistics, and political science—examining how systems of schooling shape identity, political consciousness, and resilience, particularly among young men. Josiah currently works for the University of California Graduate and Professional Council (UCGPC), a nonprofit that advocates for the interests of graduate and professional students across the UC system. He previously worked with the ACLU, Central Valley Pride Center, and Power California, leading initiatives focused on civic engagement, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and youth empowerment. As a scholar and community-rooted leader, Josiah bridges research, policy, and practice to reimagine higher education as a more inclusive and liberatory space for all students.
Position/Philosophy: I am a Ph.D. student in Interdisciplinary Humanities with a foundation in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, carrying the weight of multiple roles across policy, advocacy, research, and education—because in a world that demands simplicity, I’ve chosen to fight with complexity. I am, above all, someone who listens. A blind researcher in a sighted world, I navigate by sound, by story, by the subtle shifts in language that most overlook. My work lives at the intersection of ache and ambition—where boys become men not by choice but by burden, where institutions fail the very people they promise to uplift, and where laughter becomes a form of protest when the world has stopped listening. I study what hurts and what heals. From trauma to testimony, from the rhetoric of grievance to the poetics of resilience, I am charting the emotional aftershocks of structural abandonment. My lens is interdisciplinary, my methods linguistic, my compass always human. I draw from Baldwin and bell hooks, from Reeves and Galloway, from classrooms where futures feel both promised and stolen. I do not believe in neutral scholarship—only in the kind that risks something. As a storyteller, a policy advocate, a stand-up comic, and a son of immigrants, I move between registers—academic, spiritual, and street-level—with intention. If my scholarship dreams, it does so with both feet on the ground. If it dares, it does so with community in mind. I am not just studying disillusionment—I am trying to make something of it. A pedagogy. A politics. A punchline. A path.