Fellows-Elect

Ghalia Aamer, a 2023 graduate of the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Commerce and certificates in Leadership and International Learning, is an entrepreneur and education advocate. She founded TalkMaze, an internationally recognized organization focusing on public speaking and debate training for children. Ghalia’s achievements include being a Princess Diana Award recipient and Cansbridge Fellow.

As the youngest Canadian delegate at the G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit, she crafted policy recommendations for enhancing entrepreneurial ecosystems through education and inclusion. She also served as the youngest member on Junior Achievement’s Board of Directors and Edmonton Unlimited’s Innovation Growth Council, championing youth, women, and visible minorities. With eight years of experience at the intersection of education and business, Ghalia started her first company, Toon Tutors, at 13. She’s a sought-after international speaker, with four TEDx talks, the most recent highlighting her journey as the daughter of Pakistani immigrants.

In her leisure time, Ghalia enjoys globe-trotting and language acquisition, having visited 17 countries and currently learning her fourth language, Spanish.

Before beginning law school, Alec Greven worked as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Free Speech where he focused on First Amendment issues in the areas of political assembly, campus speech rights, and campaign finance regulation. Alec has a Master of Public Policy from the University of Oxford and is a New York Times bestselling author published in over 20 languages. His work has appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Arizona Republic, and has been featured on syndicated radio. Alec has published 28 articles on free expression issues.

He grew up in Castle Rock, Colorado, and loves to ski, hike, and bike in his free time.

Emma grew up in the East Bay Area, California, and graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in Government in 2016. She is interested in pursuing a career in environmental and climate change law working for the State of California. Before starting law school, she was a regulatory analyst at the California Public Utilities Commission, working on safety and risk policy for energy utilities. At Cornell, she served as a student government representative, co-founded a student-run grocery store on campus, and established an environmental council of sustainability-related clubs.

From 2016-2017, she was an Executive Fellow through the Capital Fellows Program. Placed at the California Natural Resources Agency during her fellowship, she helped develop the State’s climate change adaptation plan. She continued working at the California Natural Resources Agency from 2017-2019, helping to create California’s climate change strategy for natural and working lands. She was also a Clean Energy Leadership Institute Bay Area Fellow from 2021-2022.

Outside of work, Emma was involved in climate justice organizing in Sacramento, her home for over six years. As a young girl, she always dreamed of living in San Francisco and is grateful to have the opportunity to go to law school here. For fun, Emma enjoys distance running, walking with her dog, drinking coffee, and cooking.

Prameela Kottapalli graduated from Cornell University in 2023, earning top honors for her thesis on the political and economic landscape of the United States migrant detention system. Her most intensive involvement was founding the Cornell Anti Detention Alliance, a community organization dedicated to supporting migrants incarcerated in upstate New York. Through this initiative, she most notably led a campaign that contributed to the release of multiple women from the Buffalo Federal Immigration Detention Facility at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For her leadership, advocacy, and service, she was recognized as a 2022 New York State Truman Finalist and a Cornell Merrill Presidential Scholar. On campus, she was also an active leader in the Pi Beta Phi sorority, where she promoted diversity initiatives as a new member instructor, and the Cornell outdoor education program, where she guided pre-orientation backpacking trips on the Finger Lakes trail for incoming freshmen. She is a proud daughter of immigrants and grew up in San Jose, California.

Edgar is from Contra Costa County, California, and is a U.S. Army Veteran. After his time in the service, Edgar earned a bachelor’s degree in political economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Before pursuing a law school, Edgar had a fruitful career in federal, state, and local government.

He has spearheaded several campaigns in the East Bay, and most recently, advised a congressional candidate on local issues. Edgar worked for several elected officials in the Bay Area, of those: Contra Costa County Chair Supervisor, John Gioia; Congressman Mike Thompson; Congressman Mark DeSaulnier; California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond (then Assemblymember Tony Thurmond); and Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks. Edgar has a long history of community involvement in Contra Costa County, starting with his first job at the RYSE Youth Center at the age of 16. Edgar is also a board member of the El Sobrante Chamber of Commerce and the Contra Costa County Red Cross Leadership Council.

Edgar’s areas of interest are veteran issues, public education, economic mobility, immigration, and gun reform. Edgar is also a running and cycling enthusiast and has run several marathons and ultra-marathons. But, most importantly, he is a proud uncle to two nieces and one nephew.

Turner Stanton hails from Danville, California. He holds a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration and Political Science minor from the University of California, Riverside where he graduated summa cum laude.

Service is a core part of who Turner is. From his formative, victorious student Presidential elections to his time as President of the Association of Latino Professionals to running for City Council to uplift his community amidst the global pandemic, Turner focuses on applying his passion for service to help people of all backgrounds and ages. Most recently, he worked for Deloitte as a Senior Consultant where he provided technology and business strategy services to executives in the technology and mobility industries.

Turner plans to focus on the technology and mobility industries with future aspirations to serve as an elected public servant. Turner is deeply humbled to be a part of the 2023 – 2024 Tony Patiño Fellows-Elect cohort.

