#waotm entry

Thanks to Shloka Ananthanarayanan ‘08 (@shlokes), Editor of the Wellesley Reviews, for this month’s submission! We love seeing the WU editor love!

Cleo is simply awesome. As the editor of Wellesley Underground’s Self-Care Series, she consistently produces articles brimming with excellent advice and tips and tricks that are invaluable to getting through your day. Recently, when a bunch of WU editors were discussing workplace struggles, she was able to point us to an article on how to take care of ourselves and not let a toxic work environment bring us down. As if consistently producing excellent articles for her own series wasn’t enough, Cleo never hesitates to help out her fellow editors with their series. She has cheerfully contributed to WU Reviews multiple times. 

Photo obtained from obituary on the Human Rights Watch website.

On March 26, 2019, the world lost a human rights champion. Tejshree Thapa (’88) dedicated her career to exposing violations against political rights and civil liberties in crises and conflicts across the globe, including in the Balkans, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. She was an advocate with expertise in human rights law, post-conflict justice, and reparations mechanisms, with keen knowledge of domestic and international politics. She worked to expose and bring to justice perpetrators of horrific crimes when she served at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the office of the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women.

She spent over 15 years working for Human Rights Watch (HRW), where she conducted research and extensive interviews with survivors to shed light on human rights abuses and working to hold those responsible accountable. She was a noted expert on the civil wars in Sri Lanka and Nepal, where she documented sexual violence and torture. She raised flags about the abhorrent practices of enforced disappearances and the high levels of impunity perpetrators of unspeakable violence enjoyed. Her most recent work for HRW involved traveling to the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar in fall 2017, at the height of the latest round of brutal attacks against the Rohingya Muslim community by Myanmar’s military. Thapa’s documentation of the violations were among the first credible accounts showing how the violence was systematic and endemic.

Her impact in the human rights community – and globally – will be lasting.

Thank you to Will Ratcliff (@wc_ratcliff)(Han’s husband!) for this month’s submission!!

Anna is a fiercely committed public defender, who works hard to make sure her indigent clients have a voice in a country committed to the mass incarceration of people of color. Anna has been interested in the intersection of social justice and the law since her Wellesley years, when she volunteered during the Gujarat riots in 2002 and observed the Milosevic trial in 2003. She first fell in love with public defender work during internships while she was getting her law degree at Emory and has been an attorney at the Fulton County Public Defenders’ Office in Atlanta since she graduated in 2008. Anna strongly believes in public defenders as a movement and a community – she is active in organizations like Gideon’s Promise and the Transition into Law Practice Program (TILPP) as a trainee, then as an instructor, and often brings new practices and techniques back to share with her office. As a public defender, she believes that one of her most important roles is to bear witness to her clients’ stories and to bring them agency in a deeply disempowering criminal justice system. One day, when she wants an even bigger challenge, Anna hopes to start a second career teaching students in middle-school. In the meantime, she continues to be deeply loved by her partner, her almost-two-year-old daughter and a small bad dog who are all grateful that she’s making the world a better place to live in.

Michelle Lapointe ’01 was busy in 2018. The Associated Press, the Miami Herald, Univisión, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, NBC News and Yahoo News all featured her work on behalf of immigrant families and children for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project, based in Atlanta, Ga. 

She officially became a rock star attorney when Rolling Stone got in on the act in January 2019. Although Travis Scott beat her out for the cover, they do have one other thing in common besides being in the same issue of Rolling Stone. They both spend a lot of time on planes. Travis’ Yosemite video—viewed on YouTube over 12 million times—features him in a private jet. Michelle also spent most of last year, and the beginning of this year, flying around the country from Tennessee to Florida (not the nice part) to Mississippi to Louisiana (Jena not NOLA) to San Francisco to rural Georgia to El Salvador. Unlike Travis, Michelle is partial to Delta economy flights and long car drives.

More important than her recognition by the mainstream media last year, Michelle made a difference in the lives individuals and entire classes (aka class actions) of immigrants who came to the United States to work, go to school, and escape persecution. Most of this time was spent meeting with clients in immigration detention centers, trailer parks, and staying up past her bedtime to prepare federal court filings and get ready for depositions. She helped reunite families, protect journalists facing deportation, and ensuring that immigrant children have the right to their education.

She also made a difference in the lives of her family at home in Georgia. Her 5-year-old daughter knows that her mommy is a “community helper,” just like the firefighters she hears about in pre-kindergarten, or like RBG depicted in her children’s book that Michelle frequently reads to her. Like the firefighters, her mommy rescues people too. Her almost 3-year-old son is beginning to understand what mommy does on her frequent work trips. He loves firefighters, so we’re working on that analogy with him too. Meanwhile, her dog just continues to eat socks, so she finds time to take him to the emergency vet on occasion between her work travels. Her husband reads all her news clippings and thanks her for helping rescue the country one family at a time.

December 2018 WAOTM is Mehjabeen Rahman '08! Mehjabeen (known to all her friends as Tinny!) is magnificent. Since graduation, she has taught high school in Bangladesh, come back to the US and gotten her Master’s in Energy and Environmental Policy, moved to a bunch of different states, done various jobs, been an amazing wife who cooks a mean biryani, and taken care of ridiculously cute cats. She is now in MN with a baller job where she will be tackling environmental pollution and saving us all from the apocalypse. But most importantly, she has always been an amazing friend, sending me hilarious cat photos and motivational messages any time I need them. Now THAT is Wellesley.

Thank you to EB Bartels ‘10 (@eb_bartels) for this month’s submission!

Malina Dumas is definitely the most badass lawyer in the state of Maine, perhaps in all of New England, maybe even in the entire United States of America, and possibly the whole world?! 

