Prior to joining IRAP, Kristine was the Director of the Refugee Legal Aid Program (RLAP) at St. Andrew’s Refugee Services in Cairo, Egypt, where she supervised a team of 20 legal staff and volunteers representing refugees in resettlement, refugee status determination, and protection matters. Before joining RLAP, Kristine was a litigation partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP in Washington, DC.

Kristine graduated with highest honors from the George Washington University Law School and received a B.S. from Boston College.

Kristine is a member of the District of Columbia bar.

Charlotte Bertal Nasser is the Europe Legal Program Manager at IRAP. In this role, Charlotte is in charge of IRAP’s program for Europe, including the development of Complementary Pathways opportunities for refugees and asylum seekers to European countries. 

Charlotte previously held the position of Syria Case Manager at the IRAP Lebanon Office for three years. Prior to joining IRAP, Charlotte worked for the UNHCR Resettlement Unit in Lebanon and for the French Asylum Agency as a Protection Officer. She also held the position of Humanitarian Officer at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Charlotte co-founded the non-profit “Yalla! For Kids” aimed at providing free quality education and psychosocial support to Syrian refugee children.

Charlotte holds a Master’s Degree in International Public Law from the University of Paris 2 Assas and a Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid from the University of Aix-Marseille 3. She also graduated in Arabic Language and Oriental Studies at the University of Aix-Marseille 1.

Aicha El Sadda is the Complementary Pathways Caseworker at IRAP. Aicha’s role involves conducting interviews with vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers, and providing them with legal and administrative assistance in family reunification and other legal pathways to safety.

Prior to joining IRAP, Aicha worked as a Senior Legal Officer in the Unaccompanied Children and Youth Legal Aid Program (UCYLAP) at St. Andrew’s Refugee Services in Cairo, Egypt, where she worked to provide legal representation and support for unaccompanied children throughout their refugee status determination process with UNHCR. Before joining St. Andrew’s Refugee Services, Aicha completed an internship with the Mobile Info Team, an organization providing legal aid to refugees and asylum seekers in northern Greece.

Aicha holds a Master’s degree in Crisis Management from the Institute of Economic and Social Development Studies and a Master’s degree in International and European Business Law from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Aicha holds a double Bachelor’s degree in Law from Cairo University and from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Aicha further attended a training by Médecins du Monde on mental health identification, assessment and response.

Julia Kessler is the Project Manager with IRAP’s Complementary Pathways team. In this role, Julia assists the Legal Services Department in piloting and building sustainable legal assistance projects for refugees seeking relocation through family reunification and other complementary pathways. Prior to this role, Julia was a Legal Advocate and Casework Manager with IRAP’s U.S. Legal Services team. 

Julia was previously a Program Coordinator with Facing the Nakba, a project of Jewish Voice for Peace, and an International Advocacy Officer with Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association in Ramallah, Palestine.

Julia holds an M.S. in Global Affairs from New York University, specializing in human rights and international law. During this time, she was a Research Assistant focused on human rights and social services in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and an Advocacy Intern with the Center for Constitutional Rights’ Government Misconduct and Racial Justice program. She received her B.A. in Middle East and North African Studies from the University of Michigan.

Tiba Fatli is an ILI Caseworker at IRAP. In this role, Tiba supports the Intake and Legal Information team in screening and responding to inquiries from individuals requesting assistance in refugee resettlement and other migration processes, and facilitating legal counseling and information to refugees and asylum seekers.

Prior to joining IRAP, Tiba worked with research institutions and international organizations including the Danish Refugee Council in Duhok, Iraq and the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies in Cairo, Egypt. Most recently, Tiba worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Cairo as a Liaison Associate, where she researched and drafted reports on statelessness in the Arab region and worked with the League of Arab States on drafting a regional agreement to eradicate and prevent statelessness.

Tiba holds a B.A. in International Relations from the State University of New York at Geneseo and an M.A. in Migration and Refugee Studies with a focus on international law from the American University in Cairo. Tiba has been awarded an Andrew Mellon research fellowship to conduct research on environmental change and forced movements in the Arab region. She speaks Arabic and English.

