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Camilla Hawthorne
Assistant Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz
Professional Background
Camilla Hawthorne is an accomplished researcher, writer, editor, translator, and dynamic public speaker, renowned for her insights into race and citizenship in contemporary Italy. With an academic and professional career that bridges multiple disciplines, her work scrutinizes the intricate relationship between racism, national belonging, and the cultural politics of Blackness within a European context. Currently serving as an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Camilla has made significant contributions to Black European studies, diaspora theory, and feminist science and technology studies.
Her research project, titled ‘There Are No Black Italians’? Race and Citizenship in the Black Mediterranean,’ delves deeply into the everyday experiences of Italian-born children of African immigrants as they navigate their identities. Through her work, she poses critical questions about the intersections of Blackness and Italian nationality, fostering a nuanced understanding of race in the Mediterranean cultural landscape. Camilla's involvement in various research collectives and academic panels further amplifies her dedication to advancing knowledge in this vital area of study.
Throughout her career, Camilla has been actively engaged in scholarly communities. She has held prominent roles such as Secretary-Treasurer of the Black Geographies Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers and sits on the international advisory board of ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies. Additionally, she has managed and contributed to initiatives such as the Summer School on Black Europe in Amsterdam, illustrating her commitment to fostering inclusive dialogues about race and belonging in Europe.
Education and Achievements
Camilla's educational background is built on a solid foundation in international relations and social justice advocacy. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Africana Studies from Brown University, where she developed an early interest in race and representation. Furthering her education, she received a Master in Public Affairs (MPA) from Brown University, providing her with the tools to analyze and influence public policy surrounding issues of race and migration. To complement her studies, she pursued a Ph.D. in Geography and Science and Technology Studies at the prestigious University of California, Berkeley. Her academic journey is characterized by a commitment to exploring and addressing systemic inequalities through rigorous research and analysis.
Camilla's scholarly endeavors have attracted the support of many prestigious organizations. Notable among these is the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship, which recognizes outstanding doctoral students from diverse backgrounds. In addition, her research was supported by the UC Berkeley Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society and the Ford Foundation's Predoctoral Fellowship, each of which highlights her contributions to understanding the intersections of race, technology, and society. Her published works and presentations reflect her expertise and commitment to changing the narrative around race and citizenship in Europe.
Key Contributions to Scholarship
Through her roles as an educator and as project manager of the Summer School on Black Europe, Camilla Hawthorne has facilitated critical conversations regarding the lived experiences of Black Europeans. At various institutions, including Brown University and UC Berkeley, she has not only taught courses but has also worked as a digital journalism instructor and multimedia editor, highlighting her versatile skill set and commitment to education.
Her past experiences include being a graduate student instructor, where she mentored students and cultivated dialogue around complex social issues. Her editorial experience with The Choices Program and as a contributing author to the Global Media Project demonstrates her ability to articulate significant cultural narratives and engage with public discourse on a wide array of platforms. Moreover, her time with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as Manager of Digital Media Initiatives showcased her skills in harnessing technology to enhance public understanding of global issues, particularly those affecting marginalized communities.
Achievements
Camilla's dedication to her field has been recognized in numerous ways. From her role as a Fellow at the Presidential Management Fellowship, where she engaged in high-level government initiatives at both Radio Free Europe and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, it is evident that she has a sustained commitment to serving the public good through media and education.
Her work alongside notable organizations and educational institutions has enabled her to build a network that is both supportive and impactful. This has allowed her to create opportunities for students and emerging scholars interested in the intersections of race, identity, and geographical studies. Additionally, her position as North American Coordinator for the Summer School on Black Europe illustrates her commitment to fostering an inclusive academic environment that reflects diverse perspectives. Camilla continues to be a beacon of knowledge and a source of inspiration for individuals dedicated to understanding the complexities of race and citizenship in the modern world.
Overall, Camilla Hawthorne's professional journey is marked by her determination to affect change through research, education, and community engagement. Her diverse expertise and accomplishments make her a leading voice in the field, with an invaluable contribution to the discourse on race, migration, and identity in a globalized world. As she continues her journey, her work promises to inspire future generations of scholars and advocates alike.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.