Scholars

Class of 2014

Sheila Baynes

Sheila graduated from Harvard in 2003 with a degree in History and Literature. Her studies focused on the meaning of the environment in the American imagination; this interest in the centrality of place to the human experience informed her subsequent career in wilderness education.
 
Sheila moved to Alaska after college, where she led therapeutic wilderness expeditions for at-risk girls. After studying for a Master’s in Teaching, she continued to work with at-risk youth as a high school teacher in a drug and alcohol treatment program for Alaska Native teens. During her summers, she instructed courses for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), the leading non-profit that teaches leadership on expeditions in many of the world’s most remote and pristine wilderness classrooms. Sheila moved to Wyoming in 2009 to work at NOLS headquarters doing educational research and curriculum development. Her time spent living in rural communities in the American West reinforced her desire to work toward sustainable and collaborative solutions to their environmental and social challenges.
 
Sheila will spend her 1L summer as the Helaine Barnett Fellow at Legal Services Corporation in Washington, DC. She looks forward to serving as the Community Chair of the Environmental Law Society and working in the Environmental Law Clinic during her 2L year, and hopes to use her legal education to advance the mutually dependent issues of healthy youth and healthy public lands.

Wonjoo Choe

Wonjoo graduated with distinction from Cornell University in 2007 with a BA in Government and Economics. He interned at the Korean Public Interest Lawyers Group (Gong-Gam), a non-profit public interest firm in Seoul where he was actively involved in advancing immigration and refugee rights. There, he analyzed the legal status of North Korean refugees in developed countries, and helped translate a book composed of the letters from North Korean refugees to their families and friends in North Korea. Wonjoo is currently working with his brother to develop a social networking website called dooub, in hopes of using it as a channel to connect legal advocates and scholars across the globe.

Wonjoo was born in Daegu, South Korea, and grew up in Seoul and Silver Spring, Maryland. After law school, he hopes to bring about positive change in the political and economic condition of refugees in developing countries, and ultimately benefit those who seek asylum in his home country, South Korea.

Elizabeth DeGori

Starr Foundation Scholar

Elizabeth grew up in east Tennessee. She graduated from Scripps College in 2010 with a degree in International Relations and French Studies. During college, Elizabeth studied in Paris, interning at Confrontations Europe where she examined US-EU climate cooperation leading to the 2009 UNFCCC Conference. She later developed this to create her senior thesis on the domestic politics and international interactions of these players and China.
 
Elizabeth also volunteered as a sexual assault counselor and co-led the Criminal Justice Network, creating an on-campus program to support the organization Get on the Bus and send children yearly to visit their mothers in prison for Mother’s Day.
 
In law school, Elizabeth is interested in expanding her knowledge of environmental law and policy, with an emphasis on China. She is building on previous experience as an intern with the US Mission to NATO and her time after graduation when she worked as Climate Change Coordinator for the World Federation of UN Associations and interned for the US Mission to the UN.
 
Elizabeth spent her 1L summer at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Beijing, China, completing a self-designed research project on US-China environmental cooperation, a field she would love to pursue after law school.

Akiva Fishman

Sullivan & Cromwell Scholar

Akiva graduated from Brandeis University in 2009 magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He has worked in the private, non-profit, and government sectors on environmental issues ranging from carbon footprint management and algae biodiesel to tropical land use change and urban tree mortality. Immediately prior to law school, Akiva worked for two years at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, DC, where among other projects he edited and wrote for a series of seven books on the role of natural resources in post-conflict peacebuilding.

Akiva will intern during the summer of 2012 with the Liberian Environmental Protection Agency where he will work primarily on helping revise the country’s forestry regulations and on assessing the potential for accessing international financing for reducing carbon emissions through slowing deforestation and forest degradation. Back at NYU, Akiva will serve as the Environmental Law Society’s symposium chair and as the Jewish Law Student Association’s religious life chair. He will also be working with a professor on a book chapter about land tenure reform and transitional justice.

The future will likely include a Master’s degree in environmental management and will hopefully involve work advising governments seeking to develop or reform natural resource laws and regulations.

Brittany Francis

Graduating from Indiana University in 2011 with highest distinction and a degree in Criminal Justice, Sociology, and Communication & Culture, Brittany spent her undergraduate career pursuing her interests in race relations, advocacy, and service. As a Cox Research Scholar, Brittany conducted four years of legal research under Law Professors Dr. Jeannine Bell and Kevin Brown on the topics of hate crime, race relations, education law and civil rights law.  In recognition of her academic achievements in the liberal arts and sciences she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society in 2010.

Brittany came straight from Indiana University to NYU Law. During her first summer Brittany worked for the Bronx Defenders to provide free holistic legal representation to members of the Bronx community. During her 2L year she will participate in the Employment and Housing Discrimination Clinic as well as serve on the boards of the Women of Color Collective and the Black Allied Law Students Association as the Community Service Chair. She is passionate about working toward racial equality in the United States and is pursuing a career as a civil rights attorney.

Born in Las Vegas, Nevada, but raised in Indianapolis, IN, Brittany graduated from Decatur Central High School.

Amelia Pelly Frenkel

The daughter of two social and political activists, Amelia seized the chance to follow in her parents’ footsteps by working for change on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign while an undergraduate at Georgetown University. Despite working full time for the campaign, Amelia graduated in three years with a degree in government in May 2008.
 
Following graduation, Amelia saw the 2008 presidential election through as a speechwriter at Planned Parenthood, where she focused on electoral outreach to women voters. Ever the campaign enthusiast, she left Planned Parenthood in January 2009 to join a gubernatorial campaign in her adopted home state of Virginia.
 
After that campaign ended, Amelia moved on to become the Director of Speechwriting to the U.S. Trade Representative, the Cabinet official in charge of negotiating trade agreements and opening up trade opportunities for Americans abroad. After a year in that position, Amelia moved on to become the chief writer at the Democratic National Committee, where she penned remarks for everyone from grassroots activists to the President of the United States.
 
Amelia spent her 1L summer with the Employment Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and in her 2L year looks forward to joining the Government Civil Litigation Clinic.

Rachel Hoerger

Sinsheimer Service Scholar

Rachel graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst College, where she majored in
Economics and played on the Amherst softball team. After college, she worked as a union organizer for the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME), organizing in-home child care providers across the state of Iowa; served as a Peace Corps volunteer in northern Peru; and coordinated a statewide project to increase Census participation in farm worker and immigrant communities throughout rural California.
 
Rachel now hopes to use law as a tool to support grassroots organizing, activism and advocacy, and to empower individuals and communities to actively address the issues that affect them.  She will spend the summer working with the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, which organizes guest workers, day laborers, and low-income residents in New Orleans and around the country.  As a 2L, she will participate in CoLR (Coalition on Law and Representation), the All-ALSA Coalition, and NYU’s Litigation, Organizing and Systemic Change clinic.
 
Rachel is a proud native of Oakland, California.

Malika Lubell-Doughtie

Filomen M. D’Agostino Scholar

Malika grew up in Bronx, New York. She graduated from Pomona College in 2008 with a double major in Politics and Gender and Women’s Studies. After Pomona, Malika returned to New York where she served as a residential counselor and street outreach worker with Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS), an organization serving young women who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking.

In 2010, Malika became the court representative for the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services’ (CASES) Alternative to Detention (ATD) project, Choices. Malika advocated for youth with pending delinquency cases to remain in the community with the support and supervision of Choices ATD.

