Milan Drake

Milan was born in — SEATTLE (Washington) grew up in SOUTH BERKELEY (California), was raised in WACO (Texas), and has lived in EAST/NORTH OAKLAND (The TOWN) — and calls each of the places HOME as they are the source onto where he’s learned service to the community. As a non-traditional, student-parent, at UC Berkeley(UCB), Milan majored in Social Welfare with an emphasis on Education, participating in programs like Mellon Mays Fellows, Underground Scholars, and co-designing UCB’s first-ever, “Black Men’s Collective (BMC). As a sociologist of race and education with over 25 years' experience working with community organizing, he's currently the Community Design Lead at Stanford's d.school and a first-year PhD student. Milan’s journey has spanned everywhere from parental support, student advocacy, and curriculum design, to teaching courses like ”Print on Purpose” at the d.school all while leveraging community-centered design to improve communities and make (in)VISIBLE Designers truly visible.