Public Policy Forum - March 24, 2018
The fourth annual Public Policy Forum will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. in the Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center (KINSC).
This exciting annual event connects alumni whose careers intersect with public policy with an audience of current Tri-College students interested in pursuing social sector careers. Students also present their policy-related research and have opportunities to dialogue with alumni about their questions and findings. The day includes alumni panel discussions on topics including education, immigration, international development, health, criminal justice and incarceration, and environmental policy. Annie Karni ’04, White House Reporter for POLITICO, will facilitate a keynote conversation with Vince Warren ‘86, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Schedule
9:00 a.m.
Registration and Coffee
KINSC, Zubrow Commons
9:15 a.m.
Opening Remarks
KINSC, Zubrow Commons
9:30–10:45 a.m.
PANEL SESSION 1 (Choose one)
Health Policy
Hilles 109
Moderator: Anna West, Assistant Professor of Health Studies, Haverford College
Panelists:
- Sarah J. Guyer '13, Care Navigator, Squirrel Hill Health Center
- Rohini Khillan '08, Public Health Analyst, US Department of Health and Human Services
- Kiame Mahaniah '93, Chief Medical Officer, Lynn Community Health Center
Criminal Justice Policy and Incarceration
Sharpless Auditorium
Moderator: Jill Stauffer, Associate Professor and Director of Peace, Justice, and Human Rights, Haverford College
Panelists:
- Emily L. Bock '11, Assistant Defender, Defender Association of Philadelphia
- Erin Kerrison '07, Assistant Professor of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley
- Sarah Morris ’05, Co-Founder, Youth Arts and Self-Empowerment Project
10:50 a.m.–12:05 p.m.
PANEL SESSION 2 (Choose one)
Environmental Policy
Hilles 109
Moderator: Helen White, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Studies, Haverford College
Panelists:
- Kyle Danish '89, Partner, Van Ness Feldman LLP
- Roger Nober '86, Executive Vice President, Law and Corporate Affairs and Chief Legal Officer, BNSF Railway Company
- Matt Tomich '08, President, Energy Vision
Immigration Policy
Sharpless Auditorium
Moderator: Zainab Saleh, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Haverford College
Panelists:
- C. Mario Russell '87, Director, Immigrant and Refugee Services Division, Catholic Charities Immigration Services
- Lindsey Sweet '03, Owner and Attorney, Sweet & Paciorek, LLC
- Alexandra Wolkoff '14, Director of Education, Puentes de Salud
12:10–1:10 p.m.
Lunch
KINSC, Zubrow Commons
1:10–2:10 p.m.
Poster Session
KINSC, Zubrow Commons
2:10–3:25 p.m.
PANEL SESSION 3 (Choose one)
Public Education Policy
Hilles 109
Moderator: Heather Curl, Instructor in the Haverford/Bryn Mawr Education Program, Chesick Facilitator and Posse Mentor
Panelists:
- Peter Anderson '92, Head of School, Washington Latin PCS
- Jenny Bogoni '88, Executive Director, Read by 4th Campaign, Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation
- Rebecca Odessey '03, Deputy Executive Director, Bilingual/ESL, Newark Public Schools
International Development
Sharpless Auditorium
Moderator: Susanna Wing, Associate Professor of Political Science, Haverford College
Panelists:
- Jeremy Kanthor '97, Managing Director, Governance, DAI
- Rebecca Levy ‘04, Acting USG Special Advisor on Children in Adversity, USAID
- Arjun Tasker '07, Communications Adviser, Local Sustainability Office, USAID
3:35–4:55 p.m.
Keynote Conversation with Vince Warren '86, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights
Sharpless Auditorium
Moderator: Annie Karni '04, White House Reporter for POLITICO
5:00–6:00 p.m.
Networking Reception
Wine and cheese will be available.
KINSC, Rotunda
Speakers
Peter Anderson
Washington Latin’s Head of School is Peter Anderson. He brings more than 20 years of experience in education as a teacher, administrator and school leader. He brings a commitment to improving instruction and results for all students, fostering parent involvement, and sound stewardship of school finances. Peter holds a BA from Haverford College, a Masters in Sociology from the London School of Economics, and a Masters in Education from New York University. Peter also teaches middle school US History.