Malika spent her 1L summer with the International Legal Foundation–Nepal, a public defender office dedicated to ensuring that all accused persons have access to effective legal representation. As a 2L, Malika will serve as the Director of the Suspension Representation Project and co-chair of the Black Allied Law Students Association (BALSA) symposium committee. In the spring semester she will also participate in the Litigation, Organizing and Systemic Change clinic.

Malika looks forward to pursuing a career in criminal justice, with a focus on rehabilitation and prison reform. 

Sara Maeder

WilmerHale Scholar

Sara graduated from Wesleyan University in 2008 with honors in Classics.  While at Wesleyan, she developed a strong interest in social justice and constitutional law, which she explored further through an internship at the Women’s Law Project in Philadelphia.  After graduating, Sara worked as a legal assistant at Lambda Legal’s New York Headquarters.  There, she assisted on LGBT rights cases, including one in which Lambda defeated a ballot initiative attempting to exclude transgender people from protection under a county's employment nondiscrimination law.  She then went on to work as a paralegal at Children’s Rights, where she assisted in the investigation of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families and the early stages of a class action lawsuit seeking to reform that system. 

Sara grew up in Narberth, Pennsylvania.  She hopes to spend her career working for the empowerment and self-determination of marginalized communities through direct advocacy, with a particular focus on queer and youth communities.  Sara is the political action co-chair of OUTLaw at NYU, and a member of CoLR and the Suspension Representation Project.  This summer, she will be an intern at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project in New York.

Annie Mathews

Jacobson Public Service Scholar for Women, Children & Families

Annie graduated from Wesleyan University in 2006 with a degree in Social Studies.  Fascinated by the social world and eager to combat issues of social justice, she researched and wrote her thesis on the political impact of a coalition of community organizations in the impoverished, migrant, outskirts of Buenos Aires.

Passionate about immigrant rights, women’s rights and economic development, she worked for 3 years at C.E.O. Women (Creating Economic Opportunities for Women), an Oakland based microenterprise organization. C.E.O. Women helps immigrant and refugee women start businesses through training in entrepreneurship and English language. As an AmeriCorpsVISTA volunteer and then a project manager, Annie led the development of all of C.E.O. Women’s business support programs, including their microequity grant initiatives.

Fueled by her clients stories of success and day-to-day struggles, Annie returned to graduate school to better understand the social and economic phenomenon she encountered on the grassroots level. She is currently a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Annie grew up in Boston, MA. She is eager to combine her grassroots, education in public policy, and legal training to advocate for low-income and immigrant communities in the United States.

Nicholas Melvoin

Coben Scholar

A native of Los Angeles, California, Nick graduated from Harvard University in 2008 with a degree in Government and English.  After graduation, Nick joined Teach For America and was assigned to teach in South Central Los Angeles, where he became a Small Learning Community Principal.  While teaching, Nick observed that the devastating effects of teacher layoffs disproportionately affected poor students of color.  Consequently, he worked with the ACLU to instigate a successful lawsuit against the state of California and the Los Angeles Unified School District that redressed the situation, allowing thousands of students to enjoy a more stable learning environment.  This experience sparked Nick’s interest in attending law school to study civil rights and education law.

While teaching, Nick earned a Masters in Urban Education from Loyola Marymount University, where he received the Urban Education Student Researcher of the Year Award.  Most recently, he served as the Assistant to the Executive Director of Teach For America-Los Angeles. 

This summer, Nick is working at the ACLU of Southern California where he will be working on statewide education litigation and policy.  He is also participating in an Education Pioneers Fellowship to work on education reform in LA.

Next year, Nick is excited to be co-chairing the Education, Law and Policy Society.  Nick plans to return to California after law school to advocate for children in under-served communities.

Evan Milligan

Lindemann Family Public Service Scholar

Evan graduated from Birmingham-Southern College in 2003 with a degree in Religion. Following graduation, Evan spent several months working for a tax-reform campaign, encouraging Alabama voter’s to support a constitutional referendum to modify the state’s regressive tax system. He then studied Theology and Economic Development issues at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar.  
Between 2005 and 2008, Evan worked as a community organizer for the Federation of Child Care Centers of Alabama (FOCAL), a child-care advocacy and community development organization. From 2008 to 20011, he worked as a paralegal for the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an indigent criminal defense organization also based in Alabama.

Born in Houston, Texas and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, Evan aspires to practice indigent defense law in Alabama. He also wants to explore multi-disciplinary, community-based responses to the needs of formerly incarcerated and marginalized people. 

Candace Mitchell

Sullivan & Cromwell Scholar

Candace graduated as a John Kluge Scholar in 2009 with a degree in English from Columbia University, where she crafted a rich curriculum around her commitment to empowering marginalized communities. At Columbia, Candace was a resident of the Intercultural Resource Center, which gathered activists, artists, and intellectuals under one roof to create programming around diverse notions of social justice. She was one of the co-founding editors of the proxy magazine, a publication that honored the many voices of the African Diaspora, and a political columnist for Columbia's weekly newspaper, chronicling the University's Hunger Strike of 2008. She relished working for the Chaplain's Office, which embraced a historically activist interpretation of its mission to serve faith communities and engaged the wider New York City community through numerous service projects with a public school, hospital, and jail facility.
 
After graduating, Candace worked as a New York City Urban Fellow for Programs and Discharge Planning at the Department of Correction. As a Fellow, she helped coordinate services, programs, and resources for those exiting the New York City jail systems.
 
Candace was born in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and lived in Gainesville, Florida, for thirteen years. Candace’s professional goal is to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline that plagues low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.

Kendal Nystedt

A native Tucsonan, Kendal graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Arizona. While earning her undergraduate degree in international studies, she organized alongside low-income immigrants with Border Action Network, campaigned for an affordable and accessible higher education system as vice-chair of the Arizona Students’ Association, and held several fellowships for young progressives.
After graduation, Kendal worked as the Collegiate Program Manager for Anytown Arizona, where she directed programming that developed leaders for social justice. In 2010, she moved to NYC to coordinate the City Bar Justice Center’s Public Service Network and Veterans Assistance Project. 

As a 1L, Kendal interned with Make the Road New York, providing legal services to support Latino and working class communities with housing and immigration concerns. Her 1L summer, she returned home to work with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, where she assisted men detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Florence, Arizona.

Kendal’s long-term goal is to found a nonprofit in the Southwest that empowers Latino and immigrant communities through community organizing, policy advocacy, direct legal services, and impact litigation. She is excited to kick off her 2L year as a member of the Immigrant Rights Clinic and co-chair of CoLR. 

Robert Pollack

Doris C. and Alan J. Freedman Scholar

Robert studied philosophy, literature, and the history of math and science in the Great Books Program at St. John's College, where he graduated in 2004. He spent time both on the Annapolis and on the Santa Fe campus and while in Santa Fe was a field-qualified member of the St. John's College Search and Rescue Team.

After college Robert joined the Mississippi Teacher Corps and taught English at a rural public high school in Sardis, Mississippi and then at an urban one in Jackson, where he was a teacher sponsor of the Civil Rights / Civil Liberties after-school club. He earned an M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Mississippi. After three years in the Deep South, he returned to Santa Fe to study Sanskrit and classical Asian literature and philosophy at St. John's College and earned an M.A. in Eastern Classics. He continued working in the public schools and upon completion of the degree began teaching math at a public high school and a community college in Santa Fe.

