Profile:

Adrienne (Ada) Puches spent her Fellowship year with the Children's Defense Fund. She has volunteered and worked with not-for-profit agencies for more than 15 years. A 1989 graduate of the New York University School of Law, she most recently worked as project manager in the Seattle office of Greenpeace, the international environmental activist organization. She also has worked for Washington Citizens for Resource Conservation, the Ford Foundation and the Boston-based Volunteer Lawyers Project. She received a bachelor's degree in Romance languages and literature from Harvard University in 1980. About her post at the Center, Ada comments, "The world needs more and more people to do service-oriented work. It can be the most meaningful choice that you make in your life. The idea that I can, in some way, aid people in making that choice is both rewarding for me personally and exciting for UVM."