Emily L. Bock
Ms. Bock graduated from the Westtown School in 2007 and from Haverford College in 2011 with a B.A. in English Literature and a concentration in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Prior to law school, Ms. Bock was a Haverford House Fellow and worked at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia and at the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, also in Philadelphia. She also volunteered with the Pardon Me Clinic of X-Offenders for Community Empowerment, the Criminal Records Expungement Project of the Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity (PLSE), and the Restorative Justice Project (now known as Let’s Circle Up) at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford, PA.
As a student at Temple Law School, Ms. Bock expanded her experience with poverty law, the criminal legal system, and collateral consequences of criminal records by completing internships and clinicals with Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, Women Against Abuse, the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender, the Temple Legal Aid Office, the Defender Association of Philadelphia, and the Sheller Center for Social Justice. She was the 2014-2015 co-chair of the Temple Law National Lawyers Guild Chapter, and a co-founder of the Temple National Lawyers Guild Expungement Project.
Emily was a recipient of the Rubin-Presser Social Justice Fellowship and the Beasley Merit Scholarship. She also received the Honorable Dolores Sloviter Public Interest Fellowship, the Henry Maxmin Scholarship, a Student Public Interest Network (SPIN) Public Interest Honors Grant, and the National Lawyers Guild C.B. King Award (2016). She was named a Law Student of the Year by National Jurist Magazine (2016) and a PSJD Pro Bono Publico Merit Distinction Honoree (2015).
Emily graduated from Temple Law School in 2016, cum laude. After law school, Emily clerked for one year for the Honorable Philip E. Haines, J.S.C., Superior Court of New Jersey-Criminal Division. In September 2017, she began working as an Assistant Defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. She is licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and is a member of the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (PACDL).
Jenny Bogoni
Executive Director Read by 4th – a campaign attempting to ensure that all Philadelphia children can read by the 4th grade.
Kyle Danish
As a partner at Van Ness Feldman LLP, Kyle Danish advises a range of clients on environmental and energy matters, with a special focus on regulation, permitting, enforcement, and legislation under the Clean Air Act and corporate climate strategy, and development of major infrastructure projects. His clients include energy companies, manufacturers, financial institutions, think tanks, and industry coalitions.
He has been recognized by Chambers USA, Chambers Global, the International Who’s Who of Environmental Lawyers, and Best Lawyers in America.
Kyle is a Senior Associate (Non-Resident) in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Energy and National Security Program. He is also on the editorial board of the Carbon & Climate Law Review.
He is a frequent speaker and has published numerous articles. Kyle also has authored several commissioned research papers on environmental and energy law and policy issues.
Kyle serves as a member of the firm's Executive Committee.
Sarah J. Guyer
Sarah Guyer currently works as a Care Navigator at the Squirrel Hill Health Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a federally qualified health center specializing in serving immigrants and refugees. As a Care Navigator, Sarah works with patients and families to connect them with external medical providers and community resources, while advocating for language access and cultural competency among larger medical systems. Previously, Sarah served as a Compass AmeriCorps member at a refugee resettlement agency in Pittsburgh, assisting newly arrived refugees in applying for benefits and navigating the healthcare system. Sarah graduated from Haverford College in 2013 with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Political Science and a concentration in Peace, Justice, and Human Rights. Sarah wrote her thesis on the association between motivation and behavior among U.S. Border Patrol agents, based on research conducted in Yuma, Arizona and funded by the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship. While at Haverford, Sarah was fortunate to intern at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and for the Minority Staff of the House Judiciary Committee. Sarah will return to school for her Master’s in Public Health in the fall of 2018.
Jeremy Kanthor
Jeremy Kanthor is the Managing Director of Governance at DAI. Jeremy has over fifteen years of international development experience with a focus on governance reform and engaging citizens to improve service delivery at the national and subnational levels. As Managing Director, he provides strategic leadership to the project design and implementation of DAI’s governance portfolio, including programming in local governance, integrated governance, public financial management, voice and accountability and citizen security. In addition to his management role at DAI, he currently serves as the Governance Lead on the Health Finance and Governance (HFG) project, USAID’s $250 million flagship Health System Strengthening Project.
Jeremy’s interest in international development was enhanced during his study abroad experience while at Haverford. After completing his semester at the University of Legon in Ghana, with Haverford support Jeremy worked as an intern at the National Electoral Commission in the run-up to the 1996 elections.
