Alisa Daugaard

Lisa grew up near Seattle and became an activist in the anti-apartheid divestment movement in the mid-1980s while a graduate student at Cornell University. She attended Yale Law School from 1989-1992, where she helped litigate the case that eventually shut down the US government's concentration camp for HIV-positive Haitian refugees at Guantanamo. From 1992-1996, she worked in New York City with the ACLU National Legal Department, the Coalition for the Homeless, and the Urban Justice Center Organizing Project, where she launched a leadership development program for homeless activists as an echoing green fellow. Since 1996, she has been a public defender at the Defender Association in Seattle, where she is Deputy Director and supervises the Racial Disparity Project, which is developing a community-based diversion approach to street drug activity.