Ra’ed Almasri is a Caseworker at IRAP Jordan. Ra’ed’s role focuses on interviewing, interpreting for and liaising with vulnerable refugee populations with the goal of providing them with resettlement-related legal services.

Faten Khalil is the Program and Operations Assistant at IRAP Jordan. In this role, Faten assists the Jordan Program and Operations Director in the day to day Office Operations and Management.

Prior to joining IRAP, Faten performed the role of Office Manager at the Center for Victims of Torture CVT Jordan, CVT works with War and Torture Survivors by providing them with Psychosocial Counselling, Physiotherapy and Social Services. Prior to CVT, Faten worked in a number of companies in the Private Sector in Jordan as an HR Officer.

Faten holds a B.Sc in Hotels Management from Jordan Applied University for Hospitality and Tourism Education and a Diploma in Tourism Services from Al Arabia College.

Peter Stavros is a Supervising Attorney at IRAP’s Jordan office.

Prior to joining IRAP, Peter was a fellow at UNICEF’s Jordan Country Office Child Protection Section. He has also interned at the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the U.S. Protection Unit at UNHCR in Washington, D.C., and the International Program at Earthjustice in San Francisco. Peter has previously taught Environmental Law and Policy at Boston College and currently teaches Forced Migration and Refugee Studies in Arabic at Middlebury College.

Peter received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was co-director of IRAP’s Harvard Chapter. He was also a student attorney at the International Human Rights Clinic and the Harvard Immigration Project. Peter studied at the Hague Academy of International Law, obtained a certificate in Transnational Law from the University of Geneva, and took classes at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Peter received his Honors B.A. from the University of Toronto.

Kate List is IRAP’s Middle East Field Director. In this role, Kate oversees the work of IRAP’s field offices in Amman and Beirut.

Prior to joining IRAP, Kate worked in the Refugee Protection Department of Human Rights First in Washington, D.C. and studied in Damascus, Syria as a CASA Fellow (Center for Arabic Study Abroad) and in Rabat, Morocco as a Fulbright Scholar.

Kate graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law where she co-founded Penn’s IRAP chapter and also received a Master’s Degree in Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations. She graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA in Political Science, Comparative Literature, and Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations.

Kate is a member of the Pennsylvania bar.

Firas Abi Ghanem is the Lebanon Programs and Operations Director at IRAP. In this role, Firas is responsible for ensuring smooth and effective operations in accordance with Lebanese laws, and maintaining and developing IRAP programs in Lebanon.

Prior to joining IRAP, Firas worked for six years with INTERSOS – an Italian humanitarian organization – managing the quality department, government relations, communications, complaint mechanism and investigations, in addition to contributing to donor relations and strategic programming. 

During the past 15 years, Firas has been active in Lebanese civil society, in the fields of environment, education, and human rights, with particular involvement in campaigning for the rights of female migrant domestic workers in Lebanon. 

In his spare time, Firas runs ‘Firas Yatbokh’, a cooking event that promotes cultural exchange through food and music. 

Firas holds an M.A. in Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding from the University of Bradford, U.K., and a B.A. in Business Administration from the American University of Beirut. In 2008, he was awarded the Chevening Fellowship from the British Council in Beirut. 

Wendy Fu is IRAP’s Director of Pro Bono. In this role, she builds pro bono capacity and support for IRAP’s work and develops new ways to organize and leverage the resources of the legal community. 

Prior to joining IRAP, Wendy was the Attorney & Pro Bono Programs Coordinator at If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, and an associate at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. At Weil, Wendy was part of the antitrust practice group and also worked pro bono on behalf of asylum seekers and victims of trafficking.

Wendy received her B.A. with honors from the University of California, Berkeley, and her J.D. from Cornell Law School. During law school, she interned with the AIDS Legal Referral Panel in San Francisco and the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Honolulu. 

Wendy is a member of the New York bar. 

