NYCLU Staff

EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP

Donna Lieberman
Executive Director
Donna Lieberman has been executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union since December 2001. She has also served as the associate director (1988 - 1993) and founder/director of the NYCLU Reproductive Rights Project (1990 - 2000). Under Lieberman's leadership the NYCLU has expanded the scope and depth of its work, supplementing and strengthening the pursuit of litigation with an aggressive legislative advocacy and a field organizing program that works on behalf of civil liberties and civil rights. As a result, the organization has experienced a resurgence in its role as the state's leading voice for freedom, justice and equality, advocating for those whose rights and liberties have been denied. Its accomplishments have included the following:

• Protecting protest by publishing two major reports on police tactics at demonstrations (Arresting Protest, which documented unlawful police interference with protesters at the February 15, 2002 anti-war demonstration on the eve of the Iraq war, and Rights & Wrongs at the RNC, which covered the 2004 Republican National Convention); deploying hundreds of protest monitors out of the "Protecting Protest" storefront office near the convention center; prevailing in major post-convention litigation challenging the NYPD's "command and control" tactics, which interfered with the right to protest, and challenging the unlawful arrest, detention and fingerprinting of demonstrators at the convention; and uncovering the NYPD's massive and unlawful political surveillance operation
• Challenging the government's misuse of the national security interest as a pretext for violations of individual rights, including the Bush administration's use of torture, the detention at the U.S.-Canada border of American citizens who attend Islamic conferences (Tabbaa v. Chertoff), and the FBI's use of secret National Security Letters and corresponding gag orders (Doe v. Gonzalez)
• Protecting students' rights in the context of aggressive military recruitment by prevailing in a lawsuit on behalf of high school students challenging illegality in the Department of Defense military recruitment data mining operations (Hanson v. Rumsfeld) and leading a nationwide campaign to help students protect their right to withhold personal contact information from military recruiters and to put an end to excessive and abusive military recruiting tactics in the schools
• Reframing the debate on surveillance of lawful activity in New York by continuing to pursue the decades old Handschu lawsuit, which limits political surveillance by the NYPD, and publishing a major report, Who's Watching, that examines the scope and impact of unregulated public and private video camera surveillance on the rights of privacy, speech and association
• Fighting pregnancy discrimination by prevailing in a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit on behalf of six Suffolk County police officers forced to take unpaid leave after the department denied them light duty assignments (Lochren v. Suffolk County)
• Publishing Criminalizing the Classroom: The Overpolicing of New York City Schools, which stirred major public debate over the aggressive and counterproductive over-policing that has plagued New York City schools and cheated students out of nurturing educational environments since the NYPD took control of school safety in 1998

Lieberman began her public interest legal career as a criminal defense lawyer in the South Bronx office of the Legal Aid Society, and she later acted as executive director of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW. She served on the faculty of the Urban Legal Studies Program at City College for nearly a decade. She appears regularly in local and national news coverage and on op-ed pages throughout the state. She also speaks frequently at local and national events on reproductive rights, police practices, freedom of speech, and other civil liberties and civil rights issues. Lieberman graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1970 and earned her J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law in 1973.

Nanette Francia Cotter
Deputy Director
Nanette Francia Cotter became deputy director of the NYCLU in June 2005. Before joining the NYCLU, Francia Cotter was Director of Community Programs at the Food Bank for New York City where she was responsible for maintaining a strong connection between the Food Bank and its member agencies, ensuring the needs of the emergency feeding network were readily met. Prior to this, she was director of administration & personnel at the Food Bank. In this capacity, Francia Cotter provided administrative oversight on all personnel and office issues, and project management on organizational expansion and technology upgrades. She also served in a number of capacities at the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute, including deputy director of the Central Eurasia Project, overseeing all program administration of five Soros national foundations in Central Eurasia. Francia Cotter also was a volunteer with the pioneer group of the U.S. Peace Corps in Kazakhstan (former Soviet Union).

Francia Cotter currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Common Language Project whose mission is to develop and implement innovative multimedia approaches to international and local journalism while focusing on positive, inclusive and humane reporting of stories ignored or underreported by the mainstream media. She earned a B.A. in political science from Rutgers University with a double-minor in Spanish and philosophy, and completed the core curriculum of the Masters of Public Administration Graduate Program from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Francia Cotter also is fluent in Spanish and Russian.