Robert is spending his 1L summer working in the business and securities fraud section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, and beginning in his 2L year he will be a fellow at the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law. He is interested in government and policy, and especially in matters of criminal justice.

Jesse Rockoff

Sinsheimer Service Scholar

Born in Queens, NY, Jesse was raised in Johnson City, NY and attended college at Washington & Lee University. After graduating in 2002 with a degree in Politics, Jesse served as a field organizer on U.S. Sen. Max Cleland's re-election campaign and then worked in Washington, D.C. for several years before discovering his passion for immigration law. During more than three years as a legal assistant and paralegal with the law firm of Maggio + Kattar, Jesse assisted with many difficult immigration cases that showed him this was a field where he could make a real difference for communities badly in need of affordable legal services.

Jesse will spend his 1L summer at Immigrant Defense Project in New York City and plans to use his NYU Law degree to defend indigent foreign nationals in deportation proceedings. To this end, Jesse will be co-chairing NYU's chapter of the Immigration Court Observation Project during 2L year and serve as a student advocate in the Immigrant Rights Clinic. Jesse also lived for a time in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he worked extensively on his Spanish in order to further assist future clients with their immigration cases.

Ariel Werner

William and Mary Sterling Scholar

Ariel graduated from Brown University in 2009 with honors in Political Science.  During her four years in Rhode Island, Ariel learned about the criminal justice system by organizing with a successful campaign to restore voting rights to parolees and probationers, coordinating a program that provides creative workshops for prisoners, interning with a non-profit serving ex-offenders and with the state public defender, and helping to investigate a case of wrongful conviction.  Ariel also cultivated political advocacy experience on the campaigns of a city councilman, a state representative, and President Obama. For her social justice pursuits, Ariel was named a 2008 Harry S. Truman Scholar.  After college, Ariel broadened her perspective on the justice system as a paralegal in the Business and Securities Fraud section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.
 
Ariel is spending her 1L summer working on state-based criminal justice reform initiatives at the ACLU’s Center for Justice.  As a 2L, Ariel will participate in the New York Civil Liberties Clinic and serve as a Fellow at the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law.  Ariel plans to pursue a career in criminal justice reform through direct service, litigation and public policy.

Michele Yankson

Andrew W. Mellon Scholar

Michele Yankson graduated with Honors from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in 2008 with degrees in English and Sociology. During college, she participated in service work from tutoring in under-resourced schools in Detroit and Ypsilanti with the America Reads program, to promoting campus discourse on issues of identity as a dialogue facilitator for Michigan's Intergroup Relations.

After graduating, Michele joined Miami Teaching Fellows to serve as a middle-school teacher in a school designated as high-need. While planning and implementing lessons for Reading and Language Arts, she learned the most invaluable ones from her students and their community.  In 2010, Michele founded the Miami chapter of Stand-Up For Kids Don't Run Away program. Through this program, she worked towards curbing Miami's substantial population of homeless youth through education and outreach within schools.

During the summer of her 1L year, Michele worked in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. There, she helped prepare investigations concerning issues of juvenile justice, prisoner's rights, and police misconduct. Michele is interested developing an understanding of how to best serve marginalized and disconnected groups through the legal system. 

Michele was born and raised in and near Detroit, Michigan to immigrant parents from Ghana.

Daniel Yu

Daniel graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California in 2011 with a degree in Accounting.  During college, Daniel worked with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, helping cultivate a passion for both Asian American activism and providing direct legal services to communities of color.

During his 1L year, Daniel externed with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, working with domestic workers who were trafficked into the country. He also worked as an advocate for victims of domestic violence, helping them obtain orders of protection against their abusers.  In the summer, Daniel will be working at the East Bay Community Law Center; where he will provide direct legal services to the community through unlawful detainer defense, eviction clinics, and tenant’s right workshops.

Daniel is excited about using his legal education to advance the rights of marginalized communities. 

Alyson Zureick

Filomen M. D’Agostino Scholar

Alyson graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with honors in Political Science from Princeton University in 2006, where she was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Scholar, co-editor of the Daily Princetonian opinion page and Vice-President of the University’s Organization of Women Leaders.

After graduating from Princeton, Alyson worked on access to justice issues in sub-Saharan Africa as a Princeton Project 55 Fellow at the Cyrus Vance Center for International Justice.  Subsequently, she worked with the International Rescue Committee in their Sierra Leone office, providing program support to IRC’s gender-based violence and maternal health programs. She then spent two years with the Center for Reproductive Right’s International Legal Program where she worked on UN advocacy projects around maternal mortality as a human rights issue and reproductive rights violations as forms of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Alyson spent her 1L summer at the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights in Nairobi in the Reforms and Accountability Unit. As a 2L she will join NYU’s International Human Rights Clinic.

After graduation Alyson plans to continue working as a human rights advocate, with a focus on women’s human rights in the United States and abroad. 

Class of 2015

Amanda Bass

Filomen M. D’Agostino Scholar for Civil Rights, Civil Liberties and/or Criminal Justice

Amanda was raised in West Chicago, Illinois and is the third eldest of seven children.  Homeschooled by her parents, Reginald and Patricia Bass, until the age of thirteen, Amanda enrolled at Amherst College in 2006 where she double majored in Black Studies and Mathematics and graduated magna cum laude in December 2010. 
 
In 2008, Amanda spent six months working as a community organizer in Macon, GA for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.  Amanda spearheaded voter registration and volunteer recruitment initiatives in communities throughout Middle Georgia, and worked with African American business and churches, public officials, and local media to register voters and to educate people about the electoral process and their right to vote. 
 
Throughout her months in Georgia Amanda felt, for the first time in her life, the full impact of unjust laws that function as instruments of intimidation and exclusion.  At the time, Georgia’s discriminatory voter registration laws had made possible the de facto disenfranchisement of over six hundred thousand African Americans. 
 
It is through the political and legal battles that Amanda fought in Georgia that she became acutely aware of her need to study and know the law, to understand its practical applications, and to be able to adeptly navigate its boundaries of interpretation so that, as a future lawyer, marginalized and underrepresented people find in her a voice.

Emma Clippinger 

WilmerHale Scholar

Emma graduated from Brown University in 2009 with a degree in Comparative Literature. Following a summer internship with the Clinton Foundation Health Access Initiative in Rwanda, Emma co-founded Gardens for Health International in 2007. The organization partners with rural health clinics to provide agricultural solutions to the problem of chronic malnutrition. Since its inception, the organization has received numerous accolades, including awards from Echoing Green and Ashoka.  Brown awarded Emma a Starr Social Innovation Fellowship to support her work with Gardens for Health International and an Arthur Liman Public Interest Fellowship to support her work with the Rhode Island Department of Health’s Office of Minority Health. While at Brown, Emma was a founding member of the Brown Social Innovation Initiative.

Following her graduation from college, Emma served as Executive Director of Gardens for Health International for three years. During this time, she developed a strong interest in access to land as it relates to access to food and, ultimately, health. She intends to use her law degree to advance global economic and social justice.

Emma grew up in Cambridge, MA. She is looking forward to living in New York City for the first time.  

