A native of the Bronx, New York, Amy graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, where she majored in political science and achieved distinction in the major. She has worked for women’s political inclusion as the first American hired by a leading women’s rights NGO in Tunisia, conducted public health research in West Africa, published on independent sex trafficking research she conducted in Southeast Asia, and served on a Fulbright in South Korea.

Amy later served as a White House intern on Vice President Biden’s team devoted to ending violence against women, worked on the U.S. foreign affairs budget while on a human rights fellowship in Congresswoman Nita Lowey’s office, was hired as an Obama campaign field organizer in western Colorado, and served as a Harvard Juster Fellow at the State Department’s U.S. Mission to the EU in Brussels where she focused on international trade, sanctions, and speechwriting.

While in law school, Amy served as a legal fellow at the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, and served on the NYU Law Moot Court Board, as President of both the American Constitution Society (ACS) and the Domestic Violence Advocacy Project (DVAP). She was selected as a JD Scholar in the Jacobson Leadership Program in Law and Business and as a Lederman Fellow in Law & Economics. Amy graduated with a J.D. from the NYU School of Law and an M.P.A. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Amy currently works on cryptocurrency, funds, and other corporate matters as an Associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. Amy’s pro bono work involves helping victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, as well as low-income children and families, and incarcerated women. Amy was recently elected President of the New York Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society (ACS) and remains politically active.

In her free time, Amy enjoys jazz, chocolate, cooking, and the Economist (sometimes all together!). She is also an avid hiker and traveler and will soon touch down in her 54th country.

Andrew is the Partner Manager for Link at Intersection, an urban technology company based in New York City. Intersection’s flagship project, Link, provides high-speed, free public Wi-Fi, phone calls, device charging, and access to city services and maps to over a dozen cities in the United States and UK.

Originally from California, Andrew graduated from UC Berkeley with a double major in Sociology and Political Science. In undergrad he served as a senator representing a coalition of LGBT student organizations in Berkeley’s student government and helped organize protests against budget cuts to public higher education.  After graduation, Andrew interned in Washington DC for Congressman Mark Takano, and then moved to New York City in 2013 to complete the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs.

Since moving to New York City, Andrew has spent most of his volunteer time supporting LGBT organizations and knocking on doors for progressive political campaigns. Currently he serves as Co-President of Stonewall Quarter Share (SQS), a giving circle that provides young donors the opportunity to make targeted grants to LGBTQ programs and services serving high-need members of the community. In his three years on the Leadership Council, Andrew has co-chaired the Grants Committee and the Host Committee for SQS’s largest annual fundraiser, Revel.

In his spare time, Andrew enjoys playing with his cat, Dorian, discussing politics and public policy, cooking, and running.

Ashley Louise is the Co-Founder of Ladies Get Paid, a national women's rights organization working to close the gender wage and gender leadership gap. Ashley is a former grassroots organizer for non-profits like the Human Rights Campaign and the Sierra Club, worked tech focusing on business development and partnerships, and graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Industrial and Labor Relations.

Benjamin Mensah is an investment analyst at Paulson & Co, a multi-strategy hedge fund based in NYC. He focuses on special situations investments across the capital structure in various sectors. Previously, Ben was an investment analyst at SVP Global, a distressed debt and deep value hedge fund, where he focused on credit and equity investments in the US and Western Europe. He began his career at Goldman Sachs in the Technology, Media, and Technology investment banking group.

A Harlem native, Ben remains active in many service organizations including Prep for Prep, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, The Apollo, Sponsors for Educational Opportunities, The Robert Toigo Foundation, Council of Urban Professionals, The New York Public Library and The Children’s Aid Society.

He is passionate about K-12 public education reform as well as affordable housing. Ben volunteers on Saturdays as a math teacher for grades 5 – 8 at the Dunlevy Milbank Center in Harlem. He also serves on the board of a multifamily HDFC building in Harlem. When outside the office he can usually be found spending time with his four younger siblings, trying to play intramural basketball, or making slow progress on his reading list.