LEGAL DEPARTMENT

Arthur Eisenberg
Legal Director
Arthur Eisenberg is the legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union where he has worked for more than 35 years. During that time he has been involved in more than 20 cases that were presented to the United States Supreme Court. He has litigated extensively around issues of free speech and voting rights. In recent years, Eisenberg has been increasingly involved in litigation concerning national security and civil liberties. He is currently involved in a challenge to the National Security Agency surveillance practices; the use of National Security letters by the FBI; the CIA’s destruction of videotapes relating to interrogation practices; and the video surveillance of political activity by the NYPD. Among the Supreme Court cases that he has litigated are those involving questions of whether a state violates the First Amendment and the constitutional right to vote when it denies voters the right to cast write-in ballots (Burdick v. Takushi, 1992); whether a school board violated the First Amendment in removing 10 books from its high school library (Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico, 1982); and whether the Indiana legislature engaged in unconstitutional political gerrymandering when it drew congressional district lines (Davis v. Bandemer, 1986).

Eisenberg is the co-author, with Burt Neuborne, of the Rights of Candidates and Voters (2nd ed. 1980). He has published law review articles on a range of topics including essays on Lani Guinier (Review Essay: The Millian Thoughts of Lani Guinier, 21 New York University Review of Law and Social Change 617 (1995)); on Robert Bork (Repaid In The Coin Of A Controversialist: The Bork Nomination Process, 58 University of Cincinnati Law Review 1319 (1990)); and on campaign finance reform (Civic Discourse, Campaign Finance Reform, and the Virtues of Moderation, 12 Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature 141 (2000)). He contributed an essay on issues of faith and conscience, "Accommodation and Coherence: In Search of a General Theory for Adjudicating Claims of Faith, Conscience and Culture," to the volume Engaging Cultural Differences (Russell Sage Foundation, 2002).

He has recently lectured on academic freedom at Columbia University and on civil liberties and national security at the University of Colorado, the University of Minnesota and the Cardozo Law School.

Eisenberg has served as chair of the New York State Task Force on Voter Registration and as a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York's Committee on Civil Rights, its Special Committee on Election Law, and its Task Force on the New York State Constitutional Convention.

Eisenberg earned his B.A. degree from The Johns Hopkins University and his J.D. from Cornell Law School. He has taught courses in constitutional litigation, civil rights law and constitutional law at Cardozo Law School and the University of Minnesota Law School.

Christopher Dunn
Associate Legal Director
Christopher Dunn has worked as an ACLU lawyer since 1987 and has been at the New York Civil Liberties Union since 1996. He also is an adjunct professor at the NYU School of Law, where he teaches in the Civil Rights Clinic. In addition, he authors the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties column in the New York Law Journal.

At the NYCLU Dunn has litigated a long series of cases involving the First Amendment rights of protesters and public employees, including challenges to NYPD tactics at the Republican National Convention. He also has led challenges to New York State's death penalty statute, to racially discriminatory education practices, to the NYPD's subway search program, to NYPD racial profiling, to selective enforcement of the law against the homeless, and to various post-9/11 law-enforcement measures. In addition to litigation, Dunn regularly represents groups and individuals in their dealings with the NYPD and other city agencies around protests and demonstrations.

Dunn has written and spoken extensively in a wide variety of forums and has appeared on CNN, Fox National News and Court TV. His op-ed pieces have appeared frequently in the Daily News, Newsday and The New York Times.

Prior to joining the NYCLU in 1996, Dunn served as senior staff attorney with the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union. During his tenure at the ACLU he was responsible for all phases of litigation in class-action, foster-care reform cases and for federal legislative matters related to child welfare. Dunn graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia with a B.A. degree in 1979 and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1985. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable John J. Gibbons of the United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Beth Haroules
Staff Attorney
Beth Haroules has extensive experience as a civil rights litigator, having tried cases involving numerous First Amendment issues, including the right of dissident groups to engage in anonymous political speech. Haroules also has extensive experience in the areas of age and gender discrimination; mandatory drug testing of workfare/welfare recipients; disability rights – specifically, as related to the Willowbrook class action litigation – and mental health law, including "Kendra's Law," involuntary admission and retention of the mentally ill in psychiatric wards; and the involuntary administration of psychotropic medication.