Zachary Dorado

Andrew W. Mellon Scholar

Zachary graduated from Fordham University in 2012 with Departmental Honors in English and Sociology. He completed a thesis on literary censorship trials and received a “Certificate of Excellence for Outstanding Commitment to Service and Social Justice” and a “Certificate of Accomplishment for Outstanding Leadership and Service to the University.” He participated in and later assisted with “Urban Plunge” at Fordham which introduces incoming student to NYC through direct service work and social justice education and was a founding member of the Justice Council at his campus.

Zachary spent two years on his campus’ mock trial team. He later tutored refugee students living in NYC with the International Rescue Committee and interned with community organizers at Housing Conservation Coordinators. He also completed a clerk internship at the Plymouth District Court and a paralegal internship with the Bronx office of the Children’s Law Center. He hopes to continue to explore social injustice by working with indigent tenants in NYC.
Zachary is originally from Sandwich, Massachusetts where he began his interest in Social Justice while in high school by becoming a founding member of  “In Good Company,” which uses techniques from the “Theatre of the Oppressed” to spread awareness through theater to community and school groups.

Brooks Emanuel

Brooks Emanuel graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Georgia in 1999, with an Honors Interdisciplinary Studies Major: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in U.S. Society.

After a career as a professional dancer and choreographer (hip hop, African, and modern), including work with companies in New York City and Atlanta, in 2007 Brooks became executive assistant to the director of Georgia Rural Urban Summit, a coalition of 50 progressive groups. In this role, he lobbied at the Georgia General Assembly and became involved in the progressive advocacy community.

After a stint in Boston serving on several political campaigns, Brooks returned to Atlanta to work with the Georgia House Democratic Caucus. As Director of Legislative Services, he works directly with the House Minority Leader and Whip, other Caucus Members, progressive advocates, and other lobbyists to promote Caucus legislative priorities and defend against the most egregious right-wing legislation. During the 2010 decennial redistricting process, he helped mount the Democratic legislative and legal challenge to racially divisive Republican-drawn House maps.

Brooks has worked on a broad range of issues including immigrant, reproductive, and labor rights; protections for working parents, welfare recipients, homeowners, and tenants; funding for public education; and death penalty abolition.

Anna Estevao

Lindemann Family Public Service Scholar

Anna graduated from Barnard College in 2010 with honors in Anthropology.  During college, Anna spent a year visiting New York state prisons and interviewing inmates as an intern with the Prison Visiting Project of the Correctional Association of New York.  She reported on conditions of confinement and rehabilitation programs while advocating for drug sentencing reform with grassroots coalition groups.  Her senior thesis focused on the effects of long-term incarceration on inmates and was awarded with distinction.  Anna also spent a summer conducting factual research for a study estimating the rate of wrongful convictions in capital punishment cases. 

After graduating from college, Anna worked as a legal assistant and paralegal for the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, a legal team that advocates for post-9/11 national security policies that are consistent with the Constitution and fundamental human rights.  At the ACLU, she worked on a variety of cases relating to the torture and detention of detainees, targeted killing, extraordinary rendition, and government secrecy and surveillance.  

Anna grew up in Kearny, New Jersey. 

Sophia Gebreselassie

William and Mary Sterling Scholar

Sophie graduated from Brown University in 2005 with a BA in International Relations with a focus on Economic Development. She has spent her time since supporting efforts to improve the health, prosperity, and equity of communities around the world.

Sophie became inspired by the law’s ability to bolster international development efforts while managing the communications of The World Justice Project (WJP), a non-profit organization that works to advance the rule of law. At the WJP, she led media efforts on five continents, and managed the launch of the WJP Rule of Law Index®, a tool to measure countries' adherence to the rule of law. Conveying the connection between the rule of law and development goals and publicizing the project's grassroots successes gave her new perspective on the law’s ability to empower communities. Prior to the WJP, she worked at cause-oriented communications agency, supporting the firm’s international development and global health projects. After college, she volunteered copy-writing services for development projects and worked in Ethiopia building a public health website.

Sophie was raised in Maryland by parents native to Ethiopia. She is excited about gaining a new set of tools to continue her advocacy on behalf of marginalized communities.

Rebecca Hufstader 

Starr Foundation Scholar

Rebecca graduated Summa Cum Laude from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in English Literature and Spanish.  She began volunteering on Claire McCaskill’s campaign for the U.S. Senate during her first semester of college and immediately caught the political bug. Over the next four years she interned on numerous campaigns and organized teach-ins, protests and voter registration drives in her role on the Executive Board of the College Democrats.
 
After graduation, Rebecca moved to Pennsylvania to work on Joe Sestak’s campaign for the Senate. Following the election, she took her passion for electoral organizing and her Spanish skills to the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition in Philadelphia. As a Program Coordinator, she organized pro bono Citizenship Days and managed an effort to register newly naturalized citizens to vote. She also coordinated the organization’s advocacy in opposition to state level anti-immigrant legislation and developed a deep interest in immigration policy.
 
Rebecca grew up in Storrs, CT. She looks forward to using her law degree to represent low-income immigrants, and ultimately hopes to help craft or advocate for fairer and more practical immigration laws.

Diane Johnston

Sinsheimer Service Scholar

Diane graduated from Emory University in 2007 with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies focusing on social change in immigrant populations. During her time at Emory, she worked with various student-based volunteer groups and local organizations on issues relating to immigrant and low-income communities in Atlanta. She also interned in her home state of Massachusetts with inner-city youth addressing education, foster care, juvenile justice, and substance abuse matters. Diane graduated from Emory early and traveled to Chile, Argentina, and Costa Rica, where she developed her Spanish in immersion programs and volunteered with local non-profit agencies.
 
After returning from Latin America, Diane continued her pursuit to assist immigrant communities by teaching English as a Second Language in Atlanta for several months. She then moved to New York City and worked as a counselor to high-risk youth in Brooklyn. In 2009, she took her first public interest law position as a paralegal in Staten Island Legal Services’ Homeowner Defense Project, and has worked there since. In this role, she advocates on behalf of low-income homeowners to obtain affordable mortgages and prevent unnecessary foreclosures on her clients’ homes. Diane plans to use her law degree to continue advocating for the rights of indigent clients, and hopes to focus on representing immigrant youth.

Andrew Jondahl 

Coben Scholar

Andrew graduated summa cum laude from Boston University in 2007 with a degree in Broadcast Journalism. After graduation, Andrew moved to Senegal, West Africa, where he served for two years as an agroforestry volunteer in the Peace Corps, working with rural farmers to incorporate trees into existing agricultural systems. He spent a third year with the Peace Corps in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, as a communications and volunteer support specialist, developing a series of iPod training videos for the greater development community and leading innovation in the program’s pre- and in-service trainings.

After returning to the United States at the end of 2010, Andrew continued to work in public service as a consultant for New York-based non-profits Malaria No More and NetGuarantee. He served as Malaria No More’s mobile health (mHealth) specialist, helping to design malaria awareness campaigns that capitalized on an expanding mobile phone market in Africa. With NetGuarantee, Andrew worked to apply innovative financial mechanisms to international funding processes to expedite the delivery of health commodities to malaria-endemic countries.

Andrew grew up in Plymouth, Minnesota and is excited to explore ways in which mobile devices can be used to protect civil rights, both domestically and abroad.