Wassa Bagayoko is a Malian American from Harlem, New York. She graduated from Brown University in 2021 with a Bachelors of Arts in International Relations. At Brown, Wassa focused her studies on the intersections of climate change and human rights, specifically the issue of forced climate migration. Outside of the classroom, was a member of Sunrise RI (formally the Rhode Island Student Climate Coalition) and ThoughtsPrayersAction (TPA), a Brown-based, gun violence prevention organization. As the head of TPA, Wassa worked with local groups to pass common sense gun reform and was honored by the Governor for her efforts. Wassa was also active on campus as a community service chair of the Black Student Union and a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Immediately after Brown, Wassa was awarded a Fulbright English teaching fellowship in Cote d’Ivoire, where she spent nine months teaching in Abidjan and volunteering at a women’s library. After her fellowship, Wassa returned to New York City where she worked as a consultant in Ernst & Young’s business practice. During this time, Wassa became the first alumni member of Harlem Academy’s junior board and a member of The Chapin School’s alumnae board. She remains passionate about sustainability, education, and justice.

At Columbia Law School, Wassa is a Richard Paul Richman Scholar and a member of the 1L Human RightsAdvocate Program.

Jonathan Kamanta was born and raised outside Los Angeles in Walnut, California. He graduated from the University of Southern California, where he earned a degree in International Relations. Before attending the University of Chicago Law School, Jonathan worked as a legislative staffer for Congressman Morgan McGarvey in Washington, D.C. He has previously worked for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, former House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the Democratic National Committee, and the California Democratic Party.

Ria Kanani is dedicated to advocating for survivors of sexual harassment and domestic violence, with a focus on representing individuals at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities. For the past five years, she has worked at a family law firm, specializing in domestic violence and Minor’s Counsel cases and advancing initiatives to better support children navigating legal proceedings. Ria also interned at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, where she contributed to key research on improving juvenile court resources for domestic violence victims.

While originally from the Bay Area, Ria also calls DC home as a graduate of Georgetown University. There, Ria founded and led The Women’s Network, fostering a community for ambitious women to connect and support each other. At Columbia Law, she is a fellow of the Max Berger Public Interest Program and the Human Rights Institute Advocacy Program. After law school, she aims to build a national public interest law firm dedicated to using a victim-centered approach to advocate for survivors of sexual harassment.

Nilab Nawabi was born and raised in the Los Angeles San Fernando Valley, to Afghan immigrant parents and is a proud graduate of the California public school system. Nilab has spent the past decade working for health care related nonprofits across the state, including San Ysidro Health Center in San Diego, Kheir (Care) Center in LA’s Koreatown, and most recently, at HealthRIGHT 360, an organization providing health care to thousands of Californians experiencing homelessness headquartered in San Francisco.

As HealthRIGHT’s current Chief People Officer, Nilab has developed private and public partnerships to put together workforce development and paid training programs for people with lived experiences of homelessness and mental health conditions. Harnessing the power of human resources, Nilab has successfully advocated to raise wages for workers across the state, and has helped bridge the workforce shortage gap in behavioral health, including running the state’s largest Mentored Internship Program with funding from the California Department of Health Care Services.

Nilab is thrilled to achieve her long-time goal of attending law school, and is honored to be selected as a Tony Patiño Fellow-Elect.

avita Rai is from Ventura County, California, and graduated from the University of Southern California, where she majored in Public Policy. A cancer survivor and women’s health advocate, Kavita is focused on advancing health equity and addressing public health challenges. After graduation, Kavita helped build Ethos, a digital health startup delivering behavioral health and early detection technology to patients and providers, with a focus on substance abuse. She previously founded and led Justice in the Classroom, an education nonprofit that expanded racial equity resources to school districts across California during COVID-19. During her time at USC, she spearheaded Title IX reform in partnership with students, USC Health, and EEO-TIX.

For her leadership, advocacy, and service, Kavita was recognized as a 2024 Vital Voices Fellow by the Estée Lauder Fund and honored by the UN Campaign Girl Up as the 2024 Young Woman of the Year. She previously held roles as a national fellow at the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) and as a NextGen Board Advisor at Female Quotient. Kavita has been invited to speak at the 2021 World Economic Forum in Davos and Los Angeles City Hall for the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Day.

Kavita’s legal interests include working at the intersection of health innovation and law, fighting for reproductive rights, and advancing health justice.

Vadim Trubetskoy was born in Moscow and emigrated to the United States with his family at a young age. After growing up outside of Boston, he graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California with a B.A. in Political Science. While at USC, Vadim was heavily involved in the community, both on and off campus, through his leadership in numerous organizations, volunteer opportunities, and civic engagements. He captained the USC Trial Advocacy team to its first appearance at the National Championship in nearly a decade and served as the Vice President of the California College Democrats. Additionally, Vadim did research at the Brookings Institution and worked for the White House.

Upon graduating, Vadim was commissioned as an Army officer in the Military Intelligence Corp and now serves as a 1LT on the Joint Staff J2, supporting the Director of Intelligence and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Between graduating from USC and matriculating at UChicago Law, Vadim helped run a successful Congressional campaign in California’s 42nd district, after which he led the transition and then worked as the Legislative Assistant and Member Services Director on Capitol Hill. At UChicago Law, Vadim is excited to learn about civil rights and work on issues affecting immigrant and underserved communities and hopes to clerk after graduation.

