Our Team
Our Staff
Claire Bartholomew (she/her/hers) is a recent graduate of NYU School of Law, where she was involved with the school’s Reproductive Justice Clinic, Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellowship, If/When/How chapter, and Public Interest Law Students Association. She previously interned with Planned Parenthood, the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, the Pace Women’s Justice Center, and the Brennan Center for Justice. Claire earned her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis and worked for an education nonprofit before law school. Claire loves to bake, read, and walk around the city.
Yael Caplan (she/her/hers) is a recent graduate of Yale Law School. In law school, she was involved with the Veterans Legal Services Clinic, where she helped litigate cases involving military parental discrimination, disability discrimination, and discriminatory IVF coverage restrictions. She also served as an articles editor with the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism. She previously interned with the Lawyering Project and a Better Balance. Prior to law school, Yael served as an analyst for the Surgo Foundation, focusing on domestic and global reproductive and maternal health issues. Yael earned her B.A., Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Chicago with a dual degree in public policy and comparative human development. A longtime crossword enthusiast, she has recently started dabbling in the online crossword competition scene.
Leena Chawla (she/her) is a development associate at Pregnancy Justice. Leena most recently worked at the Legal Aid Society, helping NYC tenants fight eviction and unjust housing laws. Before moving to Brooklyn, Leena worked with domestic violence survivors in Austin, Texas. She holds a B.A. in sociology and gender, sexuality, and feminist studies from Middlebury College. Leena enjoys long dinners with friends and is learning how to sew.
Zenovia Earle (she/her) joined Pregnancy Justice as the media & communications director. She leverages experience in government affairs, community outreach, marketing, media relations, and journalism. Before joining Pregnancy Justice, Zenovia held NYC government communications roles in aging services and technology. She started her career in TV and online news. Zenovia holds a B.A. in journalism from Georgia State University and an MPA from New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Zenovia is an avid traveler, working to make it to all continents, and counts the Waitomo Glowworm Caves in New Zealand as a top destination. She also has a big soft spot for older adults.
Emanuella Evans (she/her/hers) is a digital communications professional with experience in video production, graphic design, social media strategy, and audience engagement. She is passionate about Black liberation and using intentional multimedia communications to make information accessible and organize against structural oppression. Before joining Pregnancy Justice, Emanuella worked in communications at the International Women’s Media Foundation. Emanuella holds a B.A. in journalism from Northwestern University and has previously reported on criminal justice, immigration, mental health, and the intersection of gender-based violence and affordable housing. In her free time, Emma loves to travel, and she runs a youth program for South Sudanese in Kansas City.
Lindsey Hull (she/her) is a staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice, who came to us in 2020 as our first Knighton-Newman legal fellow. Prior to law school, Lindsey worked as a registered nurse at a high-risk labor and delivery unit in Tennessee, where she is from. Lindsey earned her J.D. as well as her B.S.N. from the University of Tennessee. She is nationally certified in inpatient obstetrics and currently serves on the board of Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health. Outside of work, Lindsey is an amateur improvisor, an advanced clogger, and a Harry Potter enthusiast (Gryffindor House).
Kelly Keglovits (she/her/hers) recently graduated from Duke Law and also obtained a certificate in public interest and public service law. Prior to joining Pregnancy Justice, she previously interned at the ACLU of Oklahoma and the Center for Reproductive Rights’ U.S. litigation team. At Duke, she was involved in the Health Justice Clinic, Wrongful Convictions Clinic, and the Coalition Against Gendered Violence. She received her B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and is originally from Oklahoma. Outside of work Kelly is also an avid hiker and runner — her best hike so far was climbing Kilimanjaro.
Samantha Lee (she/her) is a senior staff attorney. Prior to joining us, Samantha served as a family defense attorney in Brooklyn. She earned her J.D. from NYU Law School and a B.A. from Stanford University, focusing on international human rights law, and served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Anne E. Thompson of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. In her spare time, Sam enjoys knitting and can knit a xx in no time flat.
Lourdes A. Rivera (she/her/ella) joined Pregnancy Justice as its first president in 2023, bringing more than 30 years of experience as a respected leader in reproductive rights and justice, health law and policy, and philanthropy. She recently served as a senior vice president of U.S. Programs at the Center for Reproductive Rights, overseeing comprehensive litigation, policy advocacy, and partnership strategies. Lourdes is a co-founder of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice and the Groundswell Fund, a board member of the National Health Law Program, and board president of the Brush Foundation. She also received an American Bar Association presidential appointment to the ABA’s Coalition on Racial and Ethnic Justice. She earned a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Yale University. An enthusiastic salsa dancer since childhood, Lourdes can lead and follow with grace.