Julie Krumwiede

Filomen M. D’Agostino Scholar for Women or Children

Julie graduated summa cum laude from the George Washington University, where she studied English and Sociology. It was there that she began refining her penchant for social and restorative justice. Attentive to the lack of resources available to extremely marginalized groups in Washington, DC, she began volunteering with HIPS, a harm-reduction organization committed to supporting sex workers and drug users in leading healthier lives. There she has supported community members in making programming more inclusive for transgender sex workers and has done late-night, street-based outreach since 2008, supplying safer sex and injection materials, education, HIV testing, and support. Julie has also worked as a case manager at the National Abortion Federation Hotline Fund, where she provided one-on-one support to low-income individuals accessing reproductive health services and abortion care. 

Having been raised in Utah and Idaho, Julie's life in DC exposed her to the very real ways in which poverty, institutionalized racism and imprisonment drastically impact low-income people, communities of color, LGBTQ and gender non-conforming individuals. These are issues she hopes to further address by providing empowering, culturally competent legal defense. Julie is also passionate about pugs and female rappers.

Jehan Laner 

Doris C. and Alan J. Freedman Scholar

Jehan graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2011, with a double major in Political Science and Communications Studies and with a minor in Civic Engagement.
 
Her involvement with public interest law began when she interned with AmeriCorps serving as a JusticeCorps member at the Stanley Mosk Resource Center for Self-Represented Litigants in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. As a volunteer, she provided direct legal assistance to indigent litigants throughout all stages of their family law actions. Following her work with the courts, she studied with the UCLA’s Center for American Politics and Public Policy in Washington, D.C., where she interned with the American Bar Association’s Commission on Immigration. While at the ABA she provided legal information to detainees in immigration custody.

Throughout her work in college, Jehan began to see a need for bilingual services in the law and the barriers to the judicial system that many people encounter.  She hopes to use her law degree to empower traditionally marginalized communities.
 
Jehan grew up in Whittier, California, and graduated from Whittier High School.  She is excited and grateful for this opportunity to continue her education at NYU. 

Julia McCarthy

Jacobson Public Service Scholar for Women, Children & Families

Julia graduated in 2008 from Georgetown University with a degree in history and minor in biology.  While at Georgetown, she captained the lightweight women’s rowing team and co-founded the culinary club.

After graduation, Julia joined Teach For America in New Orleans where she taught second grade.   Despite New Orleans’s strong culinary culture, Julia saw students, 99% of whom qualified for free lunches, subjected to nutritionally-deficient meals, so she investigated sourcing healthier, local food.  Julia researched policies affecting the National School Lunch Program, started a community garden, and helped the District resource teacher develop a healthy eating curriculum.

Realizing the problem of healthy food access for low income communities was greater than the school lunch program, Julia secured an internship at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) to better understand supply-side barriers.  At NSAC, Julia advocated for inclusion of provisions to promote healthy food access in the Nutrition Title of a 2012 Farm Bill and helped craft redline language for marker bills.  With a law degree, Julia hopes to work for a policy organization that advocates for adequate, healthy food for children in low income communities.

Julia spent most of her school years in the states, but calls Tokyo home.

Hannah McDermott

Filomen M. D’Agostino Scholar for Women or Children

Hannah graduated from Cornell University in 2011 with a degree in Industrial and Labor Relations. While at Cornell, Hannah worked with the Cornell Farmworker Program, an organization that provides resources to the underserved farmworker population living in central New York. She served as a student leader for the Immigrant Farmworker Initiative and founded the Refugee Outreach Club. Hannah spent a semester in Cairo, Egypt working with the International Labor Organization and researching the role of women and youth in Egypt’s labor market.

After graduation, Hannah moved to Amman, Jordan on a Fulbright Scholarship. She is working to develop an English Language program for Sudanese and Somali refugees, as well as community development programs for these groups. She also teaches classes on English and American culture at a girl’s high school in Amman. 

Hannah was born and raised in Granville, New York, a small town near the New York-Vermont border. After law school, she hopes to return to the Middle East to work with immigrant populations (particularly youth) facing exploitation in the workplace and complicated immigration systems.

Hannah Mercuris

Filomen M. D’Agostino Scholar for Civil Rights, Civil Liberties and/or Criminal Justice

Hannah graduated cum laude from Columbia University in 2010 with a degree in Anthropology and Human Rights. During college, Hannah led education initiatives and activism campaigns with Columbia's Amnesty International chapter to demand accountability for torture, stop violence against women, and close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Hannah also interned with the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, where she supported research efforts on corporate social responsibility and sexual violence.

After graduation, Hannah moved to Washington, DC and assisted a small law firm, Burke PLLC, in cases against private military contractors for fraud and complicity in the torture at Abu Ghraib prison. Hannah also worked on litigation addressing the failure of the military to ensure justice and protection for members of the military who were raped or sexually assaulted. In the year before law school, Hannah worked as a legal assistant with the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union and volunteered with Sanctuary for Families.

Hannah is proud to be from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she attended Germantown Friends School. In law school, she hopes to continue her work at the intersection of civil liberties and armed conflict and on inequality in the justice system.

Jack Nelson 

Jack graduated from Williams College in 2007 with a degree in Russian.  While at Williams, he was captain of the Nordic ski team, and studied for a semester in Siberia.  After graduating, he returned to his home state of New Hampshire to work as a field organizer for the Democratic Party.  Following the 2008 election, he moved to Washington, DC where he worked as a legislative correspondent covering health care, education and labor issues for US Senator Jeanne Shaheen. 

Jack spent the 2009-2010 academic year on a Fulbright grant in Oslo, Norway, where he studied the Norwegian environmental movement and international climate politics.  He attended the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen as an NGO observer, and worked to strengthen ties between youth climate activists from developed and developing countries.  Jack received the 2009 Lois Roth award for creatively fostering international dialogue. 

For the past two years, Jack has worked at the World Resources Institute in Washington, DC, where he helps manage strategic relationships with US and international government agencies.  Jack is looking forward to a career in environmental justice, and is thrilled to be joining the RTK community at NYU.           

Brence D. Pernell

Filomen M. D’Agostino Scholar for Women or Children

Brence graduated magna cum laude from Duke University in 2008 with a degree in History. At Duke, Brence co-led social justice-oriented programming for the Reginaldo Howard Memorial Scholars, a group of student leaders dedicated to a life of service. Brence was awarded the William J. Griffith University Community Service Award for his volunteer efforts in the Durham community and received the History Department’s Canon Prize for his historical scholarship.
 
Academic excellence, leadership, and commitment to diversity led to Brence receiving the Woodrow Wilson - Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship for Aspiring Teachers of Color to pursue graduate studies at Harvard. There, he was awarded a Leadership in Education grant and worked for the Center for Law and Education. His primary roles included serving as organization liaison to schools and providing research support for attorneys advocating for low-income families.
 
Brence spent several years thereafter teaching English and history to students in low-income communities in South Carolina and Massachusetts. An Education Pioneers fellowship allowed him to write curriculum for the Citizen Schools organization as part of a $1 million National Science Foundation grant; he also implemented a new curriculum on global finance and citizenship for Building Educated Leaders for Life, an urban-based afterschool program. He spent two additional summers as a teaching scholar for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
 
Brence grew up in Blackville, South Carolina, a mostly minority and low-income community. He hopes to use his law degree to effect positive, sustainable change for public school students who come from backgrounds similar to his.