Charlotte Sall is IRAP’s Student Coordinator. In this role, she supports IRAP’s 30 law school chapters across the United States and Canada. 

Prior to joining IRAP, Charlotte interned in the case management department of a refugee resettlement agency in Chicago. She also worked on the program management team at Pratham Education Foundation, an education non-profit in New Delhi, India.

Charlotte graduated phi beta kappa and summa cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in Sociology. After college, Charlotte taught English in rural South Korea on a Fulbright grant. She also spent a year working with Roma youth in Serbia. Charlotte received her M.A. in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago, where she earned a certificate in Global Social Development Practice focusing on forced migration. 

Carmen Maria Rey is the U.S. Legal Services Director at IRAP. In this role, Carmen leads a team of attorneys and caseworkers that provide individual legal assistance to refugees and oversees the organization’s national pro bono network.

Carmen started her legal career in 2006 as an Equal Justice Works Fellow. Prior to joining IRAP, Carmen served as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Law at Brooklyn Law School, where she was the Co-Director of the Safe Harbor immigration clinic, and as the Director of the Immigration Intervention Project at Sanctuary for Families, where she led a legal unit specializing in representing survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and related forms of gender-based violence trying to obtain or defend their immigration status.

Carmen holds a B.A. in English from New York University and a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School. She is fluent in Spanish, French, and Gallego, and is a respected authority on U.S. immigration law. Carmen has authored several articles and reports on U.S. immigration and, as an immigrant herself, likes to spend her free time volunteering to help other immigrants in the United States apply to become United States Citizens.

Carmen is a member of the New York bar.

Jennifer Babaie is a Supervising Attorney in IRAP’s Legal Services Department. In this role she focuses on representing refugees and other displaced people, and provides expertise and guidance to pro bono teams working on IRAP-referred cases. She also supervises other staff in the Legal Services Department at IRAP.

She previously worked for the Open Society Justice Initiative as a Litigation Fellow providing litigation support on cases before the European Court of Human Rights and the Committee Against Torture. She also served as a judicial clerk and attorney advisor for a U.S. immigration court in Washington State where she advised judges adjudicating asylum claims, claims under the Convention Against Torture, and on credibility issues. Before law school, she managed the volunteer program and resettlement case docket for the International Rescue Committee in San Jose, California.

During law school, Jennifer spent a year working with the U.N. International Law Commission developing research on states duties to prevent and prosecute crimes against humanity. She recently authored a chapter in A Practical Guide to Using International Human Rights and Criminal Law Procedures focused on how human rights defenders may engage with European human rights institutions. 

Jennifer received a J.D. and M.A. in International Law and Organizations from George Washington University and a B.S. from Santa Clara University magna cum laude. She speaks Greek and Assyrian, and is learning Spanish.

Jennifer is a member of the California bar.

Stephanie Gee is a Supervising Attorney in IRAP’s Legal Services Department. She previously served as IRAP’s Jordan Office Director, managing the team based in our Amman office.

Prior to joining IRAP, she was a Robert L. Bernstein Fellow at Human Rights Watch. Her research and advocacy focused on refugees’ right to education, access to asylum, and the importance of global responsibility-sharing amidst unprecedented levels of displacement.

Stephanie holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was a student director of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and an editor of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. She was also a member of Yale’s IRAP chapter and the Legal Services for Immigrant Communities Clinic. She interned with IRAP in Amman, the Mental Disability Advocacy Center in Budapest, and the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition in Washington, D.C. She received her B.A. in English from Williams College, where she also completed a Jewish Studies concentration and studied advanced Arabic.

Stephanie is a member of the Maryland bar.

Sara Gomez is the Legal Assistant at IRAP. In this position, she works closely with both the legal and litigation departments.

Julie Kornfeld is a Staff Attorney at IRAP in the Legal Services Department. In this role, Julie directly represents refugees and other persecuted individuals to help them navigate their legal pathways to safety. Julie also trains and mentors IRAP’s law firm and student attorneys to represent and advocate on behalf of refugees.

