Muneer Ahmad
Muneer Ahmad is a professor of law at American University Washington College of Law, where he teaches in an international human rights clinic and also teaches immigration law. In his clinical teaching, he supervises students in the provision of representation to indigent immigrants in the D.C. area facing a range of legal challenges, including detention and removal, and labor exploitation in low-wage industries. He also supervises students on policy projects, including language access in D.C., as well as the availability of legal and social services in immigrant detention centers. His scholarship examines the intersections of immigration, race, and citizenship in both legal theory and legal practice. He has also written and spoken widely about the impact of the September 11th attacks on Arab, Muslim, and South Asian communities. He is a Commissioner on the District of Columbia Access to Justice Commission, and serves as an advisory board member for the newly created D.C. Community Legal Interpreter Bank. He also serves as an advisory board member to South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). Prior to joining the faculty at American, he was a Skadden Fellow and staff attorney at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles, where he represented low-wage Latina/o and Asian workers in L.A. sweatshops, represented immigrant workers who had been trafficked into the United States, and addressed the impact of welfare reform on immigrant communities. While in Los Angeles, he was also Legal Task Force Chair of the South Asian Network.
Mark Caron
Mark Caron has been an entrepreneur in the wireless communications industry for over a decade. His most recent venture was MobileSpring/Ztango, which Mark founded in 2000 and led as CEO until its sale in 2004. The company developed pioneering text messaging and downloadable content services for many of the largest wireless carriers in North America and Latin America. It was acquired by WiderThan, a global leader in wireless data services. Prior to MobileSpring/Ztango, Mark spent 7 years at Omnipoint where he was a co-founder and the lead marketing and business development executive at Omnipoint Communications Services (OCS). OCS was one of the most successful wireless carrier start-ups of its day, growing to over 1 mil customers before selling to VoiceStream/T-Mobile in 2000. Mark entered the wireless industry in 1989 as a Product Manager at Ericsson Mobile Communications. Prior, Mark worked in telecommunications and IT at General Electric. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB in Computer Science and Economics from Dartmouth College. Mark currently works with several venture-backed wireless companies, as a board member, consultant, and advisor. He is an active member of many non-profit organizations and has been instrumental in launching several youth oriented initiatives.
Peggy Clark
Peggy Clark is the Managing Director of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative. EGI works toward greater human development and security by fostering more equitable international trade and development; strengthening responses to HIV/AIDS in Africa; and shaping more humane migration policies. EGI was founded by Mary Robinson. Peggy Clark was previously the Executive Vice President for Policy Programs at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C. From 1991-2000, she founded and was the Executive Director of the Economic Opportunities Program at the Aspen Institute and received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Microenterprise Development from President Bill Clinton. At the Ford Foundation, she was Co-Chair of the Women’s Program Forum, and Program Officer for Women’s and Employment Grants in the Rural Poverty division. From 1985-1888, she directed the Small Scale Enterprise at Save the Children Federation. Peggy graduated with Honors from Colgate University with a B.A. in Anthropology and Fine Arts, and she earned her Masters from Johns Hopkins University School of International Studies in International Economics and Latin American Economic Development. She is also a board member of the Calvert Foundation, and the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute in the South Bronx.
Kevin Curnin
Kevin J. Curnin is Partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, and Director of Stroock’s Public Service Project in New York. As Director, he is responsible for the overall management of the program, including advising and assisting associates and partners with their pro bono litigation and transactional work. As a litigator, Kevin also carries his own pro bono caseload in addition to handling commercial cases. During Kevin’s tenure, he and the Public Service Project have won numerous awards from city, state, educational and non-profit organizations. Prior to his March 2001 appointment as the Project’s first Attorney Director, Kevin spent more than five years handling a wide range of commercial litigation matters for Stroock. His areas of experience include insurance, banking, securities and arbitration. Before joining Stroock, Kevin clerked for the Hon. Loretta A. Preska, USDJ for the Southern District of New York. Previous to his legal career, Kevin was a teacher and a journalist.
Susan Fryberger
Susan Fryberger is a non-profit executive with over twenty years of development and communications-oriented experience with advocacy-related institutions. Working directly with organizational leaders, board members, key staff, donors, consultants, and peers, Susan has initiated and implemented creative fundraising and communications strategies to meet long- and short-term institutional goals. Currently a consultant, Susan has been chief development officer, responsible for strategic leadership and development at CancerCare, the Ms. Foundation for Women, Human Rights First and Population Communications International.
Patricia Juan Pineda
Patricia Juan Pineda is a labor lawyer in Mexico for the Federation of Independent Unions. Her law firm represents independent unions and individuals with labor complaints. In addition, Pati has advocated nationally regarding labor and human rights legislation. She has also been a human rights consultant in various capacities and worked for the state in the defense of women's and labor rights. In 2005, Pati was selected for the Columbia University Human Rights Advocates Program. Prior to her legal career, she worked as a design professional, a maquila factory worker on the US-Mexican border, and as a undocumented migrant in the United States.
Beth Lyon
Professor Beth Lyon directs the Villanova University School of Law Farmworker Legal Aid Clinic. Her clinic serves indigent migrant workers in employment and immigration matters. Professor Lyon's scholarship includes articles on migration law, immigrant worker rights, and human rights law relating to poverty alleviation. Professor Lyon holds a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and a Masters of Science from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Before starting the Farmworker Legal Aid Clinic at Villanova, she was an attorney with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and a Practitioner-in-Residence in the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the Washington College of Law, American University. She is a member of the District of Columbia, New York and Pennsylvania bar associations.
Neha Misra
Neha Misra is a Program Officer in the Africa Regional Office of the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (Solidarity Center) in Washington, DC, and the Global Coordinator of Solidarity Center Counter Trafficking Programs. The Solidarity Center is a non-profit organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO that promotes labor rights around the world. She recently returned from Indonesia where she was the Deputy Country Director and Program Manager for the Solidarity Center’s Counter Trafficking Project (a partnership with ICMC). She worked in Indonesia for over five years, starting with the Solidarity Center as the Director of the Center’s Democracy project in 1998. Neha has a Juris Doctor degree from the Washington College of Law (WCL), American University (1994), where she focused her studies on international human rights law. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in International Business Economics and Public Policy from Indiana University (1991). Before her assignment in Indonesia, Neha worked in Bosnia and Herzegovina on post-war democracy, and in the United States as a Senior Attorney-Advisor with the U.S. Department of Justice.
David Silversmith
David Silversmith is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Fraud Examiner with Adelman Katz & Mond LLP. For the past 2 years, David has volunteered at the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Site which provides free tax preparation and financial education to low-and moderate-income residents in lower Manhattan. David is a resident of the East Village in Manhattan and has been a member of Community Three since 2006 where he has served on the Housing, Parks, and Economic Development Committees. David is a graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and a second BS in Finance.
Rebecca Smith
Rebecca Smith is the Coordinator of the Justice for Low Wage and Immigrant Workers' Program at (NELP). Since graduating from the University of Washington School of Law, she has worked representing low-wage and immigrant workers on employment issues. Rebecca has written, testified, litigated and lectured extensively on immigrant workers’ employment rights, and wage and hour and unemployment insurance law.