Joshua David Riegel

Joshua spent seven years working for the American Civil Liberties Union, first in its Women’s Rights Project, and most recently as the senior paralegal in its Racial Justice Program. While at the ACLU, he assisted with impact litigation and other advocacy aimed at leveling structural barriers to equality that disproportionately and adversely impact women, girls, and communities of color. From 2011 to 2012, he also facilitated a weekly support group for LGTBQ residents in a homeless shelter in Brooklyn as part of Queers for Economic Justice’s Shelter Project.

Born and raised in Aurora, Colorado, Joshua graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a B.A. (2002) and M.A. (2004), where he was a Barbara Wallace Cornwall Scholar. As an undergraduate, he studied history and cultural anthropology and, as a graduate student, studied women’s history with an emphasis in feminist and queer political thought.

Through his studies and professional endeavors, Joshua has become deeply interested in the history and development of the law as it relates to the mediation of power, the administration of difference and recognition, and the regulation of low-income and queer communities of color. As an attorney, he looks forward to a career advocating for economic and criminal-justice reform.

Seth Silverman

Sullivan & Cromwell Scholar

Seth is passionate about working in the areas where environmental and social challenges interact and hopes to pursue issues of international environment and development throughout his career.  Graduating from Stanford University with an individually designed undergraduate major in the Global Politics of Health, Human Rights, and the Environment and a Masters of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering focusing on atmosphere and energy systems, Seth has worked and studied in eight countries.  Upon graduation, Seth worked as a John Gardner Fellow in the White House Council on Environmental Quality advancing the efforts of the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, the first comprehensive Federal effort to build a U.S. national climate change adaptation strategy.

Following his service in Washington, Seth moved to rural Western Kenya where he has been serving as Operations Manager for the One Acre Fund.  One Acre Fund provides a “comprehensive bundle” of support to smallholder farmers, giving over 75,000 farm families and growing in Kenya the tools they need to grow their own way out of poverty.  Seth hopes to continue moving between policy and practitioner roles and is excited about the ways in which a legal education can enhance the impact of his work.

Adrienne Warrell

Filomen M. D’Agostino Scholar for Civil Rights, Civil Liberties and/or Criminal Justice

Adrienne graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010 with a degree in Urban Studies. In her time at Penn, she was a Program Coordinator for Community School Student Partnerships and a Student Advisory Board member for the University’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships. Always eager to explore Philadelphia, she also served as a legislative intern for a City Councilman, worked to provide abortion access to low-income women at the Women’s Medical Fund, and completed an externship at The Reinvestment Fund, one of the city’s leaders in community economic development, during her undergraduate career. In her senior year, she was initiated into the Mortar Board Senior Honor Society for her campus leadership and academic achievement.

After graduating, Adrienne participated in Philly Fellows, a yearlong fellowship in non-profit management, working on the issues of homelessness and fair housing at Project H.O.M.E. Most recently, she has been learning about the criminal justice system as a paralegal for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York.

Adrienne was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Bethesda, Maryland. She is eager to apply a legal education to her passions for social justice and the revitalization of American cities.

Matthew Wasserman  

Matt graduated from Reed College in 2007, where he wrote a thesis examining why the transition from apartheid in South Africa failed to reduce economic inequality. Following graduation, he assisted with death row appeals, taught English at a French high school, and conducted research for a labor movement oriented think tank. He then investigated allegations of police misconduct for the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board for nearly three years. Subsequently, he obtained a master’s in political science with honors from the University of Paris.

Matt spent his 1L summer at the Orleans Public Defenders. In his 2L year, he will serve as a student advocate in the Civil Rights Clinic, co-chair of the Prisoners' Rights and Education Project, and curriculum development chair for the Know Your Rights Project. Matt is interested in issues of public policy, civil rights, and systemic inequality. After law school, he hopes to join the fight against mass incarceration by working in the fields of indigent criminal defense and criminal justice system reform.

Matt is a native of New York City.

Class of 2016

Born and raised in Tampa, Florida, Juan graduated from Yale University in 2012 with a B.A. in History. During his undergraduate career Juan discovered his passion social justice. He began working with the Latino community in New Haven through Junta for Progressive Action. As the political action chair for Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Atzlan, he organized students on projects to expand bilingual resources in public schools and a municipal identification card program. In 2010, Juan worked with students from around the state of Connecticut to form a statewide network of students and advocates of immigration reform. This organization would become Connecticut Students for a DREAM and would promote increased access to education for immigrant students by hosting college access workshops and campaigning for the state and federal versions of the immigration reform.

Following graduation, Juan continued his development as an immigrants’ rights activist during his year in Mexico on a Fox International Fellowship. His research into the international political ramifications of U.S. immigration policy will inform his future career as an immigrant’s rights lawyer. His experience as an advocate has inspired him to view law as a powerful resource for defending the rights of marginalized communities. 

A native Californian, Aimee grew up in Los Angeles and has lived in Elk Grove, Davis, and Oakland. Aimee graduated with highest honors from the University of California, Davis in 2010, completing her B.A. in Linguistics and Spanish with minors in Japanese and Middle East/South Asia Studies.  Aimee wrote an honors thesis and received a Department Citation for Outstanding Performance in Linguistics, the Leslie Campbell Award for Outstanding Senior, and the “Gold” Community Service Award. She worked in the California Assembly’s Chief Clerk’s Office and as a Jesse Unruh Assembly Fellow before exploring policy advocacy a nonprofit law firm.

Aimee’s greatest passion is community empowerment: in college, she tutored low-income students and volunteered as a peer educator and president of Students Against Sexual Violence. Currently, she volunteers with Women Escaping a Violent Environment and serves on the board of African Queens Dance Company. All of these experiences, combined with her proficiency in Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, French, and Louisiana Creole, have inspired in Aimee a desire to utilize legal advocacy strategies to strengthen community voices and support self-empowerment. Aimee will use her J.D. to build on her family’s legacy of participating in civic activism as a means of eliminating oppression.

Annie graduated with distinction from Yale University in 2009 with a degree in Political Science. During college, she served as managing editor of the undergraduate international affairs magazine, the Yale Globalist, and worked in the Ugandan Parliament. She has spent the last four years as a high school English teacher.

Annie joined Teach for America after graduation and taught literature at a high school in West Helena, Arkansas, a small town in the Mississippi Delta. In her second year, she served as a learning team leader for first-year TFA English teachers. When she returned to the Northeast, she joined the staff of Newark Collegiate Academy, the KIPP high school in Newark, NJ, where she helped lead the school’s new writing initiative and coached first-year writing teachers. At NCA, she also coached the cross-country team to – well, not victory, but at least some smiles.

Annie is from Pennington, New Jersey. She plans to use her law degree to ensure that students and their families have access to civil legal representation, so that they can take full advantage of their educational opportunities.

Patrick Córdova is a dedicated public servant and civil rights advocate. Patrick grew up in Orlando, Florida and graduated from Winter Park High School’s International Baccalaureate program. He aims to become a federal prosecutor after law school. As an undergraduate at Stanford University, Patrick became a strong voice for mental and emotional wellness as the live-in director of the Bridge Peer Counseling Center, a member of the campus wide Climate Change Task Force, and an Undergraduate Senator. Upon graduating, the University recognized his efforts by awarding him the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel and J.E. Wallace Sterling prizes.

