Three of the twelve 2022 Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy Fellowships have been awarded to Boston College Law School students. The prestigious Rappaport Fellows program places students from Boston area law schools in state and local government offices for summer internships.
This year’s BC Law Rappaport Fellows are Catherine “Katie” Bekel ’24, Jonathan Sturr ’24, and Samantha Perlman ’24.
Rappaport Fellows are provided the opportunity to explore and expand on their diverse interests in public policy by working with top policymakers throughout the summer. Each fellow also receives extraordinary mentorship from Rappaport Center Advisory Board members, prior Rappaport Fellows, and notable practitioners and civic leaders in the public sector. Fellows further gain experiential learning by exploring the intersection of law and public policy through conversations with high-level government officials, including members of the executive, judiciary, and/or legislative branches.
The fellows were selected this year from a competitive applicant pool of students from Boston College Law School, Boston University School of Law, Harvard Law School, Northeastern University School of Law, Suffolk University Law School, New England School of Law, University of Massachusetts School of Law, and Western New England Law School.
“Once again, the incoming cohort of Rappaport Fellows has exceeded our expectations. They are a group of law students from vastly diverse backgrounds and experiences, including former and current elected public officials, farming, teaching, health care, government service, bioethics, civic education, Ukrainian democracy, reproductive rights, and substance abuse disorders. I’m excited at the prospect of bringing these great minds and hearts together this summer,” said Elisabeth Medvedow, executive director of the Rappaport Center.
Here are the biographies of all twelve 2022 Rappaport Fellows.
CATHERINE “KATIE” BEKEL is a 1L at Boston College Law School and a graduate of the University of Vermont (UVM), Phi Beta Kappa, where she studied Psychology and English. After graduating from UVM, she served as an AmeriCorps Member at Groundwork Lawrence in Lawrence, MA, and then followed her passion to pursue a career in sustainable agriculture. Bekel worked and managed small vegetable farms in eastern Massachusetts for nearly a decade. In these roles, she advocated for fairer wages for her staff and herself and created programs to make local produce more accessible for lower-income community members. Throughout this work, she became keenly aware of the challenges facing low-income workers and deeply invested in questions intersecting wealth, equity, and labor. Bekel is interested in civil rights, worker protection, immigration, and public policy. She will be interning this summer in the Office of State Senator Joan Lovely.
HACIBEY CATALBASOGLU is a 1L at Boston University School of Law and a graduate of Yale College. Over the years, Catalbasoglu has worked in a multitude of governmental capacities, including in New Haven’s housing department, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong’s Office, Connecticut Lt. Governor Susan Bysiewicz’s Office, and US Senator Chris Murphy’s Office (D-CT). In 2017, Catalbasoglu was elected to the City of New Haven’s lawmaking body, the Board of Alders, to represent a downtown district. In that role, he worked to improve town-and-gown relations, protect immigrants’ rights, and reform the city’s criminal justice system. Between college and law school, Catalbasoglu worked as a cook for two years at his family’s pizza shop, Brick Oven Pizza, in New Haven. This summer, he will be interning at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.
ALEXIS (LEXI) DELLAQUILA is a 1L at New England Law | Boston and a lifelong Massachusetts resident. Prior to pursuing her law degree, Dellaquila served in the Baker-Polito Administration for over four years, working to develop programs and policies in direct support of Governor Charlie Baker and Lt. Governor Karyn Polito. In the Governor’s Office, Dellaquila focused on a variety of special projects related to the Governor’s Council to Address Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. In this role, Dellaquila worked with members of the Council to lead, develop, and implement policies to help individuals and families live a life free from sexual assault and domestic violence. Her desire to pursue a legal degree rooted in advocacy for victims and survivors of intimate partner violence grew through this work. Additionally, she developed programming to bolster access to STEM education in schools across the state, working with the STEM Advisory Council. Building on this work, Dellaquila hopes to continue to pursue a career in public service and public policy. She is a graduate of Emmanuel College, where she received a degree in Business Management. Dellaquila will be interning this summer at the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.
KAYE-ALESE GREEN is a 1L and dual JD/MD candidate at Boston University (BU) School of Law and School of Medicine. She received a BS in Psychology and Master’s in Interdisciplinary Studies with a dual concentration in Public Health and Urban Education from the University of Central Florida (UCF). At UCF, she was an NCAA student-athlete and co-captain of the Women’s Volleyball team and a President’s Leadership Council member. Since beginning at Boston University, Green was honored to serve as the inaugural Diversity & Inclusion Fellow for Boston University School of Medicine with a joint appointment as a Visiting Fellow at BU’s Institute of Health Systems Innovation & Policy from 2020-2021. Currently, she is a graduate assistant at Boston University’s Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground and is the incoming president of BU’s Women’s Law Association. This summer, Green will be interning at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.
