June 18, 2007

Please join the Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP) in welcoming Yerdua (Yeri) Caesar-Kaptoech to the College of Environmental Design. Yeri will handle admissions, fellowships, and advising for the Master of City Planning and doctoral programs. Yeri comes to DCRP from the Department of Nutritional Science & Toxicology, where she was student affairs officer for the Ph.D. program.

Yeri’s background and training are in music. She grew up in Oakland and Berkeley, participating in the Young Musicians Program at UC Berkeley and the California MESA (Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement) program. She attended Oberlin's Conservatory of Music, majoring in violin performance. After graduating, she became a program assistant with the Young Musicians Program, where she'd worked summers as an undergraduate. Yeri then moved to New York to pursue a master’s in performing arts administration at New York University.

Back in California again and passionate about education, Yeri looked around for other jobs on the UC Berkeley campus and joined the Graduate Division, working with fellowships, then transferred to Nutritional Science & Toxicology.

Off campus, Yeri is one of two violinists with jazz saxophonist Howard Wiley and The Angola Project. The group also includes a trumpeter, two upright-bass players, a drummer, and a vocalist/opera singer, all likewise classically trained and with whom she grew up in the Young Musicians Program. Howard Wiley currently is a resident artist at San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts. His Angola Project interprets the history and work songs of Angola State Prison in Louisiana. The group will perform in July 2007 as part of Intersection for the Arts’ year-long Prison Project.

Yeri will spend the summer learning DCRP’s programs and policies and setting up her new office before the fall semester starts and next year’s application cycle begins.