The GW Law Public Interest and Public Service Law Center is excited to welcome 10 Public Interest Scholars for the 2026-27 school year.
For the past 10 years the Public Interest Scholars program has chosen a select group of incoming, full-time students to be scholars for the academic year. These students receive a $5,000 stipend to support the funding of summer employment at non-profit or government organizations after their first year of law school.
In addition to the stipend, Public Interest Scholars receive mentorship and career counseling from Public Interest and Public Service Center Director Matt Nosanchuk as well as access to special events, including meetings with accomplished public interest lawyers and public servants, exposure to different public interest and public service roles, and site visits to courts, agencies, and non-profit organizations.
“We are thrilled to welcome the Public Interest Scholars from the class of 2029. They already have done remarkable and impactful work to further the public good and share a commitment to continue doing so as lawyers,” said Matt Nosanchuk, the Lerner Associate Dean for Public Service and Public Interest Law.
This year’s scholars have accomplished backgrounds with legal interests ranging from health and disability law to immigration defense and civil rights.
Public Interest and Public Service Law Center
2026-27 Public Interest Scholars
Caroline Avery
Caroline Avery graduated cum laude from Duke University in 2022 with a BA in Public Policy, where she focused on the intersection of gender, family, and public policy. She comes to GW Law from the office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray, where she served as Deputy Scheduler and Executive Assistant to the Chief of Staff, managing more than 200 incoming meeting requests each month. Prior to working in the Senate, she interned at the White House Domestic Policy Council during the Biden Administration in the fall of 2022. Driven by her personal experiences growing up in a single-parent household and working in government, Caroline plans to pursue public interest law focused on addressing systemic socioeconomic inequities in our public institutions.
Harper Doerr
Harper Doerr graduated magna cum laude from Louisiana State University’s Honors College in 2024 with three degrees — in Political Science, Sociology-Criminology, and Philosophy — completing all three in five years, and was named LSU's first-ever Schwarzman Scholar, one of 150 future global leaders selected to study in China from over 5,500 applicants. At Tsinghua University's Schwarzman College, he conducted graduate research through Microsoft Research Asia on the ethical governance of generative AI in mental health diagnostics and led an academic expedition across the Tibetan Plateau. At Louisiana State University, he founded Rock for Reclaimed, a charity music festival that has raised over $250,000 since 2022 for disadvantaged children in Louisiana, the Mississippi Delta, and Lesotho. He also created the LSU Gubernatorial Election Forum to give college students a platform to engage with their elected officials. His public service experience includes a Governor's Fellowship with Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, a congressional internship in the office of Congressman Garret Graves, and his most recent role at Studyville, where he co-authored a detailed report for the Louisiana Governor's Office analyzing the state's education savings account program. Harper plans to serve as a Judge Advocate in the U.S. Marine Corps after law school before pursuing a career in international humanitarian law.
Misbah Farooqi
Misbah Farooqi earned her BA in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies from Columbia University in 2021, graduating with Dean's List honors and the King's Crown Leadership Award for Principled Action. She has extensive experience in strategic communications and advocacy, having served as Communications Director for New York State Senator Alessandra Biaggi and, most recently, as Senior Communications Manager at The Hub Project, where she guided state teams in holding members of Congress accountable on healthcare and economic issues. Her work in Senator Biaggi's office — including publicly documenting the deaths of over 30 inmates at Rikers Island — crystallized her desire to move from communications into direct legal advocacy. Rooted in her faith's commitment to justice and the principles of movement lawyering, Misbah plans to pursue impact litigation, direct legal service, and policy work at the intersection of civil rights, immigration law, and technology law.
Ahzaria Garris
Ahzaria Garris graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Howard University in 2022 with a dual degree in Criminology and Psychology. She went on to work as a paralegal specialist in the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where she supported Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act cases and contributed to efforts that resulted in the release of more than 100 individuals who had served over 15 years in prison. Most recently, Ahzaria served as a paralegal at the Arlington Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, and is actively involved in mutual aid work, distributing food, clothing, and hygiene products to community members, and serving on the board of a summer enrichment program for students from low-income backgrounds. Ahzaria plans to begin her legal career as a public defender and ultimately work in youth crime prevention with nonprofit organizations.
