Rylee Scofield

I've been in social work for about 10 years now, starting with my sociology undergrad at San Jose State in 2016. After graduation, I started traveling and fell in love, which led me to apply to the Peace Corps. I served as a Peace Corps volunteer for a year and a half before COVID hit and we got evacuated in March 2020. It was one of the craziest stories of my life - 7,000 volunteers all over the world had to return to the United States, and the Peace Corps chartered us an Ethiopian Air flight, picking up volunteers all over the continent of Africa. That experience really geared my career and helped me see more clearly what was happening in my own community. I wanted to give back to my community in Santa Cruz because I had given my love abroad. My previous role was working for the county in Santa Cruz on homelessness issues, which is huge here because people are allowed to live unhoused and other places send bus tickets or even fly people to Santa Cruz. That work was really beautiful and really hard because I had to face myself and my own community. I'll disclose that I grew up in addiction, so I was working with people who I had similar life experiences with, and it brought me to where I'm at right now at UC Santa Cruz, where I've been for 7 months. I love the job I have right now and hope to continue building my community there and moving up at the university. I'm also wanting to start my own consulting brand, which is a 2026 goal.