ACLU OF MARYLAND - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Board Member - Equity Committee Co - Chair
Aimy Avila is a queer, Black-Latina immigrant from the Dominican Republic. She is currently a classroom teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools. She has dedicated her years in education to creating inclusive, rigorous, and loving environments for all students who come through her doors through an anti- racist/anti-oppressive approach to education. She enjoys volunteering her time to lead after school clubs such as soccer, kickball, and dance. Aimy is passionate about issues regarding education, immigration, sexual orientation and race. Aimy is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University School of Education and Towson University where she studied Sociology and Spanish.
Amy Cruice is the legal program manager for the ACLU of Maryland. She oversees case investigation, provides litigation support to attorneys, assists with oversight of volunteers and law clerks, and places cases with pro bono law firms. In addition, she organizes the ACLU's Election Protection campaign for every statewide and national election. She is also the ACLU representative on the Baltimore Civilian Review Board, where she has supported efforts by Board members to create a more impactful organization that is transparent to the Baltimore community.
Amy began her career with the ACLU as a case investigator/community organizer on the Eastern Shore, focusing on race and poverty issues. She has a Bachelors of Arts in Criminal Justice from Michigan State University. In 2018, she received the "Fannie Lou Hamer Award" from the Martin Luther King Jr. Committee of Anne Arundel County.
Brittany Christian is a complaint line intern at the ACLU of Maryland. She is from Boston, Massachusetts, and is a third-year Juris Doctor candidate at the University of Maryland, Francis King Carey School of Law.
Prior to the ACLU of Maryland, she worked in positions including Law Clerk for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform as well as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Some of her notable accolades include her selection as a Summer 2022 Law Program Participant at the University of Oxford and selection to be Fulbright Killam Fellow for study of Politics and Philosophy at York University. Following her graduation, she hopes to continue in public interest law.
Carlos Childs is the Regional Community Organizer for Southern Maryland. He was raised in Waldorf, Maryland. For years, he has been a Southern Maryland activist working on legal justice reform, building worker power, environmental and housing rights, and more.
Before coming to the ACLU, Carlos worked as the State Organizing Director for Our Revolution Maryland, to organize and engage activist around progressive legislation. Most recently, Carlos served as the Fair and Secure Elections Organizer at Public Citizen, where he lobbied local, state, and federal lawmakers in order to gain their support for passing legislation that increasing voter access to marginalized communities while ensuring election systems are secure and proper cybersecurity measures are taken.
Job Titles:
- Board Member - Nominating Committee Co - Chair
Chinyere Okonkwo is a first-generation Nigerian American trying to pave her way in this world. She is a junior at the University of Pittsburgh, but is originally from Prince George's County, Maryland. She is currently majoring in Political Science and Sociology with a minor in French. Her education largely centers on International Relations and how it affects marginalized communities. While in her first year at Pitt, she became the National Advocacy Institute Intern for the national ACLU. In addition, she has also worked as a campaign intern for a Pittsburgh congressional campaign and as a research assistant investigating election procedures nationwide. She has worked hard to center the fight for racial and gender equity in all of her career and academic endeavors. Outside of the classroom, she tries to flex her creative muscles through poetry, African dance, and cooking.
Job Titles:
- Board Member - Nominating Committee Co - Chair
- Economist
Corey Stottlemyer is an economist and currently serves as Senior Policy Analyst with the Maryland Department of Transportation. He has more than 20 years of experience in the policy process at the federal, state, and local levels. He has co-authored studies analyzing the economic impacts of immigration reform, as well as improved access to health care. He is an adjunct instructor of economics and public administration at Hood College. He is a member of the RISE Coalition of Western Maryland and a resident of Frederick County.
Job Titles:
- Sheriff Wrongfully Charged Thousands in Fees
Dana Vickers Shelley brings strategic communications and political advocacy expertise, plus a lifelong commitment to racial justice, to her leadership of the ACLU of Maryland. In Dana's nearly five years at ACLU-MD, the organization developed its first strategic plan, prioritizing education equity, voting rights, immigrants' rights, individual autonomy, government and police accountability, and making the state's legal justice system more equitable. She leads a 30-person team of attorneys, organizers, communicators, and policy strategists who are working with communities in every region of the state to empower Marylanders to exercise their rights so the law values and uplifts their humanity.