Between his junior and senior years of college, he interned at the Bronx Community Pride Center. Charged with developing social service programs and providing care to clients, he frequently confronted public policy that adversely affected LGBT Bronx residents in seeking healthcare, housing, and education. Since graduating from college in 2009, Patrick has sought to repeal those discriminatory policies by electing LGBT advocates to positions of public influence. As finance director for Steve Pougnet for Congress and Gary Schiff for Mayor of Minneapolis, and as the Midwest fundraiser for the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, he helped generate the necessary resources for candidates to win.

Michael grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, and is interested in issues of public policy, health care, and community development. Michael graduated from Brown University in 2011 with a degree in Public Policy. While at Brown, he first began to work on improving access to comprehensive health care with the organization Health Leads, which works with families in urban hospitals to address non-medical issues contributing to poor health. This experience set him on the path of working in community-oriented advocacy for improved health care access. After law school, he hopes to work to improve the complex health care system through direct representation, impact litigation, and policy advocacy.

Since graduation, he has continued to focus on health policy as a paralegal with the litigation department of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. At PPFA, Michael worked primarily on patient access issues arising from state-level health regulations and government funding programs. This work was complemented by continued volunteering in the community, both in the legal services department of Whitman-Walker Health, an HIV/AIDS clinic, and with Court-Appointed Special Advocates for Children of DC, as an advocate representing the interests of a youth in the family court system.

Olivia is a native Californian, hailing from Woodland, but after five years on the East Coast is slowly becoming converted. Olivia graduated with High Honors from Swarthmore College in 2012 with a major in Political Science and a minor in Peace and Conflict Studies. Interested in the relationship between these two fields, Olivia completed her honors thesis on the origin and evolution of Peace and Conflict Studies and Security Studies. At Swarthmore, Olivia took on a number of leadership positions, including Co-President of the Student Council. Throughout college, Olivia was involved in a range of advocacy groups as well as mentoring programs for local middle school and high school students. Over the course of her undergraduate career, Olivia held a number of internships at nonprofit organizations including the Center for Progressive Leadership and the Center for American Progress. She hopes to focus on International Human Rights Law while at NYU.

Following graduation, Olivia spent a year as a Program Assistant with the Quaker United Nations Office in New York City. There she focused on the peace-building actions and architecture of the United Nations, as well as on the process surrounding the creation of the Post 2015 Development Agenda.

Leo Gertner

Leo Gertner most recently served as deputy director at Service Employees International Union Local 615 in Boston, where he handled grievances and helped oversee contract enforcement for 15,000 janitors and security guards across New England’s offices and universities. He also worked previously as a case manager in a prisoner reentry program, helping people returning home from prison find housing and employment.

His interest in public service began in earnest during college on Chicago's South Side as president of Students for Human Rights, a campus group. He was awarded a grant by the University of Chicago's Human Rights Program to co-author a report on police brutality, racial discrimination, and gentrification while working at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs with a broad coalition of community groups. The final report was presented to the United Nations' Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Leo sees economic inequality and poor working conditions as barriers to democratic participation. After law school, he wants to provide legal services to workers in ways that empower them to take on various forms of injustice in their communities.

Leo attended the University of Chicago and majored in Anthropology. He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and immigrated with his family to the United States when he was three years old.

Claire Glenn grew up in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, and graduated from Simley Senior High School. Claire graduated first in her class from Michigan State University in 2011, with a B.A. in Social Relations and Policy from James Madison College and a B.M. in Piano Performance from the College of Music. She has received numerous awards for her social justice research and advocacy, including the Regional Economic Innovation Center Author Award, Gillette Fellowship, Michael G. Schechter All-University Endowed Award, and MLK Advancing Inclusion through Research Award. She is dedicated to a career in public service law that holds businesses accountable, protects communities and stakeholders, and incentivizes responsible and sustainable corporate behavior on a global scale.

In 2010, Claire conducted research in Nicaragua, producing a senior honors thesis on health care in indigenous communities along the Pearl Lagoon, an area impoverished by corporate exploitation, civil war, and government neglect. Motivated to contribute to sustainable business development, Claire returned to Michigan and accepted an internship at the Community Economic Development Association of Michigan (CEDAM) to launch the Microenterprise Network of Michigan. After graduation, Claire worked as Special Projects Coordinator at CEDAM, managing program development, community projects, and advocacy for three statewide initiatives.

A native of Newton, Massachusetts, Kathleen (Katie) Kavanagh published an award-winning children’s book, Home is Where Your Family Is, at the age of ten. It is the story of a young immigrant’s journey to America. Katie graduated magna cum laude from Tufts University in 2004 and moved to San Francisco shortly thereafter, where she worked as a legal assistant, and later a paralegal, for the Immigration Practice Group at Duane Morris LLP. During this period, she was also a volunteer teacher for La Raza Community Resource Center’s Citizenship Program. In 2008, Katie moved to Buenos Aires to intern with La Fundación Comisión Católica Argentina de Migraciones, an NGO providing legal and social services to asylum applicants in Argentina.

Katie is a committed advocate for immigrants’ rights. Most recently, she spent over four years as a paralegal at the San Francisco immigration firm Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale, where she specialized in deportation defense, asylum, family-based immigration, and cases involving victims of domestic violence and other crimes. Katie is fluent in Spanish and volunteers as a translator for the online micro-lending platform Kiva. She is excited to expand her capacities as an advocate for immigrant communities through her legal education.

Tiffany was born in Texas, and raised in Houston, Taipei, and Dallas. Tiffany graduated from Stanford University in 2009 with a M.S. in Earth Systems and a B.S. in Biology. Tiffany’s interest in social justice began at Stanford, where she was involved in volunteer activities and outreach to the homeless population. Following law school, she hopes to defend the rights of women and children in international human trafficking.

Following graduation, she moved to East Palo Alto, where she is currently co-directing the O’Keefe Family Center, a nonprofit that offers services to the low-income immigrant community such as after-school tutoring, teen leadership programs, and adult ESL classes. In 2010, she worked briefly at the International Rescue Committee in San Jose, where she piloted the Community Outreach Program to Chinese immigrants and asylees. She has been working as an Environmental Consultant at Insignia Environmental since 2010, where she prepares CEQA- and NEPA-based environmental analyses for utility and renewable energy projects. For the past three years, she has been volunteering as a mediator with the Santa Clara County, where she mediates day-of-court small claims cases for the Santa Clara County Superior Court of California as well as community cases through the County’s Dispute Resolution Program.

Steve grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and graduated from Princeton University in 2010 with an undergraduate degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. At Princeton, Steve served as the Chair of the Pace Council for Civil Values, a committee dedicated to improving civic engagement on campus. The recipient of a Martin Dale Award, Steve traveled to Azerbaijan to study and perform classical Azeri piano music.

For his commitment to social justice, Steve was awarded the Charles W. Puttkammer Fellowship for Prisoner Reentry at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, in Newark. During two years at NJISJ, Steve drafted municipal and state-level legislation relating to criminal histories, designed in-prison and post-release programs, helped secure a gubernatorial pardon for a client, and worked directly with individuals returning home from prison. While living in Newark, Steve mentored an amazing kid through Big Brothers Big Sisters. After completing his fellowship, Steve worked as a paralegal in the Appeals Bureau at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he wrote and submitted briefs to the New York Appellate Division. Following law school, he plans to continue working in criminal justice, with an emphasis on reducing barriers to successful prisoner reentry.