Reem is Sudanese-American, and born and raised in the Washington D.C., area. She graduated from Harvard in 2023 with a degree in Government and a specialization in Data Science, a minor in Computer Science, and a language citation in Modern Standard Arabic. After graduation, Reem moved to Doha, Qatar, where she completed a research fellowship focusing on democratization in Sudan and the impact of the current war and crisis on the country. Afterwards, she moved back to the D.C. area, where she worked in management consulting at Boston Consulting Group for 18 months.

Beyond her work experience, Reem has spent the past two years serving and continues to serve on the executive team of Nas Al Sudan, an advocacy organization focused on expanding resource access for those impacted by the current war in Sudan. She has also carried out projects relating to humanitarian aid and expanding educational access for internally displaced people on the ground in Sudan in 2024 and 2025.

Throughout her different streams of work and education, Reem’s aspiration and goal remain constant: to serve as an advocate and a voice for the most marginalized communities across the globe and to empower those who lack access to resources and opportunity.

Alexis is a Cuban American from Los Angeles, California. She graduated with highest honors from Cornell University with a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations, receiving the Seidman Prize for best undergraduate thesis for her research on migrant worker precarity and undocumented status during COVID-19.

Motivated to understand immigration through both legislative and practical lenses, Alexis interned in the offices of Senator Kamala Harris and Congressman Adam Schiff. She also worked with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, supporting clients seeking legal representation and assisting in the release of a detained individual.

After Cornell, Alexis joined the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., where she authored policy reports and collaborated with advocates and policymakers to advance immigrant integration at the local, state, and federal levels. She later taught U.S. law and policy as a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad de La Laguna in the Canary Islands, Spain, while volunteering with humanitarian aid programs for newly arrived migrants.

Motivated by her family’s story and a dedication to justice, Alexis seeks to leverage these experiences to advance immigration and civil rights law.

Born and raised in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to parents who were political refugees from the Soviet Union, Dan Gessen has always felt a responsibility to give back to the community and country that has given him so many opportunities, and to ensure these opportunities remain available to those who come after him.

After graduating from college, Dan commissioned as an Infantry Platoon Leader in the Massachusetts Army National Guard. He has led soldiers as an Aerial Response Force commander on deployment to Iraq and Syria, and in summer 2025 he assumed command of a mortar platoon, which he will lead while pursuing his law degree.

Alongside his military service, Dan has remained deeply engaged in his hometown and region. As the youngest person ever elected to the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates, he now serves as its Deputy Speaker, where he has advanced initiatives to confront the housing crisis and respond to climate challenges facing Cape Cod.

Looking ahead, Dan hopes to carry this commitment to service into the legal profession, aspiring to build a career in public policy and civil rights litigation.

Kat Lane earned her Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, along with minors in Philosophy and American Indian and Indigenous Studies, all with high honors. During her time at UC Santa Barbara, she worked alongside a coalition of legal and environmental professionals to lead a student organization in its successful campaign to prevent ExxonMobil from resuming oil operations just offshore in Santa Barbara.

Her ongoing commitment to environmental advocacy was formally recognized in December 2023 by the California State Senate, when she received the Sierra Club Volunteer of the Year Award presented by State Senator Monique Limón of District 19. Kat is deeply honored to have been chosen as a Tony Patiño Fellow-Elect and is excited to bring her dedication to public service and leadership to UC Law San Francisco and beyond.

Nima is an Iranian-American from Central New Jersey. He graduated from Georgetown University in 2023 with a dual degree in Business and Global Affairs and minors in Persian Studies and International Development. At Georgetown, he was an active campus leader, serving as president of the Iranian Cultural Society and working with organizations such as Georgetown Opportunities for Leadership Development and the Persian Studies Program.

After graduation, Nima moved to Bukhara, Uzbekistan, where he taught English, linguistics, and history at the state pedagogical institute through a Fulbright fellowship. He later served as the Resident Director of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, overseeing a U.S. Department of State Persian-language program for high school students. Nima’s work in Central Asia deepened his commitment to advancing human rights, freedom of expression, and corporate accountability. Drawing on his international experience and Iranian heritage, he hopes to pursue a career in international human rights law and academia.

He is deeply honored to have been selected as a Tony Patiño Fellow-Elect and looks forward to joining a community of principled leaders dedicated to integrity, service, and lifelong learning.

Lila is thrilled to start her law school journey as part of the Fellowship community. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2021 with a degree in History, studying everything that has gone wrong in American history and how to fix it. During her time at WashU, Lila focused her advocacy on urging the University Administration to leverage its wealth and influence to become a true engine of social mobility. She championed causes such as implementing need-blind admissions and establishing a food pantry to ensure that all students could thrive.

After graduation, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked for Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove. As a Legislative Correspondent and policy aide, she worked on legislative solutions to help solve constituents’ problems. A proud Angeleno, Lila is happy to be back in California for law school. In her free time, Lila loves cooking and reading food journalism, and is looking forward to playing soccer in Golden Gate Park with new friends.