ANDREA MILLARD is a 1L at Suffolk University Law School and a graduate of Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), where she received her BA in Cognitive Science, magna cum laude, with minors in Public Policy and Psychology, as well as her MA, summa cum laude, in Bioethics and Medical Humanities. While attending college, she interned for both John Snow Inc., where she focused on international public health projects, as well as for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, where she worked in the Chelsea District Court. After graduating from CWRU, she went to work for Boston Medical Center in the Center for Addiction Research and Education as a Program Assistant on the Addiction Medicine Fellowship. At the center, Millard supported fellows throughout their placements at health centers across the city of Boston, serving both homeless and low-income individuals throughout treatment and recovery. Millard is interested in addiction policy in Massachusetts, specifically the work being done in Boston surrounding harm reduction and coordination of care. This summer, she will be interning in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.
IVY MILLER is a 1L dual degree JD/MPH candidate at Northeastern University School of Law and Tufts University School of Medicine. After graduating from the University of California Irvine with a BA in Public Health Policy, she worked in both inpatient and outpatient healthcare settings. Her experiences showed her the barriers patients faced throughout the healthcare system and fueled her interest in public health policy and law. This summer, Miller will be working at the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission.
CHRIS PAPPAVASELIO is a 2L at Harvard Law School. Chris grew up in northern Massachusetts, earned an MA in Latin from the University of Massachusetts Boston after a BA in Classics from the University of Southern California, and taught at a local public high school for several years. Throughout law school, he has maintained his passion for education and responsible governance through writing a regular civics-themed column for the Concord Monitor and serving as an elected member of his town’s school committee. Pappavaselio plans to impact his community through working in the criminal justice field, and he will be interning this summer with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Crimes Strategies Bureau.
DEVYN PARRY is a 1L at Northeastern University School of Law and a graduate of the University of San Diego, where she studied Behavioral Neuroscience. Prior to starting law school, Parry worked in Silicon Valley at 23andMe where she wrote and maintained content related to the health product. Parry is excited to learn more about the legislative process and explore the relationship between technology, legislature, and public policy as a legal intern in the Office of the Senate Counsel this summer.
SAMANTHA PERLMAN is a 1L Public Service Scholar at Boston College Law School and dual JD/MA candidate in the Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Program at Tufts Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She graduated magna cum laude from Emory University with a BA in History and African American Studies. Focused on closing the civic engagement gap, Perlman worked as an FAO Schwarz Fellow at Generation Citizen, where she helped secure passage of the 2018 Massachusetts civic education law. Most recently, she worked at Scholars Strategy Network, partnering with faculty on national democracy policy and youth voting efforts, as well as serving on the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition’s Advisory Board. In 2019, Perlman made history as the youngest woman and first Jewish woman ever elected to the Marlborough City Council, as well as the first new candidate to top the ticket in a council race. Currently, in her second term, Perlman is also a proud graduate of Emerge Massachusetts, the Institute for Nonprofit Practice Community Fellows Program, and the Institute for Canadian Citizenship Fellowship. In 2020, she was named one of IGNITE National’s 30 under 30 for womxn to watch in politics. This summer, Perlman will be working in the Office of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
JONATHAN STURR is a 1L dual JD/MA candidate at Boston College Law School and the Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Prior to graduate school, he spent five years working at the National Democratic Institute on democracy issues in the post-soviet region. During this time, he worked at the Institute’s field office in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he contributed to its programming on political party and civil society development, women’s political engagement, LGBTQ rights advocacy, and election transparency. A native of the New York City area, Sturr graduated from Columbia University in 2014, where he studied history and music. This summer, he will intern at the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.
ANGELA WU is a 1L at Harvard Law School. Prior to law school, she worked on reproductive rights impact litigation as a paralegal in the Public Policy Litigation and Law department at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She is a graduate of Princeton University, where she received her A.B. with High Honors in the School of Public and International Affairs with a certificate in American Studies. Her senior thesis research at Princeton focused on municipal immigrant-welcoming initiatives. Wu is passionate about gender justice and immigrants’ rights. This summer, Wu will be interning at the Mayor of Boston’s Office of Immigrant Advancement.
NOAM YOSSEFY is a 1L at Suffolk University Law School and is interested in pursuing a public interest career in healthcare and public health. Prior to attending Suffolk University Law School, Yossefy worked as a Policy Analyst at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (AGO), where she monitored health care trends and transactions, advocated for public health reforms, and supported health-related consumer protection lawsuits. While at the AGO and in her previous role at the Boston Mayor’s Office of Recovery Services, Yossefy compiled a comprehensive account of past and projected damages caused by the opioid crisis in order to inform the State and City’s multibillion dollar lawsuits against more than a dozen pharmaceutical developers, manufacturers and distributors. Yossefy received her Masters in Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she studied healthcare administration, political strategy, behavioral health, and substance use disorders, specifically opioid and e-cigarette use among at-risk youth. She received her BA degree in Public Health at Skidmore College. Yossefy will be spending her summer working in the Office of State Senator Jo Comerford.