Ben received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a dual B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dania Darwish is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Asiyah Women's Center, which is the first emergency temporary housing facility in NYC that shelters Muslim domestic violence survivors and/or victims of eviction. Under her leadership, Dania oversees all operations at the center including but not limited to fundraising, grant writing, partnership and strategic planning, outreach and volunteer development, and case intake. Furthermore, Dania connects under resourced women to job opportunities, a range of medical and mental health services, permanent housing facilities, legal assistance, and empowers women to get back on their feet and overcome their deeply traumatic circumstances.

Previously, Dania has held roles and leadership positions at Saving Syria, Amnesty International, UN Women, the Muslim American Society, the Office of U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and the New York Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Dania worked as a policy advisor for Saving Syria, an international organization that aims to rebuild the lives of Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons in the areas of healthcare, education and human development. In her previous role, Dania completed missions in Greece, Turkey an Lebanon to expand medical and dental care to over 10,000 refugees in over 35 refugee camps. In addition, within her previous role, Dania conducted extensive research on the economic, social and political barriers that stunt the actualization of mental health rights for Syrian refugees.

Evan Matthew Karl is an experienced activist, political organizer, and civil servant. Currently serving as an Advisor in the NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity, he is responsible for providing programmatic and fiscal oversight for the Connections to Care program—a $30 million public-private partnership that aims to increase access to mental health services by integrating evidence-based mental health supports into community-based organizations serving low-income and at-risk New Yorkers. Prior to his current role, Evan served as an NYC Service Fellow in the civic engagement division of the Mayor’s Office, where he managed a series of citywide, cross-sector initiatives including AmeriCorps programs, a citywide snow removal pilot, and the NYC Neighborhood Civic Engagement Initiative. Evan has also held various positions in state and federal government, serving as a Regional Program Fellow in the Massachusetts Governor’s Office and as an Associate in the Obama White House, where he was selected to oversee a diverse constituent casework portfolio encompassing impact areas related immigration, housing, and criminal justice.

In addition to his work in government, Evan is committed to serving his local community in Western Queens. After running with other reformers on a platform of transparency, accountability, and increased community voice, he now serves as a voting member on the Queens Democratic County Committee where he organizes newly elected Committee Members and local Democrats to promote meaningful representation and ensure party leadership is held accountable to the communities they serve. He’s worked on a host of local political campaigns, including as a field captain and research team member on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset congressional campaign in 2018, and sits on various committees with local Queens political organizations, including the New Queens Democrats, the Powhatan & Pocahontas Democratic Club, and the Parks Committee of his local City Council Member’s Participatory Budgeting Program.

When he’s not at a community meeting or knocking on doors, Evan can be found listening to rock records, noodling on his guitar, and doting over his cat Sushi in his adopted home of Astoria, Queens. He is a first-generation college graduate, earning his B.A. in Political Science from Amherst College.
 

Genet Lakew is a digital storyteller with a passion for expanding conversations around the Black diaspora, womanhood, migration, mental wellbeing, and other similar social themes. She is a digital marketer at the National Urban League, the leading civil rights and urban advocacy organization devoted to economic empowerment and social equality for people of color. As a millennial at a historic institution, she is an integral part of a new civil rights movement that fuses the rich legacy of activism and political struggle with contemporary thought and leadership.  

True to her belief that to whom much is given much is required, Genet started a scholarship to help make college a reality for children of Black immigrant parents at her former high school. The Mekonnen Family Scholarship, named to honor her loved ones who believed in education as a path to liberation, is designed to champion young people with big dreams but limited resources.

Genet is a proud graduate of Howard University, where she majored in print and online journalism and minored in African studies. Attending a historically Black university as an African immigrant deepened her understanding of global Black experiences, which span boundaries, ethnicities, languages, and histories. Genet continued to delve deeper into the Black diaspora at New York University, where she earned an M.A. in Africana Studies. She has published chapters in two books on the African diaspora, most recently in Slavery, Migrations, and Transformations: Connecting Old and New Diasporas to the Homeland.
 

Genet was born in Ethiopia, raised in Arlington, VA, and has called New York City home for 6 years. She is a lifelong learner who regularly soaks up history and stories through podcasts, documentaries, books, and photography.