Before ACLU, Dana advised numerous national and local organizations, including the NAACP, Annie E. Casey Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Black Entertainment Television (BET) Networks, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Nike, and S.C. Johnson. She developed national partnerships with Black, Indigenous, and Latinx journalist organizations to raise awareness of structural racism and disparities in family regulation systems. Her public affairs background includes senior leadership positions with Edelman, Fenton, Black Enterprise Magazine, and in the Clinton Administration.
Dana earned a Master of Public Administration degree from American University's Key Executive Leadership Program, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and mass communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Originally from the Midwest, Dana lives in Baltimore County, Maryland.
Job Titles:
- Legal Advocacy Coordinator
David Carter is a legal intern for the ACLU of Maryland. David is a third-year law student at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., and the university's current Student Bar Association (SBA) President.
A graduate of California State University, Northridge, David has previously had the honor of interning for California Senator's Dianne Feinstein and then Senator Kamala D. Harris working on issue areas such as higher education, infrastructure, economic development, and other substantive legislative issues.
During his time in Howard, David has committed himself to building inclusive spaces where success and advocacy can thrive, previously serving on his 1L class council, on the Student Bar Association as its Secretary, as a founding member of his law school's first neurodiverse student organization, and as the student chair on the Dean's committee on Diversity and Inclusion. David additionally has had the honor of previously working for the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center, the Human Rights Campaign, the General Counsel's office for the Government Accountability Office, and Howard's Movement Lawyering Clinic working on issues relating to mental health access, restorative justice, education rights and environmental issues. More recently, Mr. Carter clerked under U.S. Senator Brian E. Schatz of Hawaii, working on immigration and other domestic policy issues.
Deborah Jeon is the Legal Director for the ACLU of Maryland. Debbie has litigated dozens of complex cases in the Maryland courts, including important cases involving voting rights, gender and race discrimination, and police misconduct, among many others. A 1986 graduate of Yale Law School, she also served as judicial clerk to U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson, in the Middle District of Alabama. Following that she worked for two years as an attorney at a labor and civil rights law firm in Little Rock, Arkansas. Debbie joined the ACLU in 1990, to manage the organization's race and poverty legal work on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where civil rights laws had been resisted by many white residents for decades. Her worked shifted statewide in 2005, when she began directing the ACLU's entire legal program. She is the recipient of the Maryland Daily Record's "Leadership in Law Award", and of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Dream Keepers' Award".
Job Titles:
- Board Member - Affiliate Equity Officer, Equity Committee Co - Chair
Job Titles:
- Board Member - Treasurer
- Senior Manager in the Audit Practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
Eric is a Senior Manager in the audit practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), a professional services firm. Eric has 11 years of experience with PwC, including auditing of public and private entities in the technology and entertainment and media sectors. Eric has worked on and managed large, global teams with responsibilities for all aspects of planning, performing and managing audits of financial statements and internal controls over financial reporting. Eric currently lives in Baltimore City with his wife Melanie and daughter London. Prior to moving to Baltimore, Eric spent two years in Amsterdam where he worked with diverse, global teams throughout the world, including Western Europe, Russia, CIS, Asia and North Africa.
Gina Elleby is the Legal Advocacy Manager for the ACLU of Maryland. She reviews and responds to written requests for legal assistance, supervises the ACLU's Civil Rights Complaint Line, and assists with case investigation. She also supports ACLU staff attorneys in litigation and coordinates undergraduate and high school internships within the legal department. Gina holds a J.D. from Howard University School of Law, but developed her dedication to social justice as an undergraduate student at Spelman College. Before joining the ACLU in 2014, she worked in Baltimore-D.C. area art museums.
Gregory Brown is a Public Policy Counsel at the ACLU of Maryland. He is a political advocacy professional who has served in several legislative roles in both government and the private sector.
