Class of 2007-08 Staff Attorney New York Lawyers for the Public Interest 151 W. 30th Street 11th Floor New York, NY 10001 Phone: 212-244-4664

Profile:

Dawn  graduated from CUNY, where she interned with a grassroots South Asian immigrant rights organization, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Civil Rights Division of the New York State Office of the Attorney General.  She also participated in the Economic Justice Project, a legal clinic representing clients on welfare whose benefits were being terminated. She was on the New York City Law Review and a member of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association. Prior to law school, Dawn worked with the Ms. Foundation for Women.  She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a B.A. in Political Science and Women’s Studies and a minor in Public Policy.  Through an international research grant, Dawn studied and traveled throughout India at the end of her senior year at UCLA, taking international development and women’s studies classes and working with community organizations.

Dawn worked with the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) for her fellowship year, taking a leadership role on numerous initiatives within the organization and helping build the organizations national capacity.  She represented NAPAWF at many national conferences and participated in workshops, panel discussions and trainings. As Reproductive Justice Project Director, Dawn worked on issues relating to health disparities in communities of color and federal and state healthcare access legislation.  Heading another major initiative, Dawn helped lead a national alliance of organizations advocating for the health and safety concerns of nail salon workers.  Representing one of the three convening organizations of the coalition (known as the National Healthy Nail Salon Alliance), Dawn helped plan nationwide conference calls to coordinate various ongoing regional and national advocacy efforts and write online articles and op-eds. Additionally, Dawn represented NAPAWF on local and national coalitions and participated in several federal lobbying efforts. Dawn was interviewed on PBS to speak about health disparities for Asian American women and has also been interviewed in other media.

Dawn is currently a staff attorney for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) where she engages in litigation, public education, policy analysis and lobbying on a range of environmental and racial justice initiatives.