Emma Roth (she/her) is a senior staff attorney at Pregnancy Justice. Prior to joining us, she served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Ronnie Abrams of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. She also worked as an Equal Justice Works fellow for the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, where she brought impact litigation to advance the rights of women and girls in courts across the country. Emma received her J.D. from Yale Law School and her A.B., magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Brown University. As a proud mom of a rambunctious toddler, Emma brings both her personal and professional experiences to her representation of pregnant and parenting people.
Alea Rouse is an operational and project management professional. She holds a B.A. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an M.A. from Rutgers University in Global Affairs. Alea previously worked for USAID as a Research and Innovation Fellow in Cape Town, South Africa. In this role, she coordinated a wide range of complex cross-functional projects to achieve organizational goals focused on supporting women’s rights. Alea enjoys going to museums and strolling through Central Park.
Dana Sussman (she/her/hers) joined Pregnancy Justice in 2021 as deputy executive director and served as acting executive director in the transition period prior to Lourdes A. Rivera joining as our new president. Dana previously served as a deputy commissioner at the NYC Commission on Human Rights and has 15 years of experience as a workers’ rights, civil rights, and gender justice attorney. After graduating from Northeastern University School of Law, Dana served as a Legal Fellow at the Center for Reproductive Rights and clerked for federal Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in the Eastern District of New York. Dana holds a B.A. and an M.P.H. from Tufts University. A former fitness instructor and dancer, Dana now hosts dance parties in her kitchen for her two small children to the soundtrack of 90s hits.
Mahathi Vemireddy (she/her) is a legal fellow with Pregnancy Justice. She recently graduated from Northeastern University’s School of Law with a concentration in health law and policy. She has previously interned with the National Institute of Reproductive Rights, the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, and Pregnancy Justice. She earned her B.A. from New York University, where she focused on feminist and decolonization movements. In her spare time, Mahathi likes to read and go to museums.
Fikayo Walter-Johnson (she/her) is a social science researcher committed to transformative social movements. Prior to joining Pregnancy Justice, she was a paralegal with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, where she supported pressing First and Fourth Amendment litigation. She is excited to combine her knowledge of privacy and free speech to advance pregnant people’s social and legal protections. Fikayo received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago with a dual degree in sociology and public policy and a specialization in gender and sexuality studies. Once upon a time, she co-hosted and produced a biweekly radio show on WHPK 88.5 FM called “OurSpace.”
Damaris Williams (she/her) is Pregnancy Justice’s controller and is an accountant with experience in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors in various industries such as real estate management, publishing, higher education, tech startups, trade/barter, and professional associations. She graduated cum laude from Hunter College and holds a B.A. in accounting. She also holds a degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology. While working for a psychological association, she realized the importance of contributing to the well-being of society, leading her to Pregnancy Justice. Damaris enjoys urban sketching. She draws and paints people, places, and things in real-time.
Lauren Wranosky (she/they) is a policy and program associate with Pregnancy Justice. Before joining us, Lauren worked as a social worker in mental health, hospice, and skilled nursing. They earned their MSW from Columbia University, specializing in public policy, and interned with Pregnancy Justice. Additionally, they have a BSW from Azusa Pacific University. In their free time, Lauren enjoys music production and singing karaoke.
Our Board of Directors
Nancy R. Aries is a professor of public policy at Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College. She has held several administrative positions including interim university dean for undergraduate education and, most recently, director of the Baruch Honors Program. Her areas of research have included women’s reproductive health services and policies, the hospital workforce diversity, and the economic impact of biomedical research. She is currently studying the racial divide in higher education policy and practice. Recognition that teaching can be transformative led her to be trained as a facilitator at the Institute for Intergroup Dialogue and to organize Creative Inquiry Day, Baruch’s celebration of student research and creative endeavors.
Khiara M. Bridges is a professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law. She has written many articles concerning race, class, reproductive rights, and the intersection of the three. Her scholarship has appeared or will soon appear in the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the NYU Law Review, the California Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among others. She is also the author of three books: Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization (2011), The Poverty of Privacy Rights (2017), and Critical Race Theory: A Primer (2019). She is a co-editor of a reproductive justice book series that is published under the imprint of the University of California Press. She graduated as valedictorian from Spelman College, receiving her degree in three years. She received her J.D. from Columbia Law School and her Ph.D., with distinction, from Columbia University’s Department of Anthropology.
