Category: Staff Spotlight

Staff Updates

We are thrilled to share more about two of our more recent new hires, Eleni Bakst and Michelle Schellinger Gutierrez. Read more about Eleni and Michelle below! Eleni Bakst is our newest Clinical Instructor at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. She supervises and trains students in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and…
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Staff Spotlight: Sophie Jean

Sophie Jean is the faculty assistant for Deborah Anker, a professor of law who founded the Harvard Law School Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. A McGill graduate, Sophie’s introduction to immigration law was unconventional– she originally worked in STEM. While working in forensics, which she describes as the “intersection between law and medicine,” she discovered…
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Staff Spotlight: Tiffany Lieu

Tiffany Lieu is the current Albert M. Sacks Clinical Teaching and Advocacy Fellow at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. Tiffany comes from a family of what she calls “double refugees.” Her grandparents fled China and settled in Vietnam, where Tiffany’s parents were born. However, when the Vietnam War broke out her family was…
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Staff Spotlight: Phil Torrey

Philip Torrey is the Managing Attorney for the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, the Director of the Harvard Crimmigration Clinic, and a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. Phil’s interest in immigration began when he worked at an immigration clinic in law school. There, he represented a woman from the Democratic Republic of…
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Staff Spotlight: Cindy Zapata

Cindy Zapata is a Clinical Instructor at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. In this role, she supervises students on their cases and legal work and teaches classes, including a class on refugees and trauma that she co-teaches with Program Director Sabi Ardalan.  Cindy was first drawn to immigration law because, as she explains,…
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Staff Spotlight: Sabi Ardalan

Sabrineh Ardalan is the Director of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program and a Clinical Professor at Harvard Law School. Sabi’s interest and passion in immigration law started in her childhood with her family. “I come from a family of immigrants from Iran,” says Sabi. “Through conversations with my family about the immigration system…
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Staff Spotlight: Mary Hewey

Mary Hewey is the administrative assistant at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. Mary began immigration and advocacy work during her time in the Border Studies Program in Tucson, Arizona. There, Mary realized the impacts of migration in the United States and started thinking critically about the challenges and injustices faced by immigrant communities.…
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Staff Spotlight: Zachary Albun

Zachary Albun is the current Albert M. Sacks Clinical Teaching & Advocacy Fellow at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. His journey to practice asylum immigration law started in St. Paul, Minnesota. During his initial years in the legal field as a legal assistant, he worked with refugees from Southeast Asia and Somalia. This…
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Staff Spotlight: Mariam Liberles

Mariam Liberles is a staff attorney at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, working with the Harvard Representation Initiative (HRI) team. For Mariam, immigration is a deeply personal issue. She was born in Yerevan, Armenia and came to the United States with her family when she was nine years old, leaving just before the collapse of the Soviet…
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Staff Spotlight: Nilce Maldonado

Nilce Maldonado is part of the legal team at the Harvard Immigration Refugee Clinical Program as a paralegal. Nilce mainly aids clients that have Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and those in the process of Adjustment of Status, working closely with attorneys Jason Corral and Mariam Liberles. She enjoys the…
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