Saidy Cedano is a senior at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy majoring in Public Policy, minoring in Women’s and Gender Studies, and completing a certificate in Women’s Leadership. Saidy is dedicated to improving urban policymaking, minority youth civic engagement, and community-based organizing. She is a summer research intern at Brown University’s Leadership Alliance Program, where she will research disenfranchised communities’ relationship with their governments to highlight the need for accountable policy-making practices that support vulnerable and disempowered populations. As a Ronald E. McNair Research Scholar, she investigated the impact of socioeconomic class and racial/ethnic identity on minority youth life navigation and political action through year-long collaborations with the Rutgers SECD Lab and support from the Rutgers Interdisciplinary Research Team Fellowship. Saidy has been the Verbal Mayhem Poetry Collective’s Community Outreach Chair and organized in-community service projects, volunteered at the New York Legal Assistance Group as a translator for recent refugee-seekers from Central and South America, and mentored and tutored New Brunswick Middle and High School students, where she led biweekly youth development workshops on accessing college education. Most recently, Saidy was a project intern at New Brunswick Tomorrow, where she researched models for increasing minority youth civic participation. She spearheaded youth poetry workshops with New Brunswick High School, where students used creative writing to engage in self-reflection and practice policy advocacy tools. Saidy plans to expand upon her internship experience by designing a social action project with the Rutgers University Institute for Women’s Leadership that will assist local youth with researching policy interventions they are passionate about.