John Cusick has dedicated his career to legal and policing-making efforts that eliminate systemic forms of disenfranchisement and address racial and class biases. John is an Equal Justice Works Fellow (sponsored by the Venture Justice Fund) at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. At LDF, he works on criminal justice reform, police misconduct, and voting rights litigation and policy reform.

John graduated from New York University School of Law, where he was a member of the Juvenile Defender and Racial Equity Strategies Clinics and a recipient of the Vanderbilt Medal for outstanding contributions to the law school community. While in law school, he served as an Article Selection Editor for the NYU Review of Law & Social Change, a founding member and chair of the Fair Defense Project, and a student fellow at the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law. Prior to law school, he worked first as an Urban Fellow at the New York City Law Department and then as an assistant project manager at From Punishment to Public Health.

John is a proud City University of New York alumnus, having graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice with a B.A. in Humanities and Justice. He grew up in New Jersey and went to a public high school in Vermont.

Larnell Vickers is an experienced career and life coach and talent professional within the social good/impact space. From one-on-one coaching, to talent placement and talent recruitment and hiring; he has worked with non-profits, educational organizations and for-profits to help enhance and drive forward their strategic talent plan. Also, he has worked tirelessly to help organizations to get very clear about their “who” when hiring and to then identify top talent that is game-changing for the organization. Currently he serves as the Director of Talent Acquisition at the Future Project. A non-profit focus on empowering possibility within young people to create and build the world they want to live in.

In addition, Larnell is a career and life coach where he has worked with recent college graduates, career professionals or career changers to help guide and match them to great opportunities that inspire and ignite passion. He has also provided skilled one-on-one coaching to individuals coupled with invaluable tools that help individuals navigate the different phases of life and shift from a place of survival to a new realm of possibility.

Previously, Larnell served as the Assistant Director of Recruitment for Democracy Prep Public Schools, a network of 23 open-enrollment, high-performing, public charter schools operating on the philosophy: Work Hard. Go to College. Change the World! In this capacity, Larnell supported and managed the recruitment team in all aspects from selection to operations to outreach. Along with that, he directly supported the school leadership hiring process in conjunction with the Talent Development team.

Prior to joining Democracy Prep Public Schools, Larnell worked with Uncommon Schools on the development and execution of its Summer Teaching Fellowship, a program that allows for college juniors to teach and train over the summer to then pipeline into full-time teaching roles long term. In addition, he supported selection hiring for principal and operational leadership roles plus all network hiring.

Before working in the charter school space, he started out his career teaching through the Teach For America program where he taught high school language arts at Booker T. Washington. Also he worked with the Teach For America Miami-Dade regional team supporting the Executive Director and daily operations of the region.

Larnell is from Miami, Florida. He attended the University of Florida and studied Political Science and Communication Studies for his Bachelor’s Degree and Business Management for his Master’s degree.

Matt Minnella is an attorney in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Office of Labor Relations, where he represents the MTA in collective bargaining and provides advice and counsel to the agency’s leadership on legal and policy issues concerning the agency’s workforce.  In this role, Matt has helped implement and administer various initiatives to improve the agency’s operational performance, as well as system safety and employee wellness. Prior to his time at the MTA, Matt was in-house labor counsel at New Jersey Transit. His pro bono practice includes representing children from Latin America in immigration and family court proceedings.  Matt is a graduate of Seton Hall University School of Law, where he participated in the school’s employment discrimination mediation clinic. While in school, Matt clerked for a firm focused on workers’ safety and civil rights. He received a BA in Political Science from Villanova University.

Matt is a member of the New York Democratic Lawyers Council, where he advocates for voting rights and election law reform and has worked as an election monitor in various state and federal elections.  Most recently, Matt coordinated voter protection for Max Rose’s campaign in New York’s Eleventh District as part of NYDLC’s statewide voter protection efforts. Matt is originally from New Jersey and now lives in New York City.

