Members of the Andrew Goodman Alumni Hall of Fame, established in 2024, are former Andrew Goodman Ambassadors and Puffin Democracy Fellows who continue to advance youth voting rights and the Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner legacy as Alumni.
Awarded Year: 2024
Anna Del Castillo is a Mississippian, Peruvian-Bolivian American, and healer who is innovating at the intersection of justice, politics, and healing. She serves as the Executive Director of Our Own Deep Wells, a social enterprise that is providing resources for healing and revolutionary love. Anna served in the Biden-Harris administration as the Deputy Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) for the White House, the first office of its kind in American History. She received her Master of Divinity as a Dean’s Fellow at Harvard Divinity School where she studied public policy, racial justice, and healing. She spent four years serving as an Andrew Goodman Ambassador while at Tufts University, and two years serving as an Andrew Goodman Puffin Democracy Fellow while at Harvard University. Anna's activism and belonging work has been honored with national fellowships and awards including the IGNITE National Fellowship, the Harvard Presidential Public Service Fellowship, and COLOR Magazine's 40 Under 40 to name a few. Anna dedicates her life to curating experiences for individual healing and collective action, believing that the combination of the two will lead to lasting social change.
Awarded Year: 2024
Brandon L. Daye is a passionate individual who is dedicated to empowering young voices and votes as a potent force in democracy, both on his college campus and within surrounding communities, through leadership in organizing voter registration campaigns, hosting educational workshops, and fostering open dialogues. Since Spring 2020, Brandon has supported AGF as an Andrew Goodman Team Leader through cultivating active civic engagement among peers and constituents at North Carolina A&T State University.
Beyond electoral participation, Brandon exemplifies a broader vision where young people are pivotal in shaping a sustainable and just future. He spearheads initiatives promoting equitable and ethical practices by advocating for inclusive policies and organizing community service projects to educate and excite voters. Brandon inspires fellow students to embrace their roles as proactive community members.
Brandon's efforts reflect a commitment to nurturing active, engaged citizens who understand and address local and global challenges. By bridging academic learning with real-world action, he empowers peers to contribute meaningfully towards building a more equitable, informed, and resilient society.
Awarded Year: 2024
Cyrus Commissariat is a proud graduate of the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law in Chicago, Illinois where he received his JD and LLM in Tax Law. He will begin his career at Northern Trust as an Associate Wealth Advisor where he will help the bank’s ultra-high net worth clients with their estate planning needs. While in law school he worked to advance education equity while working at Legal Aid Chicago and encouraged greater involvement in the Chicagoland area. The skills he learned as an Andrew Goodman Ambassador have been invaluable in his exploration of the law and he hopes to continue being of service.
Awarded Year: 2024
Evan Malbrough is a native of Smyrna, Georgia. He is a 2020 graduate of Georgia State University with a degree in Public Policy, a minor in Cello Performance, and an inductee to Georgia State University’s 2022 40 Under 40 class. At GSU, Evan was a founding member of Vote Everywhere, where, as an Andrew Goodman Ambassador, he led civic engagement programming on campus. While pursuing his undergraduate studies, Evan served as a Summer Research Fellow at the United States Department of Defense, serving at the Pentagon. At the Pentagon, Evan worked in legislative affairs and worked to support the DOD Office of General Counsel. Upon graduating, Evan became a 2020 Andrew Goodman Puffin Democracy Fellow with The Andrew Goodman Foundation. Evan founded the Georgia Youth Poll Worker Project, recruiting 1,000 poll workers for the 2020 general election and 2021 runoff election. The ACLU of Georgia officially acquired the Georgia Youth Poll Worker Project in December 2021, naming him a Voter Access Project Fellow in December 2021. Evan is a writer who has published in publications such as Forbes, Teen Vogue, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. After completing his fellowship at the ACLU of Georgia, Evan now serves as the Organizing Manager for Our Turn in Atlanta.
Awarded Year: 2024
Janiah Bene’ Henry, an organizer from Byron, GA, has been dedicated to empowering communities through political engagement and social justice since the age of 13. Growing up witnessing the challenges faced by marginalized groups, Janiah developed a strong commitment to civic duty and the fight for equity.
Janiah earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Clark Atlanta University, graduating cum laude in May 2023. Her passion for social justice and political activism deepened through her involvement with organizations such as The Andrew Goodman Foundation and CAU Votes, where she served as Chair.
