About the competition

A sophomore at C.K. McClatchy High School in Sacramento, Riley Johnson participates in the in Black Student Union and the MESA program and is the varsity cheer captain. She is passionate about the environment and plans to become an environmental policy attorney to influence legislation and policies that support healthy living conditions for marginalized communities. A devoted thespian, visual artist and entrepreneur, Johnson has received numerous awards for her commitment and dedication to both academics and community service.

Ahmet Palazoglu is vice-chair of the UC Academic Senate and a distinguished professor of Chemical Engineering at UC Davis. Palazoglu researches process systems engineering and has more than two hundred publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He co-authored two books, “Chemical Process Performance Evaluation” and the undergraduate textbook, “Introduction to Process Control,” both published by CRC Press. Palazoglu is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Janet Reilly chairs the UC Board of Regents. She is the co-founder and board president of Clinic by the Bay, a free, volunteer-powered health clinic for the working uninsured in San Francisco and San Mateo counties. A former executive producer and on-air television host for NBC Bay Area – KNTV, Reilly and her husband own the San Francisco Examiner and the Nob Hill Gazette. Reilly earned a B.A. from UCLA and an M.S. in journalism from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism.

Laurel Rosenhall writes about California politics for The New York Times. Based in Sacramento, she has been a journalist in California for more than two decades, mostly covering state politics and policy. Previously, Rosenhall led coverage of the state capitol for The Los Angeles Times and served for a year on its editorial board. She was also a reporter at CalMatters, a nonprofit news site she helped launch in 2015, and began her reporting career at The Sacramento Bee. Rosenhall studied journalism at UC Berkeley.

Michael Wiafe is assistant deputy cabinet secretary in the Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, where he works on education cradle-to-career. He previously worked at the Inland Empire Community Foundation and was an adjunct professor at the University of Redlands. Wiafe got his start in policy as president of the Cal State Student Association, representing the over 480,000 students of the California State University system. He earned a B.A. from San Diego State University and a master’s in Public Policy from UC Berkeley.