Amelia grew up in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and has lived in Philadelphia since 2008. Amelia graduated summa cum laude from The University of Pittsburgh in 2008 with a degree in Sociology, a minor in Portuguese, and a certificate in Latin American Studies. As a student, Amelia completed an individual research project in rural Ecuador and spent six months studying in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. While at Pitt, she also interned at a program helping Burmese refugees resettle in Pittsburgh, and spearheaded a boycott of a college bar featuring a drink special with a racial slur.

She began her public interest legal career at Philadelphia Legal Assistance, advocating for low-income migrant farmworkers as a paralegal in PLA’s Pennsylvania Farmworker Project.  In 2010, Amelia moved to Community Legal Services, PLA’s sister agency, where she worked for three years advising and representing tenants in subsidized housing.  In 2011, she helped start and co-chaired the U-Visa Project for the National Lawyers Guild Philadelphia Chapter. The Project helps immigrant crime victims petition for legal status. Amelia is excited to use her legal education to continue working on social justice issues affecting immigrant communities and other vulnerable populations.

Brian Perbix was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. A 2009 graduate from Grinnell College with honors in Biology, Brian was awarded the President’s Medal for superior scholarship and leadership. At Grinnell he served as the Program Coordinator for the College’s Stonewall Resource Center and also completed internships with several community-based nonprofits, including the Streetworks Collaborative in Minneapolis, and the African Network for Integrated Development, in Sénégal.

For the past three years, Brian has put his passion for protecting the environment and empowering communities to work organizing against coal pollution with Prairie Rivers Network, an Illinois not-for-profit river conservation and advocacy organization. As a grassroots organizer, he worked on several campaigns opposing coal mines & coal-fired power plants, fought for tighter regulation and oversight of coal ash dumps, and helped build the Heartland Coalfield Alliance, a regional collaboration of community and advocacy groups working to advance a just and sustainable transition to a clean energy future in the Midwest. After law school Brian intends to continue to work as an environmental advocate, and hopes to focus on the intersecting issues of energy, water and environmental justice.

Meghna was born in India, and raised in New Jersey. She graduated from Brown University in 2011, with a B.A. in International Relations. Meghna first gained experience organizing around issues of economic justice and criminal justice reform while advocating for the rights of homeless and low-income communities in Rhode Island. She cultivated a broader understanding of the relationship between the criminal justice system and economic marginalization as an intern at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, and received a Slavery and Justice Research Award at Brown to study the history of Rhode Island’s first state penitentiary.

After graduating, Meghna spent a summer at the Vera Institute of Justice, where she analyzed the impact of the fiscal crisis on prison, probation, and parole systems around the country. She then worked as a Research Associate at the Brennan Center for Justice, where she helped lead the Center’s work against the rise of new debtor’s prisons, and worked on projects related to sentencing policy, foreclosure reform, and the collateral consequences of criminal convictions. Meghna hopes to use her law degree to expand access to good credit and finances, especially in communities that are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system.

Chelsea graduated summa cum laude from UCLA in 2008, with a B.A. in English and Political Science. At UCLA, Chelsea served on the Undergraduate Students Association Council and Project Literacy.

Chelsea worked for four years at the Clinton Health Access Initiative in Boston, Johannesburg, and New York City. She has worked with governments, donors, regulators, pharmaceutical companies, and other manufacturers to increase access to health commodities in resource-poor markets. In South Africa, she managed a team within the National Department of Health to implement a set of policies aimed at increasing access to HIV/AIDS services throughout the country. Most recently, she worked on pricing and procurement deals for vaccines and helped to structure market interventions that de-risk supply and facilitate new supplier entry in developing-country vaccine markets.

Chelsea was born and raised in the Los Angeles area and has lived in New York City for two years.

Raised in Avenel, New Jersey, Pooja is happy to be spending three more years in the tri-state area. She hopes to use her law degree to promote economic opportunity for low-income and minority communities. Pooja graduated from Yale University in 2012 with distinction in Political Science. While in college, she led or co-led legislative advocacy campaigns for in-state tuition for undocumented students, statewide education reform, and national healthcare reform as an active member of the Yale College Democrats. Pooja spent her summers at organizations including the Eagleton Institute of Politics, within its Program on Immigration and Democracy, and Demos, where she assisted with reports addressing economic security and access to affordable higher education.

After graduation, her interest in the link between financial stability and workplace fairness led her to Ritz Clark & Ben-Asher LLP, a plaintiff-side labor and employment law firm in New York City. She provided support for employment discrimination and wrongful termination cases, among others, during her time there as a paralegal.

Matthew grew up in Sturgis, South Dakota. He is looking forward to living in New York City to get his legal education before returning to his native state to fight for his policy goals. Matthew graduated from the University of South Dakota in 2011 with a degree in economics and political science. A member of the Army National Guard, his belief in public service led him to apply for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, becoming South Dakota’s recipient in 2010.

After graduating, Matthew took a job with the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission as a utility analyst. There he worked primarily on rate increase filings made by the investor owned utility companies in the state, striving to keep electric rates as low as possible while ensuring South Dakota ratepayers received safe, adequate, and reliable service. He views the law as an essential tool in addressing some of the stark challenges faced by South Dakotans, particularly on the Native American reservations. Blending law and smart public policy, Matthew hopes to effect changes in the criminal justice system to craft a smarter and more rehabilitative institution.

Ke was born in Wuhan, China and raised in Tucson, Arizona. A graduate of University High School, she has been deeply influenced by the liberating potential of a progressive public education. While studying biochemistry as a Flinn Scholar at Arizona State University, Ke travelled around the world investigating education initiatives on a Circumnavigators Club Foundation Grant. This research inspired her to deepen her understanding of issues in domestic education, leading her to join Teach For America after graduating in 2010.

As a chemistry teacher at John C. Fremont High School in South Los Angeles, she witnessed how school reconstitution, followed by large budget cuts, left students disillusioned with schooling. In response, she engaged students in discussions about the role of social inequity in education. These discussions shaped her role as the Academic Decathlon coach, through which she witnessed the transformation of her decathletes into social justice advocates. These experiences, along with the prolific encouragement of her students, led her to pursue an MPhil in Education on a Gates Cambridge Scholarship and now, a law degree. With a legal background, she hopes to improve the capabilities of all children, starting with the right to equal access to education opportunities.

Dian Yu

Dian graduated with honors from Harvard University in 2011 with a degree in History and Literature. During college, Dian was involved with the Harvard Phillips Brooks House Association as a leader of the Refugee Youth Summer Enrichment Program. Dian also served as a Regional Representative for the Gates Millennium Scholars Program/Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund in the greater Boston and Philadelphia areas.

Following graduation, Dian served as a Harvard Center of Public Interest Careers Fellow in New York City and helped launch an international grant-making venture philanthropy foundation. Consequently, Dian worked for EKO Asset Management Partners, an investment and advisory firm specializing in environmental markets and natural infrastructure. Dian helped manage the origination pipeline for EKO’s Green Carbon Fund and analyzed emerging natural resource related markets.

Dian worked for Acumen Fund in Nairobi, Kenya, helping to build financially sustainable organizations that deliver affordable goods and services that improve the lives of the poor. She conducted early-stage sector mappings of education investment opportunities for Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda.

Dian was born in Beijing, China and grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After law school, she hopes to advance her interest in law and social innovation.