Post- 9/11, Haroules' work has included review and analysis of the USA PATRIOT Act, Homeland Security Act, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act (Border Security Act) of 2002, the Attorney General's revised Guidelines on General Crimes, Racketeering and Terrorism, the SEVIS, CHIMERA and Operation TIPS programs as well as DARPA's IAO programs, including Genoa I and II, Total Information Awareness programs, the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, the federal Smallpox Vaccination Plan, and other similar New York State and New York City legislative initiatives.

Haroules has been involved in the preparation and dissemination of information packages to New York State institutions of higher education and ACLU affiliates concerning foreign student information collection issues, and to New York elementary and secondary school districts and ACLU affiliates concerning the military recruitment provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Her public speaking has taken her to Inns of Court, bar association panels, universities and colleges. She earned her B.A. from Harvard University in 1980 and her J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 1986.

Palyn Hung
Staff Attorney
Palyn Hung joined the NYCLU as a staff attorney in January 2004. Hung is researching police practices around enforcement of anti-loitering and anti-trespassing laws in New York City and whether such practices negatively impact low-income and minority populations. She is also researching First Amendment law as it relates to the anti-loitering laws, freedom of the press and the right to protest. Prior to joining the NYCLU, Hung was a staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project, where she was co-counsel on a class action suit to recover back wages and overtime pay for immigrant delivery workers in New York City, and at South Brooklyn Legal Services in the SSI/Disability Rights Unit.

Hung earned a B.A. from Harvard College in 1995 and a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1998. After law school Hung clerked for Magistrate Judge A. Simon Chrein in the Eastern District of New York.

Corey Stoughton
Staff Attorney
Corey Stoughton is a staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union, where she focuses primarily on racial and economic justice, First Amendment, and national security issues. She is currently lead counsel in Hurrell-Harring v. State of New York, a state-wide indigent criminal defense reform case. Stoughton is also an adjunct clinical professor at NYU School of Law, where she teaches a civil rights clinic.

Prior to joining the NYCLU, she was the Karpatkin Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she litigated a major racial profiling case against the Maryland State Police and worked on various matters related to race discrimination, education reform and national security. She also served as the Civil Rights Fellow at Relman & Associates, in Washington, D.C., where she litigated race, gender and disability discrimination cases in employment, lending and the provision of public accommodations.

Stoughton graduated with high honors from the University of Michigan in 1998 and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2002. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable Cornelia Kennedy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Matthew Faiella
Staff Attorney
Matt Faiella joined the NYCLU as a staff attorney in 2007. He focuses his work on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues, as well as police surveillance and other civil liberties and constitutional issues. Prior to joining the NYCLU's staff, Faiella worked for two years as a staff attorney at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta.

During law school, Faiella led a student group devoted to advocating for the rights of LGBT people, and received the Freeman Award for Civil-Human Rights. He also studied law for a semester in Barcelona, and is fluent in Spanish.

Faiella grew up in Mamaroneck, New York, and earned a B.A. from Boston University in 2002 and a J.D. from Cornell Law School in 2005.

Adriana Piñón
Staff Attorney
Adriana Piñón focuses her work on the education system and various constitutional issues. She joined the NYCLU in 2008, bringing experience with international human rights law and litigation.

Prior to working at the NYCLU, Piñón served as a law clerk at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San José, Costa Rica and assisted the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City with its Alien Tort Statute litigation. She also worked on institutional reform issues with the Centro por Estudios Legales y Sociales in Buenos Aires, Argentina while studying abroad at the Universidad de Buenos Aires during law school.

Piñón graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1998 with an A.B. in history and science, and she received her J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2007 with special recognition for her work in international law.

Lisa Laplace
Contract Attorney
Lisa Laplace came to the New York Civil Liberties Union in 2004 with a broad-based litigation background in complex civil litigations. As a lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell and Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, she litigated several securities and intellectual property law cases. Her work at the NYCLU focuses on disability rights and mental health law -- specifically, as related to the Willowbrook class action litigation.

In addition to litigation, Laplace successfully advocated with New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission to open its courts to the public and regularly advocates on behalf of taxi drivers to protect their constitutional rights.

Laplace is a graduate of Duke University (B.A. 1987) and Brooklyn Law School (J.D. 1990), where she was an articles editor of the Brooklyn Law Review. Laplace is the author of "The Legality of Integration Maintenance Quotas: Fair Housing or Forced Housing?," 55 Brooklyn Law Review 197 (1989), which addresses the constitutionality of racial quotas in housing.