Before coming to the ACLU, he has worked in both Congress and the Maryland State House. Gregory attended the University of Maryland and Howard University School of Law. After graduation from Maryland, Gregory served as the Chief of Staff for Delegate Darryl Barnes. During his time at Howard Law Gregory served as a Student Attorney in the Human and Civil Rights Clinic, a government relations intern for the NCAA, a law clerk for the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and a law clerk for Pickett Dummigan McCall LLP. Gregory also served as the Vice President of the American Constitution Society and as the Secretary of the Student Bar Association while at Howard Law.
Job Titles:
- Board Member - Board President
Homayra Ziad is a scholar-activist, educator and writer, and Director of the Program in Islamic Studies at Johns Hopkins University. After receiving a doctorate in Islamic Studies from Yale, she was Assistant Professor of Religion at Trinity College in Hartford. She then spearheaded education on Islam and engagement with Muslim communities at an interfaith educational non-profit in Baltimore (the Institute of Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies), where she helped teachers, activists and emerging religious leaders explore the intersections of religion and social justice. Homayra believes deeply in the pedagogy of community-engaged learning and serves on the project team of Art, Religion and Cities, a Morgan State initiative that explores the display of religious art in museums to engage critical questions of race, justice, and community, and connects students to internship opportunities at cultural institutions. Homayra has fifteen years of experience in interreligious education and programming and was founding co-chair of the American Academy of Religion's Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Group. She is co-editor of Words to Live By: Sacred Sources for Interreligious Engagement (Orbis Press, 2018). She has written for many academic and popular venues, and consulted and created programs for film and media.
John Sondheim is a retired librarian who was at the Enoch Pratt Free Library for 27 years. His work at the ACLU is concerned with legislative matters and limited policy development. Prior to being a librarian, Sondheim worked as a systems analyst. He has been a board member since 1990, and he additionally served on ACLU boards in both Western Missouri and Kansas. He has been active in other organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, and was a Democratic Ward Committeeman in Western Missouri. Sondheim lives in Baltimore City.
Job Titles:
- Board Member at the Baltimore Abortion Fund
- Campaign Strategist
Lorena Diaz is a campaign strategist at the ACLU of Maryland. In this role she helps her Department design and conduct sustained organizing campaigns to build civic engagement to support directly impacted communities, community leaders, and their allies in efforts to achieve policy change in Central Maryland (Baltimore City and County, and Prince George's County).
Born in Baltimore to two immigrant parents, Lorena spent her adolescence with her grandparents in their native country, El Salvador. This gave Lorena the tools to become completely bilingual in both English and Spanish and laid the foundation for who she is today. Lorena has a BA in Government and Politics, and minors in Portuguese and Latin American Studies.
Lorena is a former volunteer board member at the Baltimore Abortion Fund, an organization that exists to help pay the cost of an abortion and provide practical support for people who live in or are traveling to Maryland for their healthcare procedure. Before joining the ACLU team, Lorena worked at CASA and House of Ruth MD, where she helped strengthen community engagement and outreach in Baltimore City and Baltimore County's immigrant communities.
Meredith Curtis Goode is the Communications Director for the ACLU of Maryland. She leads the communications team and manages strategic communications, media relations, publications and outreach initiatives and events. She has played a role in some of the biggest recent policy issues in Maryland, including campaigns to abolish the death penalty, win marriage equality for same-sex couples, fight for police accountability, and oppose the Trump administration's anti-immigrant policies and other executive orders. Prior to joining the ACLU staff in 2001 as a Public Education and Development Associate, Meredith was the assistant editor of National Journal's CongressDaily. A lifelong Marylander, she also worked stints as Arts and Entertainment Editor for Towson University's Towerlight and as a Canvas Director for the Maryland Public Interest Research Group.