Since joining DAI in 2002, Jeremy has participated in the design and implementation of numerous governance projects, from local government reform in Romania to legislative strengthening in Armenia, Pakistan, Palestine, Azerbaijan, and Afghanistan, and ministerial reform in Palestine. Jeremy worked in Bangladesh for three years on the Promoting Governance, Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (PROGATI) Project, a major U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded anti-corruption initiative focused on strengthening investigative journalism, civil society monitoring of public services, government oversight, and parliamentary budget analysis.
Jeremy earned an M.Phil. in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, England.
Annie Karni
Annie Karni covers the White House for POLITICO. Before that, she covered Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. Prior to joining POLITICO, she was a political reporter at the New York Daily News, where she covered the 2013 mayoral race and the de Blasio administration. She is also a veteran of the New York Post and the now-defunct New York Sun.
Erin M. Kerrison, PhD
Erin Kerrison is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work extends from a legal epidemiological framework, wherein law and legal institutions operate as social determinants of health. Specifically, through varied agency partnerships, her mixed-method research agenda investigates the impact that compounded structural disadvantage, concentrated poverty and state supervision has on service delivery, substance abuse, violence and other health outcomes for individuals and communities marked by criminal justice intervention.
Dr. Kerrison's research has been supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Ford Foundation. Her recent empirical research has been published in Criminal Justice and Behavior, Punishment & Society,and, the Journal of Developmental and Life Course Criminology. Her current book project is tentatively titled, Hustles and Hurdles: Law’s Impact on Desistance for Job-Seeking Former Prisoners, and foregrounds life history narratives for a sample of 300 drug-involved former prisoners. Their stories are analyzed through critical race and intersectional theoretical lenses, and local reentry conditions are contextualized by contemporary "collateral consequences" legislation that further undermine employment seeking outcomes within a contracted Rust Belt labor market. This study demonstrates how law, labor markets, neighborhoods, criminal justice surveillance and substance abuse patterns are compounded and steer long-term desistance and health outcomes.
Dr. Kerrison holds a BA in Sociology and Philosophy from Haverford College, an MA in Criminology, Law and Society from Villanova University, and a PhD in Criminology from the University of Delaware. She was awarded a Vice Provost's Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
Rohini Khillan, MPH
Rohini Khillan, MPH is a Public Health Analyst in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Her main area of focus is dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, coordinating the HHS’s work on dementia through the National Alzheimer’s Project Act. She works closely with agencies across the Federal government to coordinate the federal government’s efforts around dementia. Rohini manages the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services and works with federal and non-federal partners to write the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, an annual update of work conducted by the federal government and its partners towards treating and curing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Rohini also works on the issues of long-term care, caregiving, and end-of-life.
Rohini holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health Policy from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from Haverford College.
Rebecca Levy
Rebecca Levy is currently the Acting U.S. Government Special Advisor on Children in Adversity and the Empowerment and Inclusion Division Chief at USAID. Rebecca joined USAID in 2010 as a Presidential Management Fellow in the Latin America and Caribbean Bureau. She also served as the Special Assistant to the Assistant Administrator of LAC, and as an Advisor to USAID Administrator Raj Shah. From 2014 - 2017, she served as a USAID foreign service officer in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, leading the Economic Growth Office at the USAID Mission and serving as the Agency's liaison to the African Development Bank.
Prior to joining USAID, she worked for CARE in Mali, for UNHCR in Ghana, and for a labor union in Newark, NJ. She received a BA in political science from Haverford College and a Masters of Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Kiame Mahaniah, MD
Dr. Mahaniah was born in Philadelphia, PA but grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Geneva, Switzerland, before returning to the United States at age 19. He attended Haverford College and received his degree in Political Economy of the Third World, taking a special interest in the transformation of agrarian/traditional society into modern economies. He went to Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia, PA and completed his residency at St. Margaret Memorial Hospital. Dr. Mahaniah served as a staff physician and residency faculty member at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center from 2003-2012. He has served as the Chief Medical Officer of the North Shore Community Health, Inc. in Salem, MA. He is now the Chief Executive Officer of Lynn Community Health Center in Lynn, MA. His overarching interest in medicine is the pursuit of social justice and the interaction, communication, and complexity of doctor/patient relationships. Dr. Mahaniah enjoys reading, particularly philosophy and science fiction, playing soccer, and spending time with his family.