Katherine "Katie" Jackson
Katie Jackson graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2023 with a BA in Public Policy. While at UNC, she also participated in a faculty-led field seminar in London on the intersection of criminal justice and mental health law. Immediately before coming to GW Law, Katie was a research analyst at Westat, where she served as the project manager on a U.S. Department of Education technical assistance contract, leading a 25-person team and overseeing a national conference of approximately 500 grantees with a budget of roughly $500,000 per year. Her work across place-based education initiatives, diaper distribution research, and Medicaid quality standards showed her firsthand how legal advocates are essential to multi-system solutions for vulnerable populations. Katie plans to pursue criminal defense and civil rights law at GW, with a long-term goal of bridging direct representation with policy and advocacy work.
Annika Reff
Annika Reff earned her BA in Classics from Brown University in 2025, winning the Lucius Lyon Thesis Prize for the most outstanding Classics Honors thesis, and recently completed an MPhil in Health, Medicine and Society at the University of Cambridge, where she earned a Distinction and received the Johnston Prize for Postgraduate Studies. Her research examined health equity through the lens of food access, GLP-1 drugs, and federal nutrition policy. She brings legal experience from a multi-year internship at Ahdoot & Wolfson, PC, where she helped to draft briefs and complaints for class action consumer protection cases and conducted hundreds of client intake interviews. She also researched international agrifood systems at The Lexicon, a California-based NGO, shadowed a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and advocated for youth voting rights and engagement at the Los Angeles non-profit, The Civics Center. Annika's research and advocacy experiences have together shaped her view that the legal system too often manages the symptoms of inequality rather than addressing root causes. At GW Law, she plans to specialize in food and FDA law, with the goal of becoming a food policy lawyer who can build more equitable regulatory systems.
Annalise Scarbrough
Annalise Scarbrough graduated magna cum laude from the University of Maryland in 2021 with a BA in Government and Politics, completing an honors thesis on the decline of American institutional trust that was awarded High Honors. She spent the past four years as a Cryptologic Intelligence Analyst at the National Security Agency, completing a three-year rotational development program writing strategic assessments and briefing senior executive branch policymakers on national security matters. Annalise intends to bring her analytical skills to a public interest legal career advancing and defending LGBTQ+ rights and the rights of other marginalized groups facing escalating political and legal threats.
Marc Steiner
Marc Steiner is from Maplewood, New Jersey, but has lived in Washington, DC since beginning at American University in 2017, where he earned his BA in Communications and a minor in International Relations and Spanish. Prior to pursuing his law school, he was completing his Master of Public Policy at American University, serving as Editor in Chief of The Public Purpose Journal and as a graduate assistant at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. He previously worked as a legislative analyst at the American Council of Life Insurers, Legislative Correspondent in the office of U.S. Representative Lucile Roybal-Allard and budget fellow at the Arizona Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budget. Growing up Jewish with an acute awareness of antisemitism — and through interfaith relationships that deepened his understanding of how multiple communities live under persistent threat — Marc developed a conviction that the law can and must be turned against those who weaponize it against minority groups. At GW Law, he plans to develop his legal skills to pursue a career in protecting targeted communities.
Angelica Vega
Angelica Vega graduated from American University in 2020 with a BA in Philosophy and a minor in Public Health, earning the Harold J. and Ruth Pearson Prize for Outstanding Performance in Philosophy, and recently completed a Master of Science in Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania on a full-tuition Jay Goldman Scholarship. As an Afro-Latina woman with multiple disabilities, she has dedicated her career to disability rights advocacy, including serving as a Coelho Law Fellow, later chairing the Coelho Center’s DEIA Advisory Committee, and presenting at the largest disability law symposium in the United States. During her time with the Coelho Center, her blog post analyzing the Dobbs decision’s implications for disabled Americans drew the attention of the Biden White House, leading to her participation in a discussion with ten of the nation’s leading disability advocates that helped inform HHS guidance on reproductive access. At GW Law, Angelica plans to work in disability law and policy, focusing on the intersection of reproductive rights, privacy, employment law, and disability justice.
Jacob Wesoky
Jacob Wesoky earned his BA in Political Science and International Development Studies at McGill University, where he was on a McCall MacBain Scholarship and studied international relations on an exchange at IE University in Madrid. Through his leadership of Democrats Abroad Canada as Executive Vice Chair, he directed get-out-the-vote efforts reaching more than 600,000 U.S. voters living in Canada and was elected as one of the youngest delegates to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, where he served as the youngest member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee. His family's history as Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, coupled with his summers guiding campers on hikes to Sunfish Pond — a glacial lake preserved through grassroots legal action — have shaped a deep belief that fundamental rights require people willing to organize and fight for them. Jacob plans to pursue immigration law and/or civil rights law at GW, with particular interest in the Immigration Clinic and working at a non-profit specializing in immigration defense and civil rights.
