RJ Sakai, a Sequoyah alum, serves as Sequoyah’s Director of Social Innovation at the high school. He has recently joined Marisol Pérez as co-Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI).

RJ is a design researcher who crafts tools and activities to facilitate insightful conversations for governments, nonprofits, startups, and classrooms. His work has led to immersions in Uganda, Cuba, small-town Massachusetts, East Harlem, and Los Angeles.

After graduating from Hampshire College, where he studied cultural anthropology and graphic design, RJ pursued a variety of interests: helping independent bookstores survive in the face of online book buying; mapping the politics of souvenir supply chains; interviewing international students about their relationship to credit cards; and fostering collaboration, creativity, and innovation amongst professors and students.

While earning his MFA in Media Design Practices at ArtCenter College of Design, RJ used workshop facilitation, systems thinking, and pinball to create new forms of communication between city governments and residents. He has a goal to visit all the U.S. state capitals (35 down).