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Leda K. DeRosa

Associate Director

Leda K. DeRosa is the Associate Director for the African American Policy Forum. Originally from Meriden, Connecticut, Leda graduated from Barnard College, where she received a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies with a concentration in Political Science.

While at Barnard, Leda excelled academically, earning the distinction of magna cum laude. Her senior thesis, entitled “Youth Voices on Lockdown: Identity Shaping in Service Learning Programs” focused on the intersectionality of race, gender and class identities and how they shape volunteers’ perceptions of the inmates they taught in their service-learning class. Leda continues to be interested in the criminal justice movement and its far reaching implications for low-income communities of color.

Since graduating, Leda had worked in the corporate law sector before coming to the Policy Forum. She remains passionate about social justice issues and plans to pursue a career in law.

Paul Fraley

Web Consultant & IT Specialist

Paul Fraley is the website consultant for the African American Policy Forum. Paul formerly worked as the Communications Manager for the Center for the Advancement of Women (CFAW), led by women’s rights leader Faye Wattleton. CFAW is a feminist think-tank that captures women’s realities and top priorities and brings them front and center in the national discussion through broad-based multimedia coverage. During Paul’s five years with CFAW he was intrumental in revamping their website (AdvanceWomen.org) and helped create internet advocacy campaigns; including the successful, Ann Coulter Does Not Speak for Me and Turn on the Light. He was chosen for his expertise in strategic messaging and experience in multi-media platforms. Paul also formerly worked for the Alliance for Lupus Research and the American Cancer Society.

Imtiaz Hossain

Research Assistant

Imtiaz Hossain is AAPF’s resourceful research assistant. He finished his undergraduate studies in Anthropology and Comparative Literature from The University of Buffalo in 2008. He is primarily interested in understanding cultural and historical transformations through social movements, literature, philosophy and critical theory, and hopes to advance ideas and actions for sustainable social building, concrete justice and universal human rights. He currently lives in NYC and hopes to pursue graduate studies in the near future with such issues in mind, and contribute toward a plural and cohesive global society.

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Katerina Bouras

Summer 2010 Intern

Katerina Bouras is originally from Long Beach, California. She attended Long Beach Wilson Classical High School and is currently a senior at the University of California, Santa Barbara where she is majoring in Sociology with a minor in Black Studies. After college, she plans to pursue a career in law that allows her to make a change in pursuing justice in the area of human rights.

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Monique Sudirgo

Summer 2010 Intern

Monique Sudirgo is a senior at Troy High School in Fullerton, California. She has an interest in design, civil rights and environmental protection. She is also an intern for BP Fashion Board under Nordstrom and a co-founder of A Nickel a Dream Foundation, a charity organization that raises money for orphaned children. She one day hopes to study law and major in both, Business and English.

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Júlia Neiva

Global Affirmative Action Praxis Project – Brazil Coordinator

Julia Mello Neiva, a native from Sao Paulo, Brazil, has been in the U.S. since 2006. She attended  Law School (1999-2003) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo, and has worked with human rights for over 7 years.

In May 2007, she received her LL.M. degree from Columbia Law School, where she was also granted a Human Rights Fellowship. In 2006, she received the title of Specialist in Human Rights, after concluding the Lato Sensu Post-graduation Degree, Specialization Course in Human Rights, at the Law School, University of São Paulo

Over the past three years, she has been working on gender and race discrimination topics as well as in social, economic and cultural projects. She has spoken and also facilitated working groups on human and women’s rights in Brazil, in the US, and in other countries of the Global South. She has worked at the Center for Reproductive Rights, in the Promotoras Populares Legais (a street law project that capacitates women to counsel other women victims of violence about their rights), conducted a research for the UNFPA-NY, among other projects. Since September 2006, Ms. Neiva is working for the São Tomé and Príncipe Advisory Project (a partnership between Columbia University’s Earth Institute and Human Rights Clinic) – a project to assist the government of that country in implementing laws establishing oversight and transparency in managing its oil revenues.

Currently, she coordinates the GAAPP (Global Affirmative Action Praxis Project) – Brazil at the African American Policy Forum (AAPF).