Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno is the Drug Policy Alliance’s Executive Director. She brings nearly thirteen years of international and domestic drug policy experience from her work at Human Rights Watch, where she served as Co-Director of the US Program.

Maria’s commitment to social justice and drug policy reform dates from her childhood, which she spent mostly in Peru. She was strongly influenced by her early work at Human Rights Watch researching Colombia, where drug profits fueled massacres and official corruption.

During her tenure at Human Rights Watch, Maria led a team advocating against racial discrimination in policing, excessive sentencing, and unfair deportation policies that tear families apart, all issues closely intertwined with the United States’ cruel and irrational approach to drugs. She also pressed the organization to more directly address the war on drugs as a human rights issue. As a result, in 2013 Human Rights Watch became the first major international human rights organization to call for decriminalization of the personal use and possession of drugs and global drug reform more broadly.

Maria is the author of the narrative non-fiction book There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia, forthcoming from Nation Books in February 2018. She holds a law degree from New York University School of Law and did most of her undergraduate studies in Lima, Peru, before completing her BA at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a native speaker of both Spanish and English.

See Maria's writings.

asha bandele, DPA’s Senior Director of Grants, Partnerships and Special Projects, joined the organization in 2005. She built and continues to manage DPA’s grants program, which supports grassroots organizations by providing financial and intellectual resources, while regularly engaging a wide array of audiences in public conversations about drugs and drug policy.

The award-winning, best-selling author of The Prisoner’s Wife, and four other books, asha is also a journalist whose articles have been read widely in publications that include the the New York Times, the Nation, Vibe, Ebony and Essence, where she covered a broad range of people from Winnie Mandela to Denzel Washington, from Assata Shakur to Mary J. Blige. She has reported from places that included Cuba, South Africa and Newtown, Connecticut after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In 2014, asha was the last person to interview Dr. Maya Angelou, 10 days before her death. 

In 2016 Scribner will re-release asha’s 2003 novel, Daughter, about the impact of police violence on one Brooklyn family, with the updated e-edition including advice on healing from the founders of Black Lives Matter, Harry Belafonte, Michelle Alexander, Kadiatou Diallo and numerous others incredible scholars and advocates.

asha completed her B.A. at The New School, her M.F.A. at Bennington College and served as a Revson Fellow at Columbia University in which her cohort unpacked issues of economic disparity in a post-9/11 New York City. But her single greatest joy and passion is parenting her daughter, Nisa, an honors-level high-schooler, dancer, writer and Aries, who published her own first work when she was 15. The two live and create in Brooklyn, New York.

Select public conversations

With Michelle Alexander

With Dr. Stanton Peele

With Dr. Carl Hart

Bill Piper is the senior director of DPA’s office of national affairs in Washington, D.C., where he is responsible for developing and implementing strategies for ending the federal war on drugs. He lobbies Congress in support of cutting drug war waste, protecting state marijuana laws from federal interference, reforming draconian sentencing laws, re-structuring federal law enforcement agencies, and preventing drug overdoses and the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.

Read Bill's writings.

Piper has provided analysis and commentary on Fox News, Al Jazeera, BBC News, Voice of America, the Oliver North Radio Show, and NPR’s Marketplace. He has been quoted in dozens of regional and national newspapers, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Roll Call, Politico, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today and Washington Post.  He is the author of several DPA publications, including the seminal 2008 report, A Four-Pillars Approach to Methamphetamine: Policies for Effective Drug Prevention, Treatment, Policing and Harm Reduction.  His opinion pieces have appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Sun-Times, Des Moines Register, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Washington Post. He is also a regulator contributor to Huffington Post and Alternet.

Prior to joining the organization, Piper was director of research for the Initiative and Referendum Institute, a national nonprofit working to preserve and expand the rights of voters to change public policy through the ballot box. Before that, he worked for U.S. Term Limits, the largest grassroots organization working to enact term limits for elected officials. He is a graduate of Indiana University with a double major in political science and economics, and has nearly twenty years of political experience in Washington, D.C.

Ellen Flenniken manages the Drug Policy Alliance’s development and donor engagement efforts. 

Before joining DPA, Ellen worked extensively as a political campaign manager and fundraiser. She served as finance director for Oregon’s successful campaign to regulate, legalize and tax marijuana, campaign manager for Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), finance director for Kate Brown’s winning campaign for Oregon Secretary of State, and deputy finance director at Oregon United for Marriage. Ellen received her B.A. in political science and Mandarin Chinese from Middlebury College.

Megan Farrington is Director of Digital Communications. Before joining DPA's communications team, Farrington did technology planning for nonprofit community-based organizations in New York City and worked for Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.
 
Farrington grew up in the Washington, DC, area and has a B.A. in Modern Languages and Linguistics from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She became interested in drug policy when she realized the scare tactics and misinformation put forth by traditional drug education programs were actually harming young people.

Before joining the Drug Policy Alliance, Roseanne Scotti, Senior Director, Resident States and State Director, New Jersey, was a research coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Studies of Addiction in the HIV Prevention Research Division. As a research coordinator, she worked on various research projects studying the incidence of HIV among injection drug users with the goal of designing effective prevention interventions. Scotti received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from Temple School of Law.

Scotti has authored and co-authored law review and medical journal articles on HIV prevention and drug policy. She founded the Prevention Point Philadelphia Harm Reduction Law Project, which provides free legal assistance for drug users and sex workers in Philadelphia. She lectures often on the issues of harm reduction and drug policy.

In 2004, Scotti received the award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of HIV Prevention from the New Jersey HIV Prevention Community Planning Group. In 2005, she was appointed to New Jersey's Gang Land Security Task Force.

Ryan Chavez is managing director, finance and administration, based in New York. Ryan has over 20 years of progressive experience in government and nonprofit management, emergency feeding programs, technical assistance and AIDS housing services. Prior to joining the organization, Ryan served for seven years as deputy executive director of Community Health Action (CHASI), a community organization based in Staten Island that provides services to individuals and families challenged by health disparities.

Before joining CHASI, he was director of strategic planning for NYC’s HIV Health and Human Services Planning Council. Previously, he worked at Bailey House, a nationally-recognized AIDS housing provider, where he developed a technical assistance department providing program planning and evaluation, fiscal management, conflict resolution and trainings to NYC AIDS housing agencies. He was a member of NYC’s Housing Works Group and the Massachusetts statewide Housing Advisory Committee. While at Bailey House, he worked closely with the city to develop a number of new housing models, including the Sustainable Living Fund. Ryan has an M.S. from the University of Massachusetts at Boston with a concentration in nonprofit management, and a B.A. in Psychology from Cornell University.

Tamar Todd directs DPA’s Office of Legal Affairs.  She is responsible for developing and overseeing the organization’s legal work as it relates to legislative drafting, policy advocacy, litigation, and public education in local, state and federal jurisdictions.

Todd also directs the work of DPA’s Marijuana Law and Policy Unit, which focuses primarily on medical marijuana, marijuana decriminalization, and marijuana legalization and regulation initiatives, and their implementation across the United States.

She has co-authored several state and local ballot initiatives and statutes, including Amendment 64 in Colorado, and she has advised the government of Uruguay on its efforts to legalize the production and distribution of marijuana.  She has testified in numerous legislative and government bodies in the United States and abroad on