Milan Reed is an education and urban policy enthusiast. She currently manages program policy development for the City of New York’s Pre-K for All and 3-K for All initiative at the Department of Education. Milan works on a wide range of education policy issues including, diversity in admissions, students in temporary housing, student health, and school climate. In her line of work, she collaborates with the Department of Health and early childhood program leaders, as well as advocates to improve the health and safety of all early childhood programs.

Prior to working for the NYC Department of Education, Milan was a Teach for America corps member in Newark, New Jersey, where she taught for four years. After teaching, she pursued a graduate degree in Urban Policy at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs to better understand the role public policy plays in urban cities. While attending the Woodrow Wilson School, she discovered her passion for city government while serving as an education policy intern for the First Deputy Mayor’s Office.

Milan is a proud Harlem resident, member of the Apollo Theater young patrons, and Higher Heights, an organization supporting the leadership of black women in elected office.

Mon Yuck Yu is co-founder and Executive Vice President & Chief of Staff at the Academy of Medical & Public Health Services (AMPHS), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to addressing healthcare barriers affecting underserved immigrant populations. In her role, Mon Yuck oversees organizational strategic planning, operations and community relations. She has spearheaded the development of several key programs at AMPHS, including the Adult Literacy Program, which offers English language and immigrant rights education; and the Community Health Project, which challenges barriers to care through the coordinated provision of free health screening, counseling, mental health and social assistance services for uninsured immigrants in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. An active immigrant rights advocate, Mon Yuck is heavily involved in the fight for universal health coverage and constantly inspired by the stories of immigrants like her parents, who faced significant struggles gaining healthcare access as immigrants.
 

Mon Yuck has a long history of community service, previously holding positions at the Chinese-American Planning Council, New York State Assembly, and Federal Emergency Management Agency, where she organized citywide emergency planning efforts as well as localized disease outbreak response initiatives. In 2011, she founded a professional consultancy to provide nonprofit organizations and social enterprises services in organizational capacity building, strategic planning, fundraising, market research, and design. In addition to her work at AMPHS, Mon Yuck sits on the Advisory Board of Turning Point Outreach Center and is co-founder of a local democratic club that works to spur civic engagement and awareness within the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. Mon Yuck is also an instructor of Mental Health First Aid, CPR, and First Aid, and a teaching faculty in the SUNY Downstate Community Health Worker Program.
 

Mon Yuck received her B.A. in anthropology from Dartmouth College and Master of Public Administration in Urban and Health Policy from Columbia University. In 2013, Mon Yuck was selected as a Richard D. Lombard Fellow with the Joan Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding to study and address public health issues affecting immigrant populations in Brooklyn, NY. Mon Yuck was recognized as a City & State New York Nonprofit Media 40 Under 40 Rising Star in 2015 and honored with the Harvey A. Picker Prize in Public Service in 2017 for her community work. She is also a 2018 Coro Immigrant Civic Leadership Program Fellow.

Rakim Brooks is a lawyer with Neufeld, Scheck, and Brustin, a civil rights firm in Manhattan. NSB was founded by legendary attorneys Johnnie Cochran and co-founders of the Innocence Project Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck. As a Cochran Fellow, Rakim litigates on behalf of clients across the country who were framed by police and lost decades of their lives to wrongful convictions.

Rakim clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Constitutional Court of South Africa for Justice Edwin Cameron, who fought doggedly against Apartheid and is the most high-ranking openly gay official in Africa. He was also a member of Yale Law School’s Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic and worked for the appellate departments of Sidley Austin and Orrick, Herrington, & Sutcliffe.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Rakim advanced progressive politics thru public policy. He interned at the Brookings Institution and Center for Law and Social Policy while attending Brown University. After college, he spent two years attending Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and worked for the income-support nonprofit Single Stop USA. Later, he was selected as a fellow at the think tank Demos where he wrote extensively about poverty, inequality, democracy, and Black politics. He then served President Obama’s Administration as a Policy Advisor at the U.S. Treasury Department. Rakim's portfolio included low-income housing, community development finance, and social impact bonds. He remains engaged through his work as a Policy Advisor to the Black Economic Alliance.