Before joining IRAP, Julie was a Program and Refugee Asylum Law Fellow at the Human Rights Watch, an extern at Lawyers for Human Rights in Johannesburg, South Africa, and a Dean’s Public Interest Fellow at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Caribbean Protection Unit. Julie has also represented human trafficking survivors through the University of Michigan Human Trafficking Clinic. Prior to her legal career, Julie worked for a development NGO in Kampala, addressing the needs of refugees and internally displaced persons throughout Uganda.

Julie holds a B.S. in Social Policy, Political Science, and Global Health from Northwestern University and received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. She is currently a visiting clinical lecturer in law at Yale Law School.

Julie is a member of the District of Columbia bar.

Alaa Majeed is a Casework Coordinator in the Legal Services Department. With extensive experience working with refugees and the displaced since 2004, she has volunteered and worked with various international non-profit and non-governmental organizations, as well as news outlets as a reporter, translator, cultural consultant and researcher. Among the non-profit and NGOs is the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Arab-American Family Support Center, International Rescue Committee, Global Exchange, People in Need, Voices in The Wilderness, and Nature Iraq. She reported on human rights, women and children, and refugee issues in war-torn Iraq for various international media outlets, such as The Christian Science Monitor, Al-Jazeera English, National Public Radio, The New Yorker, United Press International, The Independent, The Sunday Times,CBS 60 Minutes, The Nation, and Free Speech Radio News. She was featured in many American newspapers and magazines, as well as radio stations. 

Majeed is the winner of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Award, winner of grants from the Pulitzer Center for International Crisis Reporting, and CUNY’s International Journalist-in Residence Fellowship. 

Megan McDonough is a Supervising Attorney at IRAP. In this role, Megan supervises Staff Attorneys in IRAP’s Legal Services Department and provides legal representation to refugees and humanitarian migrants.

Amira Mikhail is a Staff Attorney at IRAP in the Legal Services Department, where she represents refugees and displaced individuals in seeking safety and reuniting with their family members. She also trains and mentors pro bono attorneys and students to represent and advocate on behalf of refugees and immigrants. 

Amira is also serving as the director of Eshhad: Center for the Protection of Minorities, a nonprofit that is focused on the protection of religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East. Prior to joining IRAP, Amira worked as a Non-Resident Fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and as a legal fellow at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.

Amira is a graduate of Washington College of Law at American University, where she worked with the UNROW Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic, the Human Rights Brief, and as a research assistant to the Chairperson of the United Nations Committee against Torture. She also interned with the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch and has been published on a variety of legal and social issues relating to Egypt and the Middle East. She graduated from Covenant College with a B.A. in Psychology and is bilingual in Arabic and English.

Amira is a member of the New York and District of Columbia bars.

Jennifer Patota is a Senior Supervising Attorney in the Legal Services Department at IRAP. In this role, Jennifer represents individual clients from around the world, provides expertise and guidance to pro bono legal teams working on IRAP-referred cases, and supervises other staff in the Legal Services Department at IRAP.

Prior to joining IRAP, Jennifer was an associate at Latham & Watkins LLP and Pryor Cashman LLP, where her pro bono work included representation of immigrant women in abusive relationships in their self-petitions for lawful permanent residency pursuant to the Violence Against Women Act and assisting Holocaust survivors with applications for reparations from the German government.

Jennifer holds a B.A. in Linguistics from Brown University and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude. Additionally at Fordham University School of Law, Jennifer was selected to Order of the Coif and served as a Senior Notes & Articles Editor on the Fordham Urban Law Journal.

Jennifer is a member of the New York bar.

Marissa Ram is a Senior Staff Attorney in IRAP’s Legal Services Department. She assists individuals navigating refugee recognition, resettlement, and visa application processes though mentorship of pro bono teams and in-house representation.