Sarah Burns is a professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law. She supervises the Reproductive Justice Clinic, which represents clients in litigation and policy projects centering on reproductive decision making. Sarah is executive director of Washington Square Legal Services. She also co-founded and oversees the Mediation Clinic and the Litigation, Organizing & Systemic Change Clinic, conducted in partnership with Make the Road NY and Center for Popular Democracy. Sarah combines law with learning in social science to develop effective solutions for problems that institutions and communities face. Sarah, who has been on the NYU faculty since 1990, specializes in experiential learning pedagogy, developing simulation and clinical courses in litigation, negotiation, mediation, policy advocacy, and systemic change. Burns graduated in 1979 from Yale Law School and holds master’s degrees from Stanford University in sociology and the University of Oklahoma in human relations.
Julie Ehrlich (she/her) is the director of presidential initiatives and chief of staff at the Mellon Foundation, where she partners with the president to identify, create strategies for, and execute hallmark grant-making initiatives — including the Monuments Project, the Puerto Rico Initiative, and Imagining Freedom. Previously, Julie was assistant dean for strategic initiatives and chief of staff, executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network, and adjunct professor of clinical law and co-instructor of the Reproductive Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law. Prior to joining NYU Law in 2014, Julie was a civil rights litigator for nearly a decade. She began her legal career as a staff attorney/fellow in the ACLU Women’s Rights Project and clerked for Judge Nina Gershon in the Eastern District of New York and Judge Robert D. Sack on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Julie holds a B.A. in American Studies from Yale University, and a J.D. from NYU, where she received a Hays Fellowship in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Maurice Goodman Memorial Prize for Scholarship and Character.
Dr. Carl Hart, Ph.D. is the chair of the Department of Psychology and the Dirk Ziff Professor of Psychology (in psychiatry) at Columbia University. Dr. Hart is a leading researcher on issues of drug use and dependency. He is the author of High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society. He is the winner of the 2014 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.
Dr. Hytham M. Imseis is a maternal-fetal medicine specialist practicing in Charlotte, North Carolina. His career has been dedicated to caring for and advocating for pregnant women. He is very involved in the medical education of obstetrician/gynecologists across the U.S. for which he has won many teaching awards. He currently serves on the Women’s Executive Board and the Ethics Committee at his hospital and has served as the medical director of the Mountain Area Perinatal Substance Abuse Program and the Mountain Area Health Education Teen Pregnancy Clinic. Dr. Imseis has published research articles in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and in Obstetrics and Gynecology and currently reviews manuscripts for publication in both the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Carmelyn P. Malalis (she/her) joined the board of Pregnancy Justice in 2022. Carmelyn is the former chair and commissioner of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, the agency tasked with combating discrimination in New York City. Prior to her appointment, Carmelyn was a partner at Outten & Golden LLP, where she co-founded and co-chaired its Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Workplace Rights Practice Group. She is a frequent speaker and commentator on human rights and issues involving diversity, equity, and inclusion; she has worked with several local and national organizations advocating for the rights of LGBTQIA, BIPOC, immigrant, and religious communities. Depending on the season, Carmelyn can be seen in Brooklyn coaching her older child’s softball team, playing a pick-up game of beach volleyball, or trying to keep up with her daughter on ice skates.
Jennifer L. Morgan is a history professor at the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, where she also serves as chair. She is the author of Laboring Women: Gender and Reproduction in the Making of New World Slavery and the co-editor of Connexions: Histories of Race and Sex in America. Her research examines the intersections of gender and race in the Black Atlantic world. Her newest work, Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic, considers colonial numeracy, racism and the rise of the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in the 17th century English Atlantic world. Jennifer became acquainted with Pregnancy Justice through her father, John Morgan, a drug policy reformer.
Karen Sauvigné is a pioneer in the fight against sexual harassment in employment. While on the Cornell University faculty in the mid-1970s, she was part of a team that organized a “Speak-Out” in Ithaca, NY, a kind of public consciousness raising against sexual exploitation at work. To give the phenomenon a name, they coined the term “sexual harassment in the workplace.” She and her colleagues gave voice to more women. Karen has served as director of education in the Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Care at Mount Sinai and is co-author of several landmark publications on geriatrics competencies for medical trainees. Before going to Mount Sinai, she held faculty and management positions at Cornell, CUNY Law School, John Jay College, and Baruch College. She has served on the boards of the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, the Public Interest Law Foundation, San Simeon Health and Nursing Center, and Cornell’s Institute for Women and Work, as well as NYC’s LGBT swim team — where she ran operations for Gay Games Swimming in 1994. Karen currently serves as chair of the Grants Committee for the North Fork Women for Women Fund.
Ria Tabacco Mar (she/her) is the director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. Previously, she was an attorney with the ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project, where she led the ACLU’s team in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission . In the case, a same-sex couple was refused a wedding cake because they are gay. Ria is a frequent commentator on gender justice issues and has been recognized on The Root 100 annual list of the most influential African Americans ages 25 to 45 and as one of the Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40 by the National LGBT Bar Association.