Malina graduated with her J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law in spring 2018, and passed the Maine bar exam in the fall to become a 100% official real lawyer. (Her swearing in ceremony was on October 12, 2018!) That by itself is pretty impressive, but Malina is more than pretty impressive. She is outright amazing. During her time in law school, Malina chose to focus on legal issues that impact Indigenous groups in the U.S. and Canada, particularly in the Arctic region. She was a Hazleton Fellow at the University of Washington, assisting with researching and drafting the 2016 and 2017 Arctic Law and Policy Year and Review, plus she worked on the Washington International Law Review. Malina was a summer law clerk at the Navajo Nation Department of Justice, she was an Arctic Fellow in the International Policy Institute at the Jackson School, and she also volunteered with the Refugee Assistance Program. She speaks English, Russian, German, French, Romanian, and, in law school, she got a grant to study Inuktitut. DO YOU KNOW ANYONE ELSE WHO SPEAKS INUKTITUT???? Oh, and, casual, she also has a Masters from Georgetown in Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies, she did a Fulbright in Moldova, and she was an Albright Institute Fellow. NO BIG DEAL.

So, clearly Malina's LinkedIn profile is out of control, and I feel smarter by my association with her alone (we were two of three Russian language and literature majors in the class of 2010 -- shout out to Joan Buck who was number three!) but more than that, in addition to all her crazy impressive credentials and the fact that she is super smart (did you SEE how many languages she speaks???), Malina is kind, extraordinarily empathetic, and has an unwavering sense of right and wrong. She uses her skills to help marginalized groups and people in need. She truly embodies the Wellesley motto Non Ministrari sed Ministrare. 

Shelly Anand ‘08 and Hannah Ellenson ‘08 in Jerusalem in 2009.

I’m nominating my best friend Hannah Ellenson ‘08 for Wellesley Alum of the Month (WAOTM) because she is one of the best things I got out of my time at Wellesley. We met at orientation during our first week at Wellesley -- playing SHEpardy (remember the Sexual Health Educators?). Hannah was the leader of one team, I was the leader of the other, and she knew way more than I did about sexual health. We became instant friends and have built over 14 years of powerful friendship.

Hannah has dedicated her life’s work to social justice and finding peace in the Middle East, literally. She focuses on finding ways to support Palestinians and build relationships between Palestinians and Israelis. She is definitely no PEP (another term I learned from her, Progressive Except for Palestine). She has difficult conversations in the Jewish community about the rights of Palestinians and how the Jewish community needs to work towards a resolution with their Palestinian brothers and sisters.

She is also just a wonderful person. If anything, Hannah has taught me the importance of learning to say “no,” of knowing my limits, and while recognizing that there are many atrocities in the world, telling me it is not my job to solve them all.  She has taught me the importance of self-care and is always there to tell me that I’m enough, that there is nothing about me that I need to change, and that is ok to stop and rest.

Hannah and her amazing wife Becca are expecting their first child this winter (Becca should be awarded best Wellesley spouse of the year-- just don’t tell my husband Eric because he is in competition for this coveted title). I am so excited for Hannah and Becca to start this next chapter. Hannah is already an amazing caregiver to everyone in her life (as her mother Jackie said when we noticed this in her our first year at Wellesley, “it’s her way”). This little baby couldn’t ask for more amazing parents.

I”m so proud of Hannah and the amazing woman that she is --- she is changing the world not just through her advocacy and commitment to finding a democratic resolution for Israelis and Palestinians, but also in her advocacy and commitment to those that she cares about and loves --- telling us that we are amazing just the way we are. I love you Hannue. --- Shelly 

Hannah and Meagan [Froemming] Harmon ‘08 in Jerusalem in 2006. 

Hannah, Meagan and Shelly in 2010.

Sitting down to write this, I thought it would be easy to put into words exactly what Hannah means to me and why she is such an incredibly deserving Wellesley Alum of the Month. But, like you’d expect from a friendship of 14 years (I think Shelly actually introduced me to Hannah the day after they met), there are so many moments to choose from and so many ways I’ve seen Hannah influence the lives of those around her that it is basically impossible to decide where to begin. I could write about how hearing Hannah talk Middle East politics our first year at Wellesley opened my eyes to traditions that I’ve come to fiercely love and to corners of the world I’d never imagined I’d see, but that now feel as much like home to me as Shabbat dinner at Hannah’s house did that first Fall Break. Or I could go on and on about Hannah’s sense of humor or her charm, or the hours we spent laughing together at Wellesley and beyond, often to the point of tears, which are some of my most precious memories.

But what I think is most important that you know about Hannah is her ability to bring out the best in those she loves. She inspires me and everyone around her to be the best versions of ourselves: to be interested and engaged and open to the world with all its possibilities, its joys. and its losses. She isn’t afraid to get real or share hard truths, but she does it with gentleness and, above all else, with empathy.

I was so excited when Hannah told me she and Becca are expecting. Having just had a baby myself, I knew Hannah was going to be amazing at the motherhood thing and I couldn’t wait to see her in action...the baby isn’t here yet, but, man, amazing doesn’t even come close to describing her as a mama. Seeing Hannah’s love for her family grow exponentially as she enters this new season of life is beautiful. She has navigated each change, each new feeling (and they’re all new with a first pregnancy!), each tough moment and each celebratory one, with a calmness and grace that is not at all surprising coming from her, but which is inspiring all the same.

Hannah advocates for causes she is passionate about in her professional life, she advocates for her friends and their happiness in her personal life, and now, seeing her advocate for her family in this new role of mother, I feel even luckier to have her on my side. Hans, thank you for all you do.

Thank you to Shelly and Meagan for this month’s WAOTM nomination.