Laplace is admitted to the New York Bar and is admitted to practice law before the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. She is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and served on the Bar Association's Committee on Copyright and Intellectual Property for several years.

Daniel J. Freeman
Liman Fellow
Dan Freeman is a Liman Fellow in the legal department. His work focuses on local court reform, indigent defense, the First Amendment, and the intersection of national security and civil liberties.

While in law school, Freeman was a features and symposium editor for the Yale Law Journal and a student director of Yale's Balancing Civil Liberties and National Security Clinic. He is also the author of The Canons of War, 117 Yale L.J. 280 (2007), a statutory analysis of the powers conveyed by congressional authorizations of the use of military force.

Freeman earned a B.A. in political science and international studies from Yale University in 2004 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 2007. After the completion of his fellowship, he will be clerking for Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York and Judge Raymond C. Fisher of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Demetrius Thomas
Paralegal
Demetrius Thomas graduated from Columbia University with dual B.A. degrees in economics and political science and a concentration in American politics. Before coming to the NYCLU he worked as a litigation paralegal at Nixon, Peabody LLP. He has also worked with Senator Hillary Clinton on women's rights issues, No Child Left Behind and prisoners' rights.

Thomas lives in Harlem. He has traveled throughout the Caribbean and to Burkina Faso.

LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT

Robert Perry
Legislative Director
Robert Perry has worked with the NYCLU as legislative director and is the NYCLU's principal lobbyist. In this capacity he advocates on behalf of proposed legislation implicating civil rights and civil liberties; and he has testified on these issues frequently at hearings conducted by state and city legislative committees.

Perry has been either in a staff position or a consulting attorney with the NYCLU since 1991. In that year, Perry earned a Revson Foundation grant to undertake a national study for the NYCLU that analyzed civilian agencies charged with oversight of policing. He was involved in the NYCLU's efforts to create an independent Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) by amendment to the New York City Charter, and he has written extensively on the CCRB's performance since the all-civilian agency came into existence in 1993.

As a litigation associate with Michael Shen & Associates in the years 2000-2003, Perry practiced in the areas of police misconduct and employment discrimination. Before joining Shen & Associates, Perry was public policy counsel with the Alliance for Consumer Rights, a project of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, where he drafted and advocated on behalf of legislative proposals to ensure access to the civil justice system. Prior to becoming a lawyer, he was a free-lance writer and editor, whose assignments included reproductive rights, juvenile justice and child poverty.

Perry was the Stanford University Law School's Mills Fellow in 2000. The fellowship program invites lawyers to mentor students interested in public interest legal careers. He is a graduate of the City University of New York Law School and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He also attended the graduate program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Lisa Fox-Mullen
Legislative Associate
Lisa Fox-Mullen staffs the NYCLU's Legislative Office in Albany where she monitors, performs analysis and advocates on legislation before members of the New York State Senate and Assembly. Her work addresses issues ranging from the rights of incapacitated patients to reproductive freedom, but focuses primarily on legislation that aims to protect the rights of New York's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, including legislation that would provide marriage for same-sex couples.

Fox-Mullen comes to the NYCLU with experience in opinion research and policy analysis, and a background in international human rights having attended the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. She also performed a year of volunteer service as an AmeriCorps VISTA with Bay Area Community Resources in Richmond, Calif.

Fox-Mullen received her B.A. in anthropology from Tufts University and a M.A. in public policy from the University of California at Los Angeles, where she concentrated on international policy.

Pete Kane
Legislative Assistant
Pete Kane graduated from NYU in 2003 with a B.A. in English and politics and in 2006 with an M.A. in American studies, having written his thesis on ideas of masculinity in evangelical Christian pop culture. He has worked at the NYCLU, first as the executive assistant, then as the liaison to the board of directors and the legislative assistant, since 2006. Currently at work on a satirical novel, Kane enjoys photography, stand-up comedy, blogging, appearing on game shows and films. With 18 to go, he hopes to visit all 50 states before turning 30.

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS PROJECT

Galen Sherwin
Director, Reproductive Rights Project
Galen Sherwin joined the NYCLU's Reproductive Rights Project as staff attorney in April 2006. Sherwin comes to the NYCLU with extensive experience in reproductive rights advocacy. After receiving a Blackmun Fellowship at the Center for Reproductive Rights, she worked on legal challenges to parental notification laws in Oklahoma and Florida, as well as a lawsuit challenging the Kansas attorney general's opinion requiring reporting to state authorities of consensual sexual activity involving minors. Her six years of experience prior to attending Columbia Law School were also dedicated to the struggle for women's equality, first as a legislative aide to State Senator Catherine Abate and then as president of the New York City Chapter of the National Organization for Women.