In addition, Rakim has participated in several prominent fellowships sponsored by the Mellon Foundation, Institute for Responsible Citizenship, Drum Major Institute, and Harvard’s Galbraith Scholars Program. He also managed communications for former City Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito and served as congressional campaign manager for former Democratic National Committee Political Director Clyde Williams in 2012 and 2016. Rakim was raised in Wagner Public Houses in East Harlem.

Rebecca is the Special Assistant on the K-12 Education team at the Walton Family Foundation (WFF). In this position she works on the Education Committee’s governance and K-12 team operations in service of WFF’s mission to improve K-12 outcomes for all students, especially those of limited means, by ensuring access to high-quality educational choices.  

Rebecca’s career began in a Washington Heights high school math classroom through Blue Engine, an Americorps program that uses a team-teaching model to increase students’ academic gains and college-readiness. She later joined the National Program team at Teach for America (TFA), where she worked on initiatives such as values-based leadership development, diversity and inclusion training, the TFA 25th Anniversary Summit and the Sue Lehmann Teaching and Learning Fellowship.

Rebecca holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and History from the University of Wisconsin.

Rich André is the Deputy Director of State and Local Initiatives at New American Economy, a bipartisan research and advocacy organization making the economic case for sensible immigration reform. In this role, he partners with mayors, business leaders, and non-profit organizations, leveraging data on immigrants’ economic contributions to advocate for inclusive local, state and federal immigration policies.

Before joining NAE, Rich was the NYCitizenship Program Manager at the New York City Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA). He oversaw day-to-day operations of the NYCitizenship program, which provides free, high-quality citizenship legal services and financial counseling at public library branches citywide and at select Human Resources Administration sites. Rich also led MOIA's local and national citizenship strategy, including partnerships with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, NYC's three public library systems, and the national Cities for Citizenship coalition.

Prior to this position, he launched and led Cities for Action, a coalition of over 100 mayors and county officials advocating for pro-immigrant policies at every level of government. Rich coordinated filing amicus briefs in the Texas v U.S. legal case regarding deferred action for undocumented youth and parents. He organized the first-ever municipal ID conference in 2015 and advised cities on local immigrant integration practices. Rich also ran MOIA's Immigrant Inclusion Listening Tour in partnership with community-based organizations and schools across the five boroughs.

Before joining city government, he was the Policy Manager at Americas Society/Council of the Americas and Production Editor of Americas Quarterly, a magazine focused on the Western Hemisphere. His work brought him to Cuba, Chile, and Colombia. Rich also served as Co-Director of the Immigration and Integration Initiative, which convened leaders in emerging gateway cities like Atlanta, Nashville, and Charlotte to discuss immigration and economic development.

Rich is a Queens, NY native and proud Haitian-American. He holds a BA in Political Science and Spanish Language from Amherst College, with a focus on U.S.-Latin American relations. He is fluent in Spanish and French, and conversational in Portuguese. He is an avid soccer fan (a.k.a. football/fútbol), and plays on a co-ed team with few wins, but a lot of heart.

Stacey A. Eliuk is a steadfast #QueensKid and native New Yorker. She entered into politics as a foot soldier, raising grassroots dollars for progressive non-profit organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood. She broadened her impact by later directing field and recruitment efforts nationwide for non-profits, advocacy groups and candidates, culminating in President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Afterwards, Eliuk came home and dug in to local government and politics, orchestrating communications strategies for Queens elected officials Rory Lancman and Leroy Comrie, and organizing underserved communities to address complex social issues. During this time, she joined the Queens County Young Democrats (QCYD) and ran to enlist on its board as Treasurer shortly after, where she served for two years. In February of 2016, she was elected QCYD’s (first female) President, and lead it to become the largest chapter of Young Democrats across the State. During her two-year tenure as President, Eliuk positioned QCYD as a bridge between grassroots and establishment politics, hosting and collaborating on events and actions where veterans and newcomers from within the Democratic tent could find a home. Under her leadership, QCYD expanded membership from all corners of the borough, grew from four to nine active caucuses, recruited hundreds to participate in political drives, and activated supporters to donate over $40,000 towards educational and professional development programming.