Prior to joining IRAP, Marissa co-produced “Refugee RealTalk,” a podcast featuring conversations with refugees in Berlin, Germany. She was a 2013-2015 Equal Justice Works Fellow at the New York Legal Assistance Group’s LGBTQ Law Project and Safe Horizon Anti-Trafficking Program, where she represented LGBTQ youth and immigrants in a variety of civil legal matters, as well as employment, immigration, and family law cases. 

Marissa is a graduate of the UC Berkeley School of Law. She represented asylum seekers and refugees in indefinite detention as a UC Human Rights Center Fellow with the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties in Sydney, Australia. Before law school, she provided health education for homeless youth engaged in the sex trade in Mumbai, India. She earned her B.A. in Political Science with a Minor in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and conducted research on freedom of expression while in residence at Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.

Marissa is a member of the New York bar.

Stephen Poellot is the Legal Strategy Director at IRAP. In this role, Stephen leads IRAP’s commitment to developing new and innovative areas of practice, expertise, and legal strategy in refugee law.

Stephen was a founding director of IRAP during his first year at Yale Law School. Prior to law school, Stephen was an investigator at the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board and worked at the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University of Cairo. During law school, he received the Charles G. Albom Prize for excellence in the area of judicial and administrative appellate advocacy in connection with a Law School clinical program. After law school, he was a Kirby Simon Summer Fellow at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva and a Robert L. Bernstein International Human Rights Fellow at the Refugee Legal Aid Project in Egypt. He is currently a visiting clinical lecturer in law at Yale Law School and has taught refugee law at Fordham University School of Law.

Stephen holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Columbia College. He is a member of the New York bar.

Kathryn Austin is a Litigation Staff Attorney at IRAP. In this role, she works on impact litigation in U.S. courts to advance and defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and other people in need of humanitarian relocation. 

Before joining IRAP, Katie represented noncitizens in immigration court and before USCIS with the Legal Aid Society of Rochester, NY, and worked on false advertising and residential mortgage-backed securities litigation as an associate at Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler LLP in New York.  

Katie is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of Oxford, and Stanford Law School, where she was a member of IRAP’s SLS chapter. From 2013-2015, she clerked for the Honorable Amalya L. Kearse and the Honorable Susan L. Carney, both of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Katie is a member of the New York bar.

Yael Ben Tov is an Equal Justice Works Fellow in IRAP’s litigation department. In this role, she works on impact litigation in U.S. courts to advance and defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and other people in need of humanitarian relocation. Her fellowship project seeks to enforce refugees’ right to be safely reunited with their families through the follow-to-join process.

Yael graduated magna cum laude from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and received the Telford Taylor Award for outstanding achievement in the fields of constitutional law and international human rights. She was a Notes Editor on the Cardozo Law Review and participated in the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic, where her work focused on protecting immigrants’ right to access meaningful review in federal courts. She interned at the Rhode Island Public Defender office as an Appellate Clerk and at African Services Committee. Prior to law school, she was the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Program Fellow at Lawyers Without Borders.

Yael holds a B.A. in History from Yale University and an M.A. in Human Rights and Transitional Justice from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem Faculty of Law.

Geroline Castillo is the first inaugural Nierenberg International Refugee Assistance Project Fellow  in IRAP’s litigation department. In this role, she works on impact litigation in U.S. courts to advance and defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and other people in need of humanitarian relocation.

Geroline graduated cum laude from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she received a Jacob Burns Medal for her work in the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic and the Benjamin B. Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic. She was also an editor of the Cardozo Law Review.

During law school, Geroline interned at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she provided litigation support for cases that focused on racial injustice and abusive immigration practices. She also interned at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative, where she provided direct legal services to individuals in removal proceedings detained in Folkston, Georgia.

Geroline earned a B.A. from Boston College in Sociology with a minor in International Studies, Ethics and Social Justice.

Linda Evarts is a Litigation Staff Attorney at IRAP.  In this role, she works on impact litigation in U.S. courts to advance and defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and other people in need of humanitarian relocation.