Job Titles:
- Communications Strategist
Nehemiah Bester is a Communications Strategist for the ACLU of Maryland. He serves as the producer on audio, video, and podcast campaigns at the ACLU of Maryland. Previously he produced written content for ACLU which included blogs, press releases, op-eds, and other written materials. Nehemiah was raised in Richmond, Virginia and received his bachelor's degree in Media Studies with a minor in Political Science from Radford University in Radford, Virginia. He received his master's degree in Journalism from the School of Global Journalism and Communication at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland where he was also a graduate assistant. He has written and produced content for networks PBS, Frontline, American Experience, Showtime and WSJ, and The Sphinx Magazine. In addition, he has produced content for radio stations WHCE 91.1 FM in Richmond, Virginia, and WEAA 88.9 FM in Baltimore, Maryland discussing topics of social justice, human rights, and economic freedom. Nehemiah also assisted in the creation of the ACLU of Maryland's premiere podcast Thinking Freely and the Free the Vote documentary.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Executive Coordinator & Board Liaison
Rosemary Ardman is Executive Assistant at the ACLU of Maryland. Her responsibilities include supporting the work of the Executive Director and Board of Directors, managing archival projects, and assisting with office operations. She began at the ACLU as an intern in 2016 and joined the staff in 2017. Rosemary holds a B.A. in English from University of Texas at Austin.
Sebastian is a campaign strategist at the ACLU of Maryland. His focus is on supporting immigrant communities and their allies as well as our broader organizational efforts. Originally from Silver Spring, Sebastian graduated in 2009 from Juniata College with a BA in Peace and Conflict Studies and a minor in Spanish and Latin America. After graduating he returned to Montgomery County as a Community Organizer with local non-profit, Impact Silver Spring, building neighborhood networks for residents to activate their collective economic and civic power. He moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts with his wife Mary Jeanne in 2014 and continued work as a Community Builder at Lawrence Community Works, organizing students and parents to fight for education equity. He and his wife then started a community composting company Roots Compost in Lawrence, which eventually became his full time job; until 2019 when they sold it to a local composter and moved to Frederick, MD to be closer to family.
Job Titles:
- Director of Engagement and Mobilization
Sergio España is the Director of Engagement and Mobilization at the ACLU of Maryland. He focuses on building relationships between ACLU staff and community activists and organizes supporters to advance our public policy, legal, and communications priorities.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Executive Director
Veronica Dunlap is the Deputy Executive Director of the ACLU of Maryland. In this leadership role, Dunlap facilitates strategic decision making, communication, and alignment across all programs to implement ACLU-MD's 2024 strategic plan. She identifies, plans, and directs activities to achieve desired outcomes for ACLU-MD's programmatic priorities: education, government accountability, immigrants' rights, individual autonomy, legal justice system, and voting rights.
Previously, Dunlap served as Director of New York Justice Initiatives at Pro Bono Net where she spearheaded LawHelpNY, TenantHelpNY, Crime Victims Legal Help Network, Pro Bono Net/ny, LiveHelp, and related initiatives that empowered New Yorkers in need to resolve their legal problems and strengthened the work of advocates serving them. In addition, she volunteers with a project aimed at restoring the civil rights of people with criminal convictions. Prior to pursuing a career in law, Dunlap performed on stages around the world as a classically trained dancer.
Dunlap is a proud graduate of both George Washington University, where she received a B.A. in International Affairs, cum laude, and Fordham University School of Law where she received her Juris Doctor & M.B.A. in Finance. Dunlap has received the New York County Lawyer's Association Pro Bono Honors Award for her outstanding work in public service, as well as the Outstanding Woman Lawyer in Public Service award from the National Bar Association's Women's Law Division. She is the proud mother of her son, Massawa, and dedicated daughter of her inspirational father, Ronald Dunlap.
Job Titles:
- Director of Public Policy
- Public Policy Director
Yanet Amanuel is the director of public policy at the ACLU of Maryland. Yanet has served as public policy advocate and interim public policy director twice before becoming the director. Yanet Amanuel began her advocacy career as a student at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she received her B.A. in Sociology. She continued to pursue her passion for advocacy and organizing in several roles, including as Chief of Staff for a Prince George's County delegate, Region 7 (Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia) Adult Representative on the NAACP National Youth Works Committee, Young Adult Chair of the Prince George's County NAACP and as a Policy Advocate at Job Opportunities Task Force. Most recently, ACLU-MD Policy Advocate, Yanet co-led the Maryland Coalition for Justice and Police Accountability and led the ACLU's legislative advocacy efforts to repeal the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, reform the Maryland Public Information Act to allow public disclosure of police misconduct records, and remove the Governor from the parole process for Marylanders serving life with parole sentences.