Suzanne Akhras Sahloul is the founder and executive director of the Syrian Community Network, which helps Syrian refugees make a new home in the Chicago area. Akhras Sahloul was born in Homs — Syria’s third largest city — and came to the United States at 10 years old. She represented the Syrian American community at the U.S. Department of State’s Global Diaspora Forum in 2011 and 2013. She is also the founder of Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) Midwest Foundation, having served as its president from 2004- 2006.
Rondon
Yolanda Rondon is a Senior Civil Rights Attorney with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, where she works on high impact legal cases and leads ADC’s legislative policy platform on surveillance, racial and religious profiling, employment discrimination, freedom of speech, and immigration. She is also a Steering Board Member of the Fourth Amendment Congressional Caucus and serves on the Executive Board for Law for Black Lives – Washington DC. Ms. Rondon is studying at Georgetown University Law Center in the National Security LLM program, and earned her Juris Doctorate from Case Western Reserve University – Franklin Thomas Backus School of Law.
Pumphrey
Nicole Pumphrey (Nikki) is the Deputy Director of the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians, where she leads the organization’s external engagement strategy, building collaborations and advocating for the valuable contributions of immigrants to the region’s social stability and economic prosperity. She joined the organization as the Director of Strategic Partnerships in 2014. She has dedicated her career to fostering cultural understanding and promoting inclusion through education and workforce development.
Penichet-Paul
Christian Penichet-Paul is a Policy and Advocacy Associate at the National Immigration Forum, where he focuses his efforts on naturalization, including naturalization for immigrants in the military, federal appropriations, border security, and Dreamer-related issues. Christian also contributes to stakeholder meetings with congressional and federal officials, and provides analysis on legislative proposals and federal policies. Christian grew up in Austin, Texas. He graduated from Texas State University and earned his master’s in American Government from Georgetown University.
Petsod
Daranee Petsod is the President of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR), in which she has transformed a small informal network into an influential national organization that has catalyzed and leveraged hundreds of millions in philanthropic funding to protect the rights of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. She previously served as interim executive director, for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights; a program officer at the Field Foundation of Illinois; and as a community educator at the Community Counseling Centers of Chicago. Daranee has authored and co-authored numerous research reports on a range of immigration issues.
Perez
Luis Perez, Esq. is the Legal Services Director at the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). He oversees a team of 35 legal professionals offering pro-bono legal protection for thousands of Californians. Luis represents CHIRLA as co-counsel on the lawsuit filed with other NPNA partner organization against the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USICS), to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request about the skyrocketing backlog of naturalization applications. Most recently, Luis has coordinated CHIRLA’s Migrant Exodus Pro Bono Legal Response efforts in Mexico City and at the US/Mexico border.
Ortiz
M. Lucero Ortiz is the Director of Legal Services for CARECEN-DC. Previously, she managed her own legal practice focused on immigration and family law. She also served in various capacities at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA), and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). Lucero has received several awards and recognitions including DOL Secretary's Exceptional Achievement Award, HBA-DC's Rising Star Award, the Premio Inspiración from American University Washington College of Law, among others. Lucero is a graduate of American University Washington College of Law and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Nielson
Dr. Katharine B. Nielson is the Chief Education Officer at Voxy, an educational technology company focused on teaching English to non-native speakers. In this role, she leads a team that develops test items, curates language learning content, develops curricula, and conducts empirical studies. Previously, she investigated the efficacy of technology-mediated language training at the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language and served as the Academic Director of Foreign Languages at University of Maryland, University College. She has published and lectured on autonomous language learning, task-based language teaching, computer-assisted language learning, and language training product evaluation.
Nemecek
Martha Nemecek is the Assistant Director of Financial Empowerment at Youth Policy Institute. In her role, she identifies programs and services that help the low to moderate income community make healthier financial decisions and build assets as a result. Under her management lies financial empowerment programs that are embedded in her organization’s integrated services delivery model which is implemented in 136 sites across the City of Los Angeles. Mrs. Nemecek also manages the Ventanilla de Asesoria Financiera located within the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles.
Murguía
Janet Murguía is the President and CEO of UnidosUS (previously known as NCLR, the National Council of La Raza), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States. Throughout her career, Murguía has worked to amplify the Latino voice on issues affecting the Hispanic community such as education, health care, immigration, civil rights, and the economy. She received three degrees from Kansas University: a B.S. degree in journalism, a B.A. degree in Spanish, and a J.D. degree from the School of Law.