http://www.lchcnet.org/provider/kiame-mahaniah-0
http://medicine.tufts.edu/Education/MD-Programs/Student-Service-Scholars-Program/Program-Mentors
Sarah Morris
Sarah Morris has been involved in co-coordinating the Youth Art & Self-empowerment Project since it began. Sarah first got involved in this work when she was a fellow at the American Friends Service Committee, running weekly art & poetry workshops for young people in Philly's adult jails. After her work at AFSC ended, Sarah worked with young people who had been in the workshops to help transition YASP into its own, youth-led organization. She is also member of Decarcerate PA, a coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to ending mass incarceration and the harm it does to our communities, and the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), which fights to end life without parole (aka death by incarceration) in Pennsylvania.
Roger Nober
Roger Nober has been an executive vice president with BNSF since January 2007. Nober is responsible for overseeing BNSF’s legal and regulatory matters, environmental, claims, compliance, communications and state government and community affairs as well as serving on the Board of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, LLC.
Prior to joining BNSF, Nober was a partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where he focused his practice primarily on transportation law and legislative matters.
From 2002 to 2006, Nober served as chairman of the United States Surface Transportation Board, having been confirmed by the Senate to the Commission and appointed by President George W. Bush as the Chairman. From 1993-2002, Nober served in a variety of transportation policymaking functions in the U.S. House of Representatives and at the Department of Transportation, including serving from 1997 to 2001 as chief counsel for the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Rebecca Odessey
Rebecca Odessey is the Deputy Executive Director for the Office of Bilingual Education, Newark Public Schools. She is the first to serve in this position in Newark, in support of the district’s newly granted local control following over two decades of state control. Her main interests are in teacher evaluation, particularly as aligned with intended student outcomes; providing access to core curriculum for all students, including emergent bilingual students; and developing the capacity of district instructional leaders. Her work in Newark follows fourteen years working within the NYC Department of Education, in roles including teacher, school administrator, and district instructional specialist.
Rebecca has leveraged her career in public education to address gaps in opportunities afforded to our nation’s students, growing from Haverford’s culture of social justice. In this capacity, she has managed citywide initiatives for the Common Core State Standards, including presenting at national conferences and developing district-wide curriculum; spearheaded social-emotional learning (SEL) models for emergent bilingual students as well as students with emotional disturbances, based on the RULER approach from Yale University; and managed a new teacher selection model, resulting in the highest rate of teacher retention in the district.
Rebecca holds an Ed.M. in Education Leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University; a certificate in Teacher Leadership from Bank Street College of Education; an M.A. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from the City College of NY; and a B.A. in Psychology, Education, and Spanish from Haverford College.
C. Mario Russell
C. Mario Russell is director of Catholic Charities New York’s Immigrant & Refugee Services Division, which serves New York City and the Hudson Valley through a network of legal, resettlement, education, and information services, and a program for the care of over 2,000 unaccompanied minors. Professor Russell conducts federal and Court of Appeals litigation, manages the St. John’s University Law School asylum litigation clinic, and teaches immigration/human rights law in the United States and Europe. He has consulted with the UNHCR in Hungary and Poland and with the National Commission on Migration in Thailand, and has advised on public interest law at Harvard Law School as a Wasserstein Fellow. Professor Russell previously worked at CLINIC, Arent/Fox, and as a judicial clerk on the U.S. District Court in Maryland.
Lindsey Sweet
A native of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, Lindsey became interested in immigration law when she started volunteering at La Comunidad Hispana while still in high school. After living and studying in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, Lindsey became fluent in Spanish and knew that her calling would be to serve the immigrant community in the United States. In 2003, Lindsey graduated with degrees in Political Science and Spanish from Haverford College. Lindsey then worked with the Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program for 4 years where she provided supplemental education to the children of migrant farm workers in Chester County, Pennsylvania. As a Student Support Specialist, she advocated for and guided migrant children and their families through American educational and legal systems, including truancy court. She designed, implemented and supervised academic and character education programs, including a gang prevention soccer team and career exploration program for pre-teen Latino boys which now has 800 members. She administrated and taught parent workshops for over 100 families and directed a summer program for over 300 students in the Kennett Consolidated School District. She was awarded the 2006 Outstanding Service Award by the Chester County Intermediate Unit.