Corinne Carey
Public Policy Counsel
Prior to joining the NYCLU, Corinne Carey was a researcher with the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch, where she produced reports and engaged in advocacy on domestic human rights issues including the rights of people with criminal records, sex offender registration and community notification laws, and the evacuation of correctional facilities during Hurricane Katrina.

Carey graduated summa cum laude from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law. She began her legal career with a fellowship from the Open Society Institute as the founder and director of the Harm Reduction Law Project, based in the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Program in New York City. She provided direct legal services to drug users in harm reduction programs throughout the city.

A longtime drug law reform and harm reduction advocate, Carey was a founding member of Prevention Point Philadelphia, that city's first needle exchange program. She serves on the board of directors of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, and has spoken about the rights of drug users to local, national and international audiences. She has also taught courses in law and urban problems and civil rights and civil liberties at New York University and Brooklyn College.

Ami Sanghvi
Staff Attorney
Prior to joining the Reproductive Rights Project as a staff attorney in May 2008, Ami Sanghvi worked in the Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project of the Urban Justice Center. There she worked on a variety of issues affecting low and no income New Yorkers, often low income women of color. Sanghvi worked on individual and systemic litigation to ensure fair access of government benefits as well as lead litigation challenging a New York City law on the grounds that it violated the federal Fair Housing Act.

Sanghvi graduated from Fordham School of Law where she was the president of the Stein Scholars for Public Interest and worked in a variety of public interest organizations including the Door's Legal Services Center, the Immigrant Women and Children’s Project at the City Bar Association as a Thurgood Marshall fellow, and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Karyn Brownson
Director, Teen Health Initiative
Karyn Brownson joined the NYCLU’s Reproductive Rights Project as Teen Health Initiative director in January 2008. She first became involved in organizing around issues of women’s health and reproductive justice as a campus activist at Oberlin College, from which she graduated with honors with a B.A. in psychology and women’s studies in 1997. After working as an advocate and organizer with homeless and LGBT youth on the west coast, she attended the Hunter College School of Social Work, where she received an M.S.W. with a concentration in community organization and planning in 2002. Brownson has presented on youth organizing and gender-based programming in a variety of venues and was a participant in the 2004-05 Robert Bowne Foundation Fellowship.

Immediately prior to this position, she worked with the Queens Community House, where she spent four years directing a borough-wide leadership program for immigrant and low-income adolescent girls and providing counseling services for youth and their families.

Ariel Samach
Assistant
Ariel Samach joined the NYCLU as the Reproductive Rights Project assistant in 2006. Before making the big move to New York City, she worked as a patient advocate at a feminist abortion clinic. Samach attended Oberlin College ('05) where she immersed herself in gender and sexuality studies and was a campus activist for reproductive rights, safer sex and sex education.

ADVOCACY DEPARTMENT

Udi Ofer
Advocacy Director
Udi Ofer is advocacy director and legislative counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union. He is responsible for spearheading the NYCLU's public advocacy initiatives. He monitors and analyzes local and federal legislation impacting civil rights and liberties, and drafts legislative testimony, educational materials and action alerts. He speaks and debates frequently on a range of civil liberties matters, including the USA PATRIOT Act, immigrants' rights, right to privacy, racial profiling, and freedom of expression and association.

Ofer led the successful passage of the Right to Assemble and Bill of Rights resolutions through the New York City Council. He drafted legislation recently introduced in the City Council to ensure that individuals arrested by the police are arraigned within 24 hours of arrest. His current work includes responding to anti-immigrant ordinances being introduced in localities throughout New York State.

Prior to joining the NYCLU, Ofer was a Skadden Fellow at My Sisters' Place, a domestic violence organization in Westchester County. While there he initiated the organization's immigration practice, and created a legal clinic to represent battered women on their immigration and public benefits matters. Ofer's past public interest experience includes working at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, a human rights organization in Jerusalem, and Brooklyn Legal Services.

Ofer is a graduate of Fordham University School of Law, where he was a Stein Scholar in Public Interest Law and Ethics, and a Crowley Advocate in International Human Rights. He earned his B.A. from the University of Buffalo.

