New Fellows-Elect from Columbia

The Fellowship community is excited to welcome three new Fellows-Elect, first-year law students at Columbia, members of the class of 2025: Skylar Gleason, Nathan Porceng, and Brandon Reid.

Nathan Porceng graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2016 with a B.S. in chemical engineering and minors in history and music. After graduation, Nathan joined the United States Navy through the Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate Program. He served for 14 months as a Junior Officer Staff Instructor at Nuclear Power Training Unit Ballston Spa, teaching hands-on nuclear operations to sailors and supervising physics testing on a prototype reactor. Nathan then served 32 months aboard the submarine USS Ohio, during which time he completed three deployments. Between deployments, Nathan volunteered with Tutoría, preparing prospective immigrants for their U.S. citizenship exams, and with United Way, staffing the Washington State COVID-19 Information Hotline.

Brandon Reid graduated cum laude from Davidson College in 2022 with a degree in philosophy. He was the first person in Davidson’s history to serve two consecutive terms as student body president. Brandon is passionate about working towards the eradication of the school-to-prison pipeline. At Davidson in 2021, Brandon completed a project called “Telling the Stories of the Ignored and Forgotten” that contributed to the release of his childhood friend 12 years early from prison. This project received national media attention. In his hometown of Annapolis, Maryland, Brandon leads Brandon’s Coalition for Success, a mentoring program that has been working with at-risk youth for the past six years.

Skylar Gleason graduated from the University of Michigan in 2019 where she majored in International Studies and Political Science and minored in Spanish and Law, Justice, and Social Change. In college, Skylar was heavily involved in community service through leadership in Circle K. She interned with the Washtenaw County Office of Public Defender, the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, and Perseus Strategies, a DC-based international human rights law firm. After graduation, Skylar returned to Perseus Strategies as the Liu Xiaobo Human Rights Fellow. In that role, she engaged in legal, government, and media advocacy on a variety of human rights projects across the globe, including political prisoner cases, international parental child abduction cases, an international tort claim, and investigative reports on crimes against humanity and war crimes.