Professionally, Janiah has continued her leadership as an organizer of youth. In her role as the Black Youth Renaissance Project Coordinator for Black Voters Matter and Represent Georgia, she has mobilized and organized youth on college campuses and surrounding areas, with a major focus on HBCUs. Currently pre-law, Janiah is preparing for law school with an ultimate goal of practicing civil rights, immigration, and sports entertainment law. Her dedication to empowering communities and advocating for social justice continues to inspire and drive her work.
Awarded Year: 2024
Jonian Rafti is an associate in the Corporate Department and a member of the Health Care Group at Proskauer Rose LLP. He regularly represents private equity investors, health systems, management companies, physician groups, and lenders in complex transactional and health care regulatory matters.
Since the start of his career, Jonian's practice has exclusively focused on representing a variety of clients in the health care sector. He leverages this industry experience to provide practical and market-driven insight to clients undertaking mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, financings and other business transactions. In addition to his transactional practice, Jonian provides counsel on a range of regulatory requirements governing the practice of medicine and the health care industry, including the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute, Civil Monetary Penalties Law, Health Care Fraud Statute, Physician Self-Referral Law (Stark Law) and their state counterparts. He also advises clients on corporate practice of medicine restrictions, HIPAA and health data privacy, and health care technology matters.
Jonian is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) and a Certified Artificial Intelligence Governance Professional (AIGP). As a law student, he worked at the Charities Bureau of the NY Attorney General’s Office on governance and regulatory disputes affecting state not-for-profit corporations.
He has previously served as member of the Board of Directors and Vice Chair of The Andrew Goodman Foundation, and member of the Bard College Center for Civic Engagement's Young Alumni Advisory Council.
Awarded Year: 2024
Skylar Mitchell is a Brooklyn-based writer-producer, and researcher studying how liberational practices subtextually emerge through visual materiality and art. In her media career, she has held editorial positions at CNN and Condé Nast, between curatorial assistant roles and post-bac studies in Global Thought. During her matriculations at Spelman College and Columbia University, she researched digital media forecasting and its connections to American and World History. These fields of exploration were buttressed by Skylar's liberal arts foundations in Women’s Studies, which continue to frame her lens as a Black queer feminist. Her organizing and political reporting background is a buttress for additional ongoing work in the art, fashion, and design spaces that inform her queries about the aesthetic economy. In her spare time, she is making collages and zines through her blogging and archiving space smitch + co.
Awarded Year: 2024
Tamia Fowlkes is a Public Investigator at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She earned her Master of Science in Journalism from Columbia University – Graduate School of Journalism in 2023. Before joining JS, she completed internships at the Washington Post, the Rachel Maddow Show, USA Today - Network and the Wisconsin State Journal. She previously served as an intern for The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Investigative Watchdog Team as a part of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Wires and Fires Investigation. Tamia completed undergraduate studies at The University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Political Science with certificates in Gender and Women’s Studies and Leadership. Her work explores housing, politics, disability, climate, and the arts.
Awarded Year: 2024
Usjid Hameed is a former Andrew Goodman Ambassador and Puffin Democracy Fellow. During his tenure as a Puffin Democracy Fellow, he initiated and spearheaded the 'Expanding the Ballot' initiative, which facilitated language assistance for voters through the recruitment of over 40 multilingual poll workers.
Currently, Usjid serves as a Consultant for PwC Strategy& where he advises private equity clients on transaction strategy. He earned a BS in Political Science from Towson University and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.
Awarded Year: 2024
Valencia Richardson serves as Legal Counsel, Voting Rights at Campaign Legal Center. Prior to joining CLC, Valencia Richardson was a voting rights organizer and activist. Before law school, Valencia was a Fulbright grantee to Mexico and an Andrew Goodman Ambassador and Puffin Democracy Fellow for The Andrew Goodman Foundation, for which she also served as a board member. She is the author of a nonfiction book, “Young and Disaffected,” and published “Voting While Poor: Reviving the Twenty-Fourth Amendment and Eliminating the Modern-Day Poll Tax” in the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy. Valencia has litigated various voting rights cases in state and federal court, including Pascua Yaqui v. Rodriguez, Pettaway v. Galveston County, as well as Aguilar v. Yakima County, the first case litigated under the Washington Voting Rights Act.
Valencia is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center (J.D., 2020) and Louisiana State University (B.A., 2016). She is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Louisiana and the Western District of Louisiana. Valencia Richardson joined CLC in August 2020 as an Equal Justice Works Fellow.
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