Olabisi Omoniyi-Alake

Olabisi Omoniyi-Alake is a Baltimore native. She attended the University of Maryland, College Park, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy and a minor in Public Leadership with a concentration area in Racial & Gender Justice. Olabisi attends Georgetown Law as an Opportunity Scholar and Blume Public Interest Scholar to continue her advocacy for marginalized communities, especially in the criminal justice and immigration sectors.

During her time in college, Olabisi invested her time in several on-campus organizations and professional experiences to further her passion for advocacy. She was awarded the Maryland Municipal League Fellowship Award, where she was one of two candidates from the School of Public Policy to work with municipal governments to further public service work. Olabisi partnered with the Annapolis city government to revise the Emergency Rental Assistance Program’s policies to make it more inclusive to marginalized households. She was also an Accelerator Fellow at the Do Good Institute and served as a Student Ambassador at the Maryland Student Legislature. Furthermore, Olabisi also founded FirstGen FirstForward, an organization committed to serving first-generation high school students navigating the college application process by providing mentorship and scholarship resources.

During her gap year, she was awarded the Ed Lorenzen internship by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget to produce research on fiscal budgetary concerns and assist in economic publications. Olabisi also pursued a research assistantship with the National Youth Justice Network to advance crucial state funding research on juvenile justice reform. In recognition of her commitment to community service, Olabisi has been awarded the SECU MD Community Foundation Award and the Student Success Service Leadership Award, the latter of which is given to community advocates who champion Black voices. She also served as a Henry Wallace Fellow this summer at the Institute for Policy Studies, where she developed her research skills to focus on anti-militarism and explore possible ways the federal budget can be used to invest in everyday American constituents.

In Olabisi’s free time, she loves reading literary fiction novels, doing nail art, and touring art galleries.