Prior to joining IRAP, Linda was a staff attorney at The Bronx Defenders, where she represented hundreds of indigent clients, tried six felony and misdemeanor cases, and successfully litigated numerous motions to suppress and motions to dismiss charges.  After law school, Linda served as a law clerk to the Honorable Dolly M. Gee of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.  

Linda graduated from Yale Law School, where she received the C. Larue Munson Prize for her work in the Veterans Legal Services Clinic and the Criminal Justice Clinic.  Prior to law school, Linda was a U.S. Student Fulbright Scholar in Bogotá, Colombia. Linda earned a B.A. from Brown University with Honors in Latin American Studies. Linda speaks Spanish.

Linda  is a member of the New York bar.

Melissa Keaney is a Senior Staff Attorney in IRAP’s Litigation Department. In this role, she works on impact litigation in U.S. courts to advance and defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and other people in need of humanitarian relocation.

Prior to joining IRAP, she was a staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center for nearly a decade. Her practice has focused on protecting and refugees through impact litigation and advocacy, with a particular focus on issues related to law enforcement abuses.

Melissa is a graduate of Loyola Law School Los Angeles, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review. She was awarded the Honorable Darlene R. Seligman Immigration Law Award for her work in the field of immigrant rights. Prior to law school Melissa worked for a Palestinian NGO, which brought her frequently to the Middle East where she developed a basic level of Arabic.

Melissa is a member of the California bar.

Serena Kumalmaz is a Paralegal in IRAP’s litigation department. In this role, she supports impact litigation in U.S. courts to advance and defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and other people in need of humanitarian relocation.

Prior to working at IRAP, she interned with the Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project, where she worked on housing law, immigration issues, and rights to food and cash assistance in New York City.

Serena graduated from Columbia University with a B.S. in Environmental Engineering and a minor in Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies. During college, she participated in and led community organizing efforts around various issues, such as equitable mental healthcare access, mass incarceration, and advocacy for Palestine. She was a 2018 recipient of the OMA Graduation Cord for her efforts in promoting justice and exploring diversity issues. For her thesis, she designed a wastewater recycling and distribution system to provide affordable, clean water for the population of Puerto Rico internally displaced by Hurricane Maria, a major confluence of her engineering training and her passion for social justice. Serena speaks Arabic.

Kate Meyer is a Litigation Staff Attorney at IRAP. In this role, she works on impact litigation in U.S. courts to advance and defend the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and other people in need of humanitarian relocation.

Prior to joining IRAP, Kate was a Legal Fellow at the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she brought impact litigation to advance the rights of pregnant and parenting workers and eliminate gender stereotypes in schools. During law school, Kate represented asylum seekers through the California Asylum Representation Clinic, counseled clients in the health practice of the East Bay Community Law Center, and was on the editorial board of the Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice. 

Kate holds a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law and a B.A. cum laude in Government from Cornell University. Kate speaks Spanish.

Kate is a member of the New York bar.

Sunil Varghese is the Policy Director, supervising IRAP’s policy team. In this role, he facilitates the advancement of IRAP’s systemic advocacy positions to ensure and improve pathways to safety, with dignity and due process, for refugees and highly vulnerable individuals.

He previously served as Counsel to U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein where he focused on immigration matters for the Senate Judiciary Committee. He also spent over seven years in various management, training, policy, and adjudication positions with the Refugee, Asylum and International Operations Directorate of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, including as the Deputy Director of the Newark Asylum Office.  He was also the Asylum Program Attorney at the Human Rights Initiative of North Texas and an Associate at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP.

Sunil received his J.D. and Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies from Georgetown University and undergraduate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.

Sunil is a member of the New York bar.

Adam Bates is a Policy Counsel at IRAP. Based in Washington, D.C., Adam advocates for IRAP’s clients and mission in the nation’s capital.

Before coming to IRAP, Adam spent three years working on criminal justice and civil liberties issues at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. His work there focused on police surveillance, police militarization, the War on Drugs, and the War on Terror.

Adam received a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and an M.A. in Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School. Prior to law school, Adam earned his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Miami, where he also walked on to the Hurricanes football team.