Ari Rosmarin
Statewide Campaigns Coordinator
Prior to working at the NYCLU full time, Ari Rosmarin served as the NYCLU campus chapter coordinator beginning in January 2004. During this time, the number of NYCLU campus chapters doubled statewide. He served as a NYCLU field organizer from 2006 to 2007 and now serves as the statewide campaigns coordinator. He also coordinated the NYCLU's Project on Military Recruitment and Students' Rights.

Rosmarin's work focuses on national security and civil liberties, immigrants' rights, military recruitment, Real ID and First Amendment issues. As statewide campaigns coordinator, he is responsible for implementing the NYCLU's statewide advocacy initiative and assists in the management of statewide advocacy campaigns. He works to support and train regional staff and volunteers in advocacy techniques, organizing strategies, program issues and NYCLU legislative priorities.

Rosmarin graduated from Columbia University in 2006 with a B.A. in history, specializing in late 19th and 20th century United States history. He also spent the 2004-2005 academic year studying history and government at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the UK. While in school, Rosmarin served as an intern to Los Angeles Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

Chloe Dugger
School to Prison Pipeline Project Coordinator
Chloe Dugger joined the NYCLU as a field organizer working on police accountability in 2007 before taking on the School to Prison Pipeline Project in 2008. Dugger came to the NYCLU from the Excellence Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where she taught first grade.

Originally from Boston, Dugger graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in Ethnic Studies in 2006 after writing a senior thesis entitled “Killing Men of Color: Narrative, Masculinity and Racial Violence.” Chloe also studied Arabic and Political Science at the American University in Cairo in Egypt.

Erica Braudy
Organizer
Erica Braudy joined the NYCLU in 2007 as a field organizer focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. Braudy earned a degree in political science from SUNY, New Paltz in 2006. While there she helped lead Synthesis, a grassroots, student advocacy group for which she organized speakers, educational forums and coordinating groups to take part in rallies leading up to the Iraq War. Braudy also played an integral role in establishing a community center – The New Paltz Cultural Collective – which became the hub of arts and activism in the community. She was very involved with the movement that led to the marriages of 25 gay couples in 2004 by New Paltz mayor, Jason West.

Prior to joining the NYCLU, Braudy was employed at Doing Art Together, a non-profit, educational visual arts organization. She ran hands-on art workshops and assisted the executive director. She is an avid bike rider and loves speaking Spanish, playing guitar and has a passion for youth and education.

COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT

Jennifer Carnig
Director of Communications
Jennifer Carnig joined the NYCLU as communications director in 2007.

She previously worked at Teach For America, the national teacher corps, for which she directed communications and media relations for several regional markets. She has also worked at the University of Chicago, where she managed media relations for religion, humanities and the arts.

Carnig began her career as a religion reporter for The Oakland Tribune. She earned her B.A. in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master's degree in religious studies from the University of Chicago. She is originally from Pittsburgh.

Michael Cummings
Communications Associate
Mike Cummings joined the NYCLU as communications associate in August 2007. Previously, he spent five years reporting and editing at newspapers in Mississippi and Connecticut.

He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University. After college, Cummings spent a year teaching fourth grade at the Dominican Convent School, a small parochial school in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Alberto Morales
Communications Assistant
Alberto Morales is a native Brooklynite who attended Brown University where he earned a B.A. in "Literatures in English." While there, he completed a senior paper entitled: Manipulating Language; a veritable coup d'etat / Lessons: for the downtroddened; From: the Modernistas.

After graduation, he enjoyed a freelance writing career while working as a contract paralegal. He later became the national events coordinator at Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund. After Lambda Legal, he joined The Nation magazine as the inaugural Spira-Lopez fellow.

Morales joined the NYCLU as communications assistant in 2007.

FINANCE DEPARTMENT

Derrick Shareef
Controller
Derrick Shareef comes to NYCLU as an accounting professional with approximately 25 years of work experience in accounting and financial management for progressive not-for-profits, including the Boys and Girls Harbor (as CFO), the National Urban League (as director of finance), and several other organizations for which he served at the senior management level. Shareef earned his B.A. in accounting from the New York Institute of Technology and his M.P.A. in management from Bernard Baruch College.

Originally from Tallahassee, Fla., he has three grown children and enjoys traveling, most recently to the Dominican Republic.

DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT

Mary Hedahl
Director of Development
Mary Hedahl comes to the NYCLU from its uptown partner Symphony Space, where she worked as the interim director of development and the associate director of development for individual giving. Before joining Symphony Space, she was the director of development for the Women's Project, an off-Broadway theater, and the senior development associate for Theatre Development Fund. In addition to her work in the non-profit sector, Hedahl does volunteer work at the East Harlem Block Schools and the Coalition for the Homeless. Her work for these organizations speaks to her commitment to human rights, community organizing and political responsibility.

Keith Kole
Database Manager
Keith Kole hails from Chicago where he managed the Raiser's Edge database for Council for Jewish Elderly and the prestigious Newberry Library. Previous to that, he owned and operated a network game-playing and DVD rental/sales retail store (the first in the northern Chicago area). He studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and RADA in London. Kole is an Oxfordian and would be happy to explain to anyone who is interested exactly what an Oxfordian is.

Molly Galvin
Campaign Manager
Molly Galvin joined the NYCLU development team in 2007.

Galvin earned her B.A. in social and global studies from Antioch College. Her professional background is in the areas of fundraising, volunteer management and community outreach. She has worked at the United Way, Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project and Democracy South. She served as an Americorps* VISTA member at Del Pueblo, Inc., developing sustainable organizational systems and fundraising practices for the newly incorporated nonprofit. From 2003 thru 2006, Galvin worked at Planned Parenthood in Ohio, most recently as a regional advocacy director with the state office's political field program – where she was responsible for recruiting and managing hundreds of volunteers in western Ohio's 33 counties during the fall 2006 election season.

Throughout her career, Galvin has focused on appealing to and engaging new and younger supporters in social justice work through innovative projects like "Get Informed, Get Involved" concerts, "Cocktails for a Cause" events and "Safer Sex and the City" parties. At the NYCLU, Galvin has launched the NYCLU Young Professionals group to attract and cultivate the next generation of civil liberties leaders in New York.

Claudia De Palma
Grant Writer
Claudia De Palma joined the NYCLU's development team in 2008. De Palma earned her B.A. in American studies and literature from Yale University. She comes to the NYCLU from the Guttmacher Institute, where as development associate she secured funds for research, advocacy and public education initiatives to promote sexual health and reproductive rights. She has also worked in book publishing as a freelance copyeditor.

CHAPTERS AND REGIONAL OFFICES

Linda S. Berns
Lower Hudson Valley Chapter Director (Serving Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester counties)
Linda S. Berns has been executive director of the Lower Hudson Valley chapter since 1996. Berns is vice president and judicial chair of the League of Women Voters of Rockland County and chair of the Fair Housing Board. She also serves as a board member of the Human Rights Commission, the Coalition of Democracy and Freedom and the Rockland Housing Action Coalition. Berns also is a mediator/arbitrator in Town and Village Courts and in the Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution.

She earned a B.A. in chemistry from Columbia University and a master's degree in public administration from Long Island University. Past careers include chemist, chemistry teacher (college), and docent at the Center for Holocaust Studies in Rockland County.

Tara Keenan-Thomson
Nassau County Chapter Director (Serving Nassau County)
Tara Keenan-Thomson has been executive director of the Nassau Chapter since March 2006. Prior to her current job, Keenan-Thomson was a graduate teaching assistant in Ireland, an adjunct assistant professor of history in New York City, and a high school English teacher on Long Island.

Keenan-Thomson's doctoral research on the history of women and radical street politics in both parts of Ireland tapped a long-standing interest in social justice issues. Her past volunteer experiences include telephone counseling at the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, helping to coordinate an international conference of human rights defenders at Dublin Castle with Frontline Defenders, acting as a voter registration agent for Americans living in Ireland through Democrats Abroad, and conducting Hurricane Katrina relief work in Mississippi with the American Red Cross. Along with her husband, she continues to volunteer with the American Red Cross as a shelter manager.

She earned a B.A. and an M.A. from New York University, as well as a Ph.D. from Trinity College Dublin's Centre for Contemporary Irish History.

John A. Curr III
Western Regional Office Director (Serving Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chatauqua, Erie, Niagara, Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming counties)
John A. Curr III was named the director in April 2006 for the NYCLU in the Western New York area, after joining the NYCLU as assistant director of the Western Regional Office in December 2000. Active in social justice causes for many years, Curr is a former member of the steering committee for the Erie County Green Party, served as a local coordinator and media liaison for Ralph Nader's "Democracy Rising" and "Stop the War" tours and was a recent organizer with "Peace Has No Borders."

