2014 US Fellow Biographies

LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class II Fellow Profiles

Lauren Mikhail Biggers Fayetteville, Arkansas

Caitlin Songy Berni

New Orleans, Louisiana

• Expertise: Mental Health, Counseling • Home Organization: Hope Cancer Resources • Host Organization: Hospital Infantil Arturo Grullon • Host City/Country: Santiago, Dominican Republic

• Expertise: Government Relations • Home Organization: Greater New Orleans, Inc • Host Organization: Consorcio Dominicano de la Competitividad Turística (CDCT) • Host City/Country: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Ms. Lauren Biggers is the Coordinator for Emotional Support Services for a non-profit that provides financial and emotional support to oncology patients and their loved ones. She is responsible for developing, coordinating, and implementing educational and supportive groups, and provides mental health counseling surrounding issues related to cancer diagnoses. In addition to her clinical role, she also works as a patient advocate, identifying and collaborating with local and national agencies that provide services patients may access to meet their needs. Before Hope Cancer Resources, she was a mental health clinician and case manager for the counseling center at the University of Arkansas. Her duties included meeting with traditional and nontraditional students for counseling, crisis management, hospitalization, outreach, and referral coordination.

Ms. Caitlin Berni serves as Director of External Affairs for Greater New Orleans, Inc. (GNO, Inc.), where she is responsible for directing government affairs activities and serves as the primary liaison with Congressional and local elected officials. She also directs the Communications team, focusing on communicating why Greater New Orleans is the logical choice to live, work, and raise a family. Ms. Berni manages the Coalition for Sustainable Flood Insurance (CSFI), an effort initiated to keep flood insurance affordable. CSFI now represents 35 states and 250 organizations and its work resulted in the passage of the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 21, 2014.

As a licensed certified social worker, Ms. Biggers will be working with her host organization to learn about the role that mental health plays in the treatment of chronic diseases,

Prior to GNO, Inc., Caitlin worked in the Office of Congressman Steve Scalise (LA-01) as a legislative assistant. Her policy portfolio included business and tax issues, military and defense, veterans’ affairs, and foreign affairs issues; but she focused extensively on reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program, extending Go Zone tax credits, and improving veterans’ access to care in the New Orleans area.

LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class II Fellow Profile

Ana Julieta Colls

Reagan Courtney Cussimanio

Expertise: Civic Engagement, Recreation Home Organization: Village of Key Biscayne Host Organization: Indeportes Antioquia Host City/Country: Medellin, Colombia

• Expertise: Government Relations, Public Health • Home Organization: American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) • Host Organization: Fundación Cimab • Host City/Country: Mexico City, Mexico

Miami, Florida

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Ms. Ana Colls is Assitant Director of the Village of Biscayne’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Her primary role is to operate the Key Biscayne Community Center, a recreation, wellness, cultural, and civic facility located in a predominantly Hispanic community. Ms. Colls previously served as Parks and Recreation Services Manager for the City of Coachella, California, where she worked to renovate parks and increase recreation opportunities. She discovered her passion for public service while pursuing a graduate degree in Public Administration at City University of new York as a National Urban Fellows. She serves as Co-Director of the New Leaders Council Miami Chapter and was selected as a Class VI Miami Fellow by the Miami Foundation to further develop her leadership in Greater Miami.

Through her fellowship, she intends to learn best practices from the Antioquia government’s approach to quality of life issues, including recreation, sports, fitness, health, aging, parks, and civic spaces.

Topeka, Kansas

Ms. Reagan Cussimanio is the Kansas Director of Government Relations for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, where she works with elected officials at the local, state, and federal level to implement policies and programs that reduce the risk of cancer and improve the health of Kansans. Ms. Cussimanio has oversight of ACS CAN’s grassroots advocacy campaign and works to develop coalitions and engage partners and volunteers in the fight against cancer. Prior to her current role, she spent 8 ½ years as a fiscal and policy analyst with the Kansas Legislative Research Department, providing support for the state legislature and staffed a variety of committees, including adult and juvenile corrections and judicial matters. She was also lead analyst on both House Appropriations and the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Ms. Cussimanio will be working with her host organization to observe and explore the interaction between the government and civil society of her host country on issues regarding cancer prevention.

LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class II Fellow Profiles

Kate Maloney

Washington, D.C.