After stepping down as President in 2018 to encourage new leadership, Eliuk stayed involved with the Young Democrats, serving on the Board of the New York State Young Democrats (NYSYD) as its National Committeewoman and later as its Treasurer. While on the board, she authored and implemented curriculum for NYSYD’s first ‘campaign bootcamp’ and helped organize one of the most well-attended and cost-efficient national meetings of the Young Democrats of America.

For the last two years, Eliuk has worked in the office of the Public Advocate of the City of New York, serving as the Queens Community Affairs Director to Letitia James. On September 13th, she helped make history by electing her the first woman of color to statewide office.

A graduate of Queens College and Columbia University, Eliuk is active in her local community, serving on the boards of Woodside on the Move, a non-profit focusing on housing and education, and Random Access Music, promoting high caliber composition and performance of music by living American composers. She lives in Woodside with her partner, David.

Stephanie Robayo is a proud daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants and an attorney with the Counsel’s Office at the New York State Department of Labor. Stephanie represents the Department in hearings concerning wage and workplace violations. She also coordinates FOIL inquiries, a role that requires her to have a comprehensive understanding of privacy and open records laws, and constitutional guarantees for the right of access.

Prior to joining the Counsel’s Office, Stephanie was a legal intern at the Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, under the Deputy Secretary for Labor and Workforce. In this role, Stephanie researched and analyzed issues of law and public policy for the Joint Task Force on Employee Misclassification and Worker Exploitation, which helped New York become a national leader in combating worker exploitation. Stephanie is most proud of her contributions to the efforts of the Joint Task Force in educating employers, empowering workers and ensuring their equal rights under the law.

Stephanie is a passionate advocate for inclusion in all spheres. While at Brooklyn Law School, where she earned her J.D., Stephanie recognized the need to increase diversity in the legal profession. Together with prominent bar leaders, Stephanie organized the hosting of University of Denver Latina Scholar Dolores Atencio, of the Latino Center for Community Engagement & Scholarship, at her school. In a first presentation of its kind for the law school, Stephanie arranged an inclusive lecture and coordinated the installation of a unique exhibit focusing on the significant historical impact of Latina women lawyers. As was her goal with this endeavor, the presentation lent awareness of the transformative power of diverse women in practice.   

Outside of the legal world, Stephanie mentors diverse high school and law school students in New York and New Jersey. She serves on several nonprofits dedicated to amplifying the next generation of youth leaders. Most recently, she aided the fundraising and petitioning efforts of the grassroots election campaign of Assemblywoman-Elect Catalina Cruz, the first DREAMer to ever be elected to public office in New York State. Stephanie also truly enjoys engaging with creative projects and volunteers media work for community organizations. She feels especially privileged she had the opportunity to work with Director Carmencita Gutierrez of the QDA Office of Immigrant Affairs on her team’s newsletter highlighting their work in the immigrant community in Queens.

Geehyun Sussan Lee is an advocate and attorney dedicated to elevating the voices of those excluded from traditional power structures.  Sussan’s wise mother gave her the same advice on every first day of school since kindergarten—“A truly strong person is not strong against the weak, she is strong against the strong.”  That advice has been Sussan’s lodestar throughout her childhood and now her career.

Sussan’s first experience with the criminal justice system was as a paralegal at the New York County District Attorney’s Office and an intern at the Department of Justice, where she worked on the investigation and prosecution of large-scale white-collar crimes, such as financial fraud and corrupt business practices.  Working in the prosecution of white-collar crime allowed Sussan to see how the criminal justice system treats privileged and underprivileged defendants in vastly different ways that further marginalize already marginalized communities.

After law school, Sussan returned to the criminal justice system, this time as a defense attorney, to reform a system that makes the vulnerable more vulnerable.  As a first generation immigrant, she has focused her career on protecting her community from being doubly punished by our broken criminal justice and immigration systems.  Sussan is currently an appellate counsel at the Center for Appellate Litigations Immigrant Justice Project, where she helps immigrant New Yorkers assert their due process rights and defend against the threat of immigration detention and deportation.  Her clients are long-term residents of New York City with extensive family and community roots who face deportation due to often minor criminal convictions from decades ago. Prior to the Center for Appellate Litigation, Sussan worked as an immigration attorney at the MinKwon Center for Community Action as a Justice Fellow with the Immigrant Justice Corps, the country’s first fellowship program dedicated to meeting the need for quality legal services for immigrants.