Adam is a member of the Oklahoma bar.

Henrike Dessaules is the Communications Director at IRAP. In this role, Henrike leads IRAP’s communications strategy and media relations.

Prior to joining IRAP, Henrike managed programs and communications at the Council for European Studies, a research institute at Columbia University promoting research on European policy and social affairs through international conferences, digital publications, and research grants. Before moving to New York, she also managed communications for the European Network for Women in Leadership in Paris, France.

Henrike holds an M.A. in North American Studies, History, and Literature from Freie Universität Berlin and has worked as a translator between English, German, and French. She has written numerous articles on the intersection of gender and migration and volunteered with New Women New Yorkers and Women’s Information Network.

Boris Alvarado-Gonzalez is the Digital Communications Coordinator at IRAP. In this role, he is in charge of IRAP’s digital and social media operations.

Prior to joining IRAP, Boris was the Development and Communications Coordinator at Centro Legal de la Raza, a legal services nonprofit in Oakland, CA that provides access to legal representation to low-income, immigrant, and Latino communities in Northern California. After graduating from college, he completed a marketing internship with NPR’s sponsorship division, National Public Media. 

Boris received his B.A. in Political Science and Legal Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and is fluent in English and Spanish.

Kelly Gramp is the Director of Development at IRAP. In this role, Kelly leads IRAP’s fundraising efforts and manages a team dedicated to cultivating a growing network of supporters and strengthening and sustaining the organization’s development program, including individual, corporate, and institutional fundraising support.

Prior to joining IRAP, Kelly spent five years in the department of Donor Relations & National Programs at the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science, an organization that develops philanthropic support for a leading scientific research institution. Throughout her tenure at the American Committee, Kelly was responsible for executing national and international fundraising and leadership programs, which focused on advancing the organization in the areas of donor cultivation, education, and recognition. Additionally, Kelly assumed responsibility for many donor service initiatives and governance liaison functions, including working closely with members of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors.

Kelly received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Wagner College, where her studies and internships focused on nonprofit community engagement.

Tania is IRAP’s Development Coordinator. In this role, she supports the daily operations of the Development Department, including processing donations, responding to donor inquiries, and managing IRAP’s fundraising database.

Prior to joining IRAP, she spent two years in Germany, first as a fellow with the Congress-Bundestag Young Professionals Exchange, through which she studied German refugee resettlement and integration policies, and then as the project coordinator for a local NGO, where she designed and implemented professional development and cultural exchange programs for refugees. Before moving to Germany, she assisted with fundraising at the American Society of International Law.

Tania graduated summa cum laude from the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University with a B.A. in political science and minors in European history and Italian. While at ASU, she founded the campus chapter of a national student advocacy organization, including leading the development of a bipartisan immigration reform proposal that was adopted as the basis for the national organization’s immigration policy platform.

Kate Jellema is the Director of Institutional Giving at IRAP. In this role, Kate leads IRAP’s grant writing and foundation fundraising efforts.

Prior to joining IRAP, Kate was the Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies at Marlboro College in Marlboro, Vermont, where she led academic programs in sustainable business, nonprofit management, teaching English as a second language and teaching for social justice, and stewarded the College’s “Changemaker Campus” partnership with the Ashoka Foundation. Kate was also the founder and director of the Center for New Leadership, Vermont’s hub for social sector education and training, and the co-creator of Benchmarks for a Better Vermont, a  statewide federally-funded initiative to strengthen social sector accountability. In these roles, Kate cultivated foundation support, led strategic fundraising initiatives, and managed a portfolio of private and federal donors. 

Kate received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and her MA from Johns Hopkins, where her research, supported by the MacArthur Foundation, the Social Science Research Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the National Science Foundation, examined the experience of Vietnamese asylum seekers in Hong Kong. Kate received her undergraduate degree with highest honors from the University of Michigan, where her thesis focused on the history of Mexican migrant farmworkers in Michigan.

Sarah Morton is IRAP’s Chief Operating Officer. She keeps IRAP’s backend running, including human resources, finance, IT, facilities, and administration.