Curr is the host and creator of the NYCLU's "Radio Civil Liberties" program, a weekly broadcast that the WRO began in 2003. Featuring news, interviews and music, Radio Civil Liberties provides insight and information in a creative format that attracts listeners from all over the world.

A charter member of Western New York's Veterans for Peace chapter, Curr is a disabled combat veteran of the first Gulf War, with more than 14 years service in the U.S. Army, Army National Guard and Air Force Reserves. A graduate of the Community College of the Air Force, Curr has also completed undergraduate work at the United States Academy of Health Sciences (Fort Sam Houston, Texas), the University of Maryland, Hawaii Pacific College and Chaminade University (Hawaii).

Barrie Gewanter
Central New York Chapter Director (Serving Cayuga, Cortland, Madison, Oneida, Onondauga, Oswego and Seneca counties)
Barrie Gewanter has been actively involved with the NYCLU for 10 years. She first served as the director of the CNY Chapter from 1996 to 1999, and then joined the Chapter Board. After three years as the executive director of the Central NY Council for Occupational Safety and Health, she returned to the position of NYCLU chapter director in December 2002. She has also served as a NY State Delegate to three ACLU biennial conferences.

In addition to her work with the NYCLU, Gewanter has been an activist and advocate for women's rights, gay and lesbian rights, workplace health and safety, solidarity with workers and unions, and economic justice. She played key roles in the passage of a Living Wage Law in the City of Syracuse as well as the implementation of domestic partner benefits at Syracuse University. She has served on the board of the Central NY Labor-Religion Coalition, the National COSH Council, a New York State AFL-CIO Health & Safety Committee, and the Syracuse Mayor's Commission on the Living Wage. In 2003 and 2004, Gewanter was honored for her civil liberties and social justice work with awards from the Human Rights Commission of Syracuse and Onondaga County and Peace Action of Central New York.

Gewanter holds a B.F.A. in theatrical stage management from Webster University in St. Louis, Mo. and has worked professionally as a stage manager, carpenter and electrician. She also earned a master's degree in sociology from Washington University in St. Louis and spent several years teaching college level courses in sociology and women's studies in both St. Louis and Syracuse.

Melanie Trimble
Capital Region Chapter Director (Serving Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, Saratoga, Warren, Columbia and Washington counties)
Melanie Trimble joined the New York Civil Liberties Union in March 2003. Previously she served as president and vice president of Action of the League of Women Voters of Albany County.

Trimble moved to the Albany area from Chicago in 1990 and has been actively involved in community life in the Capital District since that time. She has participated in changing the charter of Albany County to a county executive form of government, led an internship for Russian and Ukrainian women learning about participation in government, represented the Albany County League at state and national conventions and monitored county government activities.

Trimble taught mathematics for 11 years before leaving to pursue a career in public service. She has an undergraduate degree in psychology and philosophy from Simmons College in Boston, and a master's degree in teaching from Montclair State University in Upper Montclair, NJ.

Gary Pudup
Genesee Valley Chapter Director (Serving Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Orleans, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates counties)
Gary Pudup graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a B.S. in criminal justice. He began his law enforcement career a criminal investigator with the New York State Attorney General's Special Prosecutor's Office for Medicaid Fraud.

He then worked for a local law enforcement agency and spent the last 20 years of a 29 year career with the Monroe County Sheriff's Office. There he had diverse assignments as supervisor of the Airport Security Unit, Parks and Marine Unit, and the Driving While Intoxicated Unit. He rose to the rank of lieutenant and served as a watch commander and ended his career as command officer in charge of the Internal Affairs Unit. While at the sheriff's office, he conducted in-service training for all Monroe County law enforcement agencies in the tactics of domestic subversive groups, specifically white supremacist and militia organizations. Pudup was also an instructor at the Monroe County Community College Training Facility teaching police, fire and emergency medical service personnel Public Safety Critical Incident Management and Command Post Operations.

During his spare time, he earned a commercial pilot's license. He became an FAA certified flight instructor and for a time after his retirement from the sheriff's office, he worked as a charter pilot on a twin-turbine aircraft. He has taken taking graduate level courses in non-profit management at St. John Fisher College and volunteered his time at a Rochester inner city school as a tutor. He served as a board member of the Genesee Valley Chapter for the year prior to taking the position of the Genesee Valley Chapter executive director.

 

Printer-friendly Version