Sussan is proudly the secretary of the board of directors of United We Dream, the largest immigrant-youth-led advocacy network in the country as well as a sub-committee chair of the Immigration & Nationality Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association.  She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, a M.Sc. in Migration Studies from Oxford University, and a B.A., magna cum laude, in Social Studies from Harvard College.

Youssef Kalad serves the City of New York as Program Director of NYCx, the emerging technology & innovation program within the Mayor's Office of the Chief Technology Officer. In this role Youssef splits his time between policy and hands-on operations, advising senior staff on a wide range of technology policy issues and designing practical citywide experiments to deploy and test emerging technology with the potential to deliver one major City priorities. His focus areas have spanned automation & the future of work, transportation, new mobility & autonomous vehicles, clean energy infrastructure, universal broadband, and Census engagement, among others. Prior to local government, Youssef served stints at Google and Uber, leading initiatives in strategy & operations, product planning, and rigorous experimentation while spending time abroad in India and Canada. Youssef began his career at Treacy & Company, a boutique management consultancy focused on growth, where he led small teams of analysts to advise large global clients on how to test new concepts and quickly scale successful ones into fully-fledged business units.

Youssef is passionate about expanding access to high-quality education, mentorship, and professional development to underserved students of color. He has been a Member of or served on the Advisory Board of various organizations in that space, including Questbridge, Year Up, Citizen Schools, and the World Economic Forum Global Shapers.

Under the US government’s Diversity Immigrant Lottery Visa program, Youssef immigrated to Jersey City, NJ from Egypt along with his sister and parents, who traded stable working class teaching careers for long hours in the service sector to secure a better future for their kids. He received a full scholarship to attend the University of Chicago, where he earned a degree in Public Policy Analysis and served as Student Government President. Beyond government & emerging technology, he enjoys talking basketball, BBQ, and hip-hop.

Zarin Tasnim was born in Bangladesh and moved to the Bronx at the age of five. Growing up in a low income neighborhood and in an immigrant household, Zarin was the bridge between her first generation parents and cultural integration. Zarin, like most young immigrants, spent her childhood translating bills, important documents and as a result developed a passion for advocacy and community engagement.

Following college graduation, Zarin traveled to South Korea on as a Fulbright Scholar and taught elementary and high school English for two years. As a former ESL student, Zarin understood the power but also the difficulties of learning the English language and worked to build both fun and engaging curriculums for her students. During her time in Korea, Zarin became heavily involved in local community programs, working to empower women in domestic violence shelters and helping to integrate North Korean defectors to the South Korean community. Zarin also organized and led the Black History Month Festival in South Korea, a day of festivities, workshops and learning focused on enhancing mutual understanding and educating the South Korean community on black history.

After leaving South Korea, Zarin joined NYC Service, a division of the New York City Office of the Mayor, focused on raising volunteerism and civic engagement. As part of the Public Private Partnerships team,  Zarin acted as a conduit between the private and nonprofit space in not only consulting on best practices for employee volunteer engagement programs, managing and coordinating large scale service projects/events but also lead the NYC Service Strategic Pro Bono Skills Based Initiative which helped to jumpstart action for aggressive use of pro bono/skills-based volunteerism with measurable goals. Zarin worked with 50 of the largest NYC based corporations to provide technical expertise and thought leadership on corporate social responsibility and led the NYC Service CBO Corporate Service Coalition, a convening of nonprofit partners on best practices for leveraging corporate engagement.

Zarin has recently joined the Corporate Responsibility team at Ernst and Young, focusing on the firm’s signature mentoring program known as College MAP and working on the firm’s nonprofit partnerships. Zarin has a BA in Political Science and History from Macaulay Honors College, Lehman College and hopes to leverage the power of cross sector engagements to move the needle on large scale public projects.