In February 2014, Lindsey opened her own private practice in Avondale, Pennsylvania. Then in August 2014, she united with Anna Paciorek to form Sweet & Paciorek, LLC, where she manages the Avondale office and continues to focus exclusively on Immigration and Nationality Law. Lindsey serves as American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Immigration and Customs Enforcement Liaison Co-Chair for the Philadelphia Chapter of AILA. She volunteered as Supervising Attorney at the AILA 2014 and 2015 Pro Bono Citizenship Day for the Chester County, Pennsylvania location. Lindsey frequently gives talks and workshops on immigration-related topics of interest to Spanish speaking communities and the social service agencies that serve them in Southern Chester County Pennsylvania and northern Delaware. She is very involved in the community in and around her Avondale office, actively serving on the Board of the Joseph and Sarah Carter Community Development Corporation in Kennett Square. Together with local Latino artists, she opened a Latino Art Gallery inside the Avondale office of Sweet & Paciorek, LLC highlighting the collection of a different talented local Latino artist every three months.
Arjun Tasker
No bio available.
Matt Tomich
Matt is the president of the national environmental research group Energy Vision (EV), where his focus has been on the advancement of sustainable transportation solutions, especially for difficult to decarbonize heavy-duty trucks and buses. Much of his work at EV has looked at the production and use of biomethane made from organic waste as an ultra-low-carbon vehicle fuel.
Tomich has been instrumental in expanding Energy Vision’s various regional, national and international education, outreach and advisory initiatives. His research and writing have appeared in numerous publications, including GreenBiz, The Hill, TriplePundit Waste360 and BioCycle, and he has presented on sustainable waste management and low-carbon transportation at multiple venues in North America, Asia and Africa.
Matt earned a B.A. in Geology from Haverford College, and an M.B.A. from Kansas State University. In 2015, he was named one of New York City’s Top 10 Energy Entrepreneurs by the publication Breaking Energy.
Vince Warren
Vincent Warren is the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He oversees CCR's groundbreaking litigation and advocacy work, which includes using international and domestic law to hold corporations and government officials accountable for human rights abuses; challenging racial, gender, and LGBT injustice; combating abusive immigration policies and Muslim profiling; and stopping the illegal expansion of U.S. presidential power and policies such as illegal detention at Guantanamo and torture. Prior to his tenure at CCR, Vince was a national senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, where he litigated civil rights cases, focusing on affirmative action, racial profiling, and criminal justice reform. Vince was also involved in monitoring South Africa's historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, and worked as a criminal defense attorney for the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn. He is a graduate of Haverford College and Rutgers School of Law.
Vince is a frequent guest on MSNBC and Democracy Now! and has appeared on Moyers & Company with Bill Moyers, CNN, and Fox News. His writing has been featured in the New York Times Room for Debate, the Guardian, on the Huffington Post, and on CNN.com, among other publications.
Vince is the recipient of many awards, including the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Civil Rights 2016 Haywood Burns Memorial Award; the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers 2015 Justice Award; the Rutgers Law School Alumni Association 2012 Fannie Baer Besser Award for Public Service; and the CUNY School of Law 2012 Distinguished Public Service Award. He gave the keynote speech at Yale Law School's 2015 Rebellious Lawyering Conference, and the 2013 Clarence Clyde Ferguson, Jr. Human Rights Lecture at Howard Law School.
Alexandra Wolkoff
Alexandra Wolkoff is the Director of Education at Puentes de Salud (Bridges of Health), which serves the area’s Latino immigrant community through an integrated approach to healthcare, wellness, and education focused on the social determinants of health. Alexandra joined the organization in July 2014 as part of the CPGC’s Haverford House Fellowship. In her current role, Alexandra oversees education initiatives for children from early childhood through adolescence and their families, striving to foster positive, holistic youth and community development. Alexandra works closely with Southwark School, Puentes de Salud providers, and numerous community partners throughout the region to coordinate services and to best support the growth of each child and family unit. As a dedicated advocate for migrant rights and educational equity, Alexandra has presented locally and internationally about Philadelphia’s Latino immigrant community and the Puentes model, most notably at the 2015 International Metropolis Conference in Mexico City. Alexandra is a 2014 graduate of Haverford College, having studied Sociology and Education, and is grateful to be advancing social justice in partnership with the Puentes community.
http://www.puentesdesalud.org/about-us/team/#Alexandra-Wolkoff-BA