Medrano
Carmen Medrano is the Regional Organizer of Faith in the Valley, which aspires to empower people of faith and immigrant families to address racial and health equity. Carmen has been working in faith-based community organizing within the Faith in Action Network since 2008 and held leadership roles at local, statewide, and national levels. This has included helping pass legislation for instate tuition for undocumented students in Colorado, leading civic engagement programs in six states, and working at a national level. Carmen graduated from the University of Denver with a B.A. in Psychology.
Martinez
Jorge Martinez is a member of the Oregon Department of Human Services Community Partner Outreach Program team where he works to provide Oregon Health Plan outreach and enrollment support to community-based organizations across Oregon. Previously, Jorge worked developing and delivering community-based educational programs in immigrant communities for the OSU Extension Service and led outreach campaigns to immigrant populations for the farmworkers union in Oregon PCUN. Jorge has a BA in Political Science from Oregon State University and an MBA from Willamette University.
Manso
Angela M. Manso serves as NALEO Educational Fund’s director of policy and legislative affairs, where she is the organization’s chief policy advocate in the nation’s capital. In this capacity, she works on initiatives affecting Latino access to the political process. Manso served in the Obama Administration as Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of State, and Chief of the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. Census Bureau. She has also worked for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, American Association of Community Colleges, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer and former U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez.
Lucero
Richard Lucero is the Senior Staff Attorney at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). Before coming to CHIRLA, he has 14 years of private practice experience in the immigration field; has won well over 60 trials and numerous cases on appeal; and has successfully argued before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He graduated from the University of California at Irvine, with degrees in Economics and Political Science, and attended Whittier Law School.
Lee
Alice Lee is an immigrant rights organizer for undocumented AAPI in Orange County, CA and co-founder of SOJU Speakwear clothing project, alongside her fellow AAPI immigrant womxn, Dani and Hana. This project combine their talent, passion, and faith in daily activism. In order to make daily activism more accessible and less intimidating SOJU speakwear makes everyday apparels with social justice statements people can "embody.”
Lazalde
Julián Lazalde is a Civic Engagement and Policy Analyst for Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), an organization dedicated to ensuring human rights protections and access to justice for all immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Previously, Julian worked for the Latino Policy Forum in immigration policy work; for various community-based organizations in Chicago as a community organizer in Pilsen and Little Village; as director of workforce development programs at Erie Neighborhood House; and as a program and advocacy officer with Catholic Relief Services on international humanitarian relief and solidarity initiatives in the Midwest.
Lawrence
Patrice Lawrence is the National Policy & Advocacy Director for the UndocuBlack Network where she leads the network’s advocacy efforts on immigrants’ rights and racial justice. Greatly committed to social, racial, gender and immigration justice, Ms. Lawrence works along with other civil rights groups, organizations, elected officials, and community members with the goals of transforming the realities of Black undocumented people. Originally from Jamaica, Ms. Lawrence is a graduate of Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.
Kekic
Erol Kekic is Executive Director of the Immigration and Refugee Program for Church World Service (CWS), guiding the agency’s role as an outspoken advocate on behalf of fair, humane U.S. immigration and refugee policies. Previously, Kekic served as Associate Director of NYC's Lutheran Family and Community Service Immigration and Refugee Program; and Assistant Director for Resettlement for NY's Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering at the University of Sarajevo in Bosnia, and has done postgraduate study at The University of Detroit-Mercy and at Oxford University Refugee Study Centre.
Kaleem
Maheen Kaleem serves as a Program Officer for the Initiative to End Violence Against Girls and Women, and manages the NoVo Foundation’s portfolio on commercial sexual exploitation. Prior to joining NoVo, she was a staff attorney at Rights4Girls, where she engaged in federal, state, and local policy, training and technical assistance, and research with a specific focus on the intersection of child sex trafficking and juvenile justice. She has been engaged in advocacy on behalf of women and girls experiencing interpersonal and institutional violence for the past fifteen years.
Kalla
Joshua Kalla is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University with a secondary appointment as Assistant Professor of Statistics and Data Science. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley (2018). His research studies political persuasion, prejudice reduction, and decision-making among voters and political elites, primarily through the use of randomized field experiments.