Sarah joined IRAP in June 2017. In the year before she was a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow in Berlin, where she did research comparing criminal justice and prison policies in Europe with those in the United States. She was previously the Administrative Director at the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project (PLAP) at Harvard Law School. She has also worked at Harvard Business School and GLBTQ Advocates and Defenders (GLAD).

Sarah is especially proud of her time serving on the board of the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund and her eight years playing for and eventually coaching one of Boston’s all-gender softball teams: the Trailblazers.

Sarah received her B.A. from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire where she was a Senior Fellow. Her M.A. in English Literature, with a specialty in Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change, is from the University of Sussex in Brighton, England.

Emmy Hammond is the Executive Assistant at IRAP. Her responsibilities include providing logistical, administrative, and research support to the Executive Director and the extended team of department directors as needed.

Before joining IRAP, Emmy interned with Land is Life, a global grassroots network of indigenous activists. While there, she collaborated directly with indigenous partners to promote indigenous rights and participation in national and international political spaces. As a recipient of the Cultural Vistas Fellowship, Emmy spent a summer interning at Fundación Leer, a children’s literacy organization in Buenos Aires. She also spent time in Beijing through a cross-cultural exchange fellowship sponsored by the Bank of China.

Emmy holds a B.A. in Political Science with minors in Spanish and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies from New York University.

Phil List is IRAP’s Director of Analytics, Technology, & Automation. In this role, he directs IRAP’s data and technology strategy and leads the tech team.

Before joining IRAP, Phil worked at the Shodor Education Foundation in Durham, NC: teaching computational science, coordinating the Blue Waters Student Internship Program, and writing software. Upon moving to the Middle East, he worked as a software engineer until joining IRAP in 2016.

He earned a B.S. in Computer Science with a minor in Math from NC State University. He then pursued studies in philosophy and theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia for three years.

Ashwed Patil is the Technology Systems Manager at IRAP. In this role, he is in charge of managing IRAP’s fundraising database and assists with general tech support and legal information management. 

Prior to joining IRAP, Ashwed worked with Keshif, a tech startup in Washington DC, where he assisted with developing data analytics and visualization dashboards for various international nonprofit organizations and government agencies. He has also worked at the Indiana University Libraries, where he assisted with data-driven assessments of library operations and services. During his undergraduate studies in India, he volunteered with a local nonprofit as a tutor for low-income and underprivileged students.

Ashwed holds an M.S. in Information Science from Indiana University Bloomington; while there, he published a research paper about technology serving the information needs of refugees.

Ankita Suri is the Operations Manager at IRAP. In her role, she focuses on human resources, recruitment, IT and special projects. She also spearheads IRAP’s anti-oppression efforts.

Prior to joining IRAP, Ankita was a Program Manager at All Star Code where she managed and designed programs providing underrepresented youth populations the skills, networks and mindset to succeed in the tech industry. Previously, she coordinated scholarship and fellowship programs for human rights activists at the Open Society Foundations.

Ankita holds a B.A. in International Political Science, Sociology and Art History from the City University of New York – Baruch. During her time at Baruch, she interned at Medecins Sans Frontieres, Butterflies NGO – New Delhi, and the World Conference of Religions for Peace. More recently, she has participated in the Grantmaking Advisory Committee at the New York Women’s Foundation, and the Fellows Program Expert Working Group at the International Institute of Education.

Alice Wang is the Operations Coordinator at IRAP. In this role, Alice supports a variety of administrative functions, including human resources, finance, and information technology.

Prior to joining IRAP, Alice worked in Operations and Concert Production at Riverside Symphony, a professional freelance orchestra that regularly performs at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, among other venues.

She is an active volunteer with CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, a Chinatown-based nonprofit that advocates for tenants’ rights in rent-stabilized and public housing, as well as language access for New York’s immigrant communities.

Alice holds an M.Phil. in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge and completed her B.A. in German Studies and English Literature at Dartmouth College.