CO-FOUNDER, PRESIDENT

Becky (she/her) is an attorney and the Director of Economic Empowerment in the Office of the State Treasurer.  Becky started working with asylum seekers more than ten years ago through her law school’s immigration clinic. Since then, she has worked in a pro bono capacity on a number of immigration matters, including volunteering at the southern border in 2018 and 2019. In 2021, she co-founded the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. She is licensed to practice law in Vermont and New York. Becky lives in Burlington, VT with her husband and three children.

CO-FOUNDER, VICE PRESIDENT

Kate (she/they, ella/elle) is the Executive Director at Milk with Dignity Standards Council (MDSC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the monitoring and enforcement of labor rights on farms in the Milk with Dignity Program. MDSC also works to connect participating farms to funding and support from housing partners, making it possible to build new farmworker housing units around the state. Kate holds a doctorate in Latin American Studies from the University at Albany (SUNY) and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, where they researched social movement organizing in Colombia. After teaching college for a decade, Kate worked in asylum seeker support and advocacy in Vermont and co-founded the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project before joining MDSC. Kate lives in Burlington with her two children.

TREASURER

Juan (he/him, el) is a mission-driven finance professional, small business owner, and asylum seeker originally from Venezuela. He works as the Community Relationship Banker for Mascoma Bank and previously worked with Chase, Citizens, and M&T. His arepas food truck, the Caracas, features in Burlington’s summertime South End Get Down events.

SECRETARY

Aisa (she/her) is an alum of Vermont Law and Graduate School and a licensed attorney practicing in New York and Georgia. As a principal of Diallo Law, she actualizes her deep-seated passion for immigration law representing individuals held in detention facilities and those facing immigration detainers across the United States. Raised in The Bronx by Guinean parents, she witnessed firsthand the challenges faced by immigrant communities, which fueled her determination to make a difference in this field.

DIRECTOR

Trudy (she/her) is a mother who immigrated to the USA in 2018 and settled in Vermont. With the help of law student clinicians at Vermont Law and Graduate School, the Chittenden Asylum Seekers Assistance Network, and the community, her case was approved by a Boston Immigration Court Judge in 2022 amidst so many challenges. As a highly trained finance professional, she worked with the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity for several years before joining the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, called to both nonprofits' missions of helping improve the lives of local community members. Trudy loves Vermont and to her, this is a home away from home.

DIRECTOR

Jae (they/them) is a self-described recovering academic and public health workforce director based in Central Vermont. After nearly 20 years working in post-secondary education, they transitioned into the beautiful world of public health. Now based at the Vermont Department of Health, they utilize their expertise in research, instructional design, equity/justice work, and trauma-informed communication to support Vermont’s health workforce as they advance the Department’s mission of ensuring that all people and communities in Vermont have equitable opportunities to achieve their highest level of health and well-being. They serve on Governor Scott’s Workforce Equity and Diversity Council and the Vermont Association for Mental Health and Addiction Recovery board.

DIRECTOR

Sarah (she/her) is a historian of Latin America and an associate professor at the University of Vermont, specializing in twentieth century Mexico. She directs graduate studies in the UVM history department as well as UVM’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies program. In recent years, she has served as a Spanish-English interpreter for detained asylum seekers as well as a Mexico country conditions expert for asylum cases. Her latest teaching project is a new, interdisciplinary migration studies program and course sequence co-taught with colleagues in anthropology and political science. It includes a capstone seminar in which highly qualified undergraduates do country conditions research for VAAP and partner’s asylum cases. She originates from the Boston area and lives with her family in Burlington, VT.

DIRECTOR

Victor (he/him) is a Training Manager at the Hilton hotel group. He moved to Burlington, VT after many years spent living and working in Japan. A seasoned hospitality operations professional, Victor is skilled in housekeeping, waiting, stocking, training, and stakeholder management. Victor is a certified N2 level speaker of Japanese and holds a Diploma Degree focused in International Hotel Management from the YMCA International Hotel Management College in Osaka, Japan.

DIRECTOR

Geneva (she/her) leads the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest’s fundraising efforts as the Director of Development and Communications. Before joining NYLPI in fall 2017, she held several positions at museums across the country including: The Field Museum in Chicago, Peabody Natural History Museum in New Haven, New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn, and most recently as the Manager of Institutional Giving at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. She worked at Lawyers Committee for Better Housing in Chicago a legal nonprofit that provides free legal and supportive services to improve housing stability for lower income renters while advocating for the rights of all renters until everyone in Chicago has a safe, decent, and affordable place to call home. Geneva holds a Master’s in Environmental Design from Yale University’s Architecture School and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Loyola University Chicago. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her two children.

Chelsea-Leigh most recently served as the Assistant Director of Career Development for the Public Sector at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. As Assistant Director, she helped students navigate individualized paths for pursuing public interest work with federal, state, and local government agencies and non-profits. She also helped multiple students with postgraduate fellowship applications for the Department of Justice Honors Program, Skadden, Equal Justice Works, and Immigrant Justice Corps. 

Prior to working in California, Chelsea-Leigh was the PSJD Fellow for the National Association of Law Placement.  In this role, she helped law school administrators, counselors, and students utilize the nation's largest public service jobs database. She also expanded PSJD's national webinar series to include detailed programming on Public Interest Post Graduate Fellowships. Prior to that, she worked at the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board as the James Blake Fellow. Her work centered on reducing the frequency of truncated police misconduct cases and expanding the agency's community outreach efforts across the city. She has also worked at the New York City Transit Authority Law Department. 

Chelsea received her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School where she served as the Pro Bono Co-Chair for the Black Law Students Association. She earned her B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

DIRECTOR

Peter (he/him) has more than 50 years of public service experience that began with his appointment as the Town Manager of Castleton, Vermont at the age 23. He went on to serve as City Manager of Winooski, his hometown. In 1981 Peter joined the administration of Burlington, Vermont Mayor Bernie Sanders-initially as a volunteer, then as City Personnel Director, and ultimately as Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO) Director. In 1989, upon the retirement of Mayor Sanders, Peter was elected Mayor and went on to serve for seven terms (1989-1993 & 1995-2006).   He is the longest serving Mayor in Burlington’s history, a city that is often held up as a national and international model for its progressive policies and work in the area of sustainable community development.  During Mayor Clavelle’s tenure, Burlington revitalized the downtown and the waterfront, launched affordable housing initiatives, and welcomed thousands of refugees to the City. He has held leadership positions with the U.S. Conference of Mayors and was President (twice) of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. In the 1990’s, he lived and worked in Grenada and was a team member on a local government project in Gaza. 

Upon leaving the Mayor’s office in 2006, Peter went on to join Tetra Tech ARD-an international development consulting firm. For three-and-a-half years, he served as Manager of the firm’s Democracy and Governance Sector. Specific USAID-funded assignments have included work on local governance projects in Macedonia, Jordan and Uganda. In 2010, Peter served as Acting Chief of Party leading the start-up of USAID’s Afghanistan’s Kabul City Initiative (KCI), a $120 million program to improve municipal services for the city of Kabul. From January 2012 through April 2016, he served as Chief of Party of the USAID Planning and Local Governance Project (PLGP) in Albania. As a former mayor and city manager, Peter brought direct and practical experience in managing local government affairs and in implementing democracy and governance activities.   

Peter remains active in civic affairs and resides in Burlington with his spouse, Betsy Ferries. His work in the non-profit sector includes stints on the Boards of the Institute for Sustainable Communities, Vermont Council on World Affairs, and the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington. 

He holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from St. Anselm College and a Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) degree from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.