Arlene Santiago

Minneapolis, Minnesota

• Expertise: Foreign Language/Area Studies • Home Organization: U.S. Department of Education • Host Organization: Fundação Lemann • Host City/Country: São Paulo, Brazil

• Expertise: Administrative and Criminal Law • Home Organization: Minnesota Department of Human Services • Host Organization: Corporación Exelencia en la Justicia (CEJ) • Host City/Country: Bogotá, Colombia

Ms. Kate Maloney is the Program Officer in the International and Foreign Language Education Office at the Department of Education. She manages the Foreign Language & Area Studies fellowships and the National Resource Center grants for university programming focused on Latin America, Western Europe, and Canada.

In addition to monitoring grant implementation, she communicates departmental policies and disseminates best practices among grantees.

Prior to her current work, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Mayan highlands of Guatemala. There, she developed a Spanish language teacher training curriculum that scaled to 90 schools nationwide. She has a Master’s Degree in International Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Due to Ms. Arlene Santiago’s upbringing in the Bronx, New York, she has focused her career on enhancing the confidence people have in judicial systems, specifically in its ability and willingness to protect their rights. She serves as a Human Services Judge for the Minnesota Department of Human Services. She conducts and ensures fair administrative hearings of various human services programs as well as abuse concerning children and vulnerable adults. She is also the Vice Chair of the Minneapolis Commission on Civil Rights, where she reviews discrimination claims and assists with advocating and implementing civil rights policies. Previously, she served as a Public Defender in criminal court, and served on the Minneapolis Civilian Police Review Board.

As a Legislative Fellow, she is interested in learning how the Lemann Foundation supports Brazilian studies and student exchanges in the US, and she aims to bring the Foundation’s strategies for grant making to the Department.

Ms. Santiago’s passion for equality and justice will carry over to her fellowship at the Corporación Excelencia en la Justicia and its work on access to judicial systems in civil, criminal, administrative, and gender areas.

LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class II Fellow Profiles

Brian Daniel Schwartz Washington, D.C.

• Expertise: Communications & Outreach • Home Organization: U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) • Host Organization: Semillas para la Democracia • Host City/Country: Asunción, Paraguay Mr. Brian Schwartz is a Program Analyst in the Office of Personnel Management’s National Healthcare Operations. He works on outreach and communications activities, crafting messages about the Multi-State Plan Program and the Health Insurance Marketplace. Before that, he worked in the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight’s Office of Consumer Support, where he provided direct support to consumers with health insurance questions related to the Affordable Care Act. He also helped lead the Navigator team working with state-based exchanges. Additionally, Mr. Schwartz has volunteered for then Senator Barack Obama, eventually joining the campaign staff to organize volunteers in North Carolina, Kentucky, and Iowa.

For his fellowship, Mr. Schwartz is interested in examining the way citizens interact with their national government and how clearer communication can advance social justice.

As a trained mediator, Brian loves building bridges between groups’ varied interests, cultivating mutually beneficial empathy.

Aaron Lee Short

Indianapolis, Indiana • Expertise: Legislative Monitoring • Home Organization: Taft Stettinius & Hollister • Host Organization: Todeschini Lermann Advogados Associados S/S • Host City/Country: Porto Alegre, Brazil Mr. Aaron Short is Legislative Assistant at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, where he directs the law firm’s compliance with campaign finance, election, and lobbying laws to ensure public transparency. In his current role, he works extensively with various clients to track pending legislation, guide them through the legislative process, and consult them on policy proposals. Mr. Short regularly uses and is particularly interested in the use of social media to strengthen “real time” access to legislation and public transparency. In addition to his professional responsibilities, Mr. Short is a law student at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law where he focuses his elective studies on international and environmental law.

Mr. Short will spend his fellowship at a private law firm in Brazil, where he will engage with consultants and state officials of Rio Grande do Sul, as well as study their legal and legislative system to gain a better understanding of how both the Brazilian and United States’ legislative access and public transparency can be enhanced.

LEGISLATIVE PROCESS & GOVERNANCE Class II Fellow Profiles

Kelly Catherine Walker Washington, D.C.

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Expertise: Gender-based Issues, Advocacy Home Organization: Ayuda Host Organization: Fundación CONSTRUIR Host City/Country: La Paz, Bolivia

Ms. Catherine Walker serves as a Domestic Violence/Family Law Paralegal at Ayuda, an organization that provides free legal services to low-income immigrants. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Spanish from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Since graduating in 2011, Ms. Walker has worked with low-income immigrants and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Washington, D.C. in many different capacities.

Additionally, she is a member of Rainbow Response Coalition, a grassroots task force that aims to educate service providers on best practices for serving LGBTQ identified survivors of domestic violence.

Through her fellowship at her host organization, Ms. Walker will continue to work with low-income communities as well as victims of gender-based violence. She hopes to gain a deeper understanding of how survivors in her host country interact with the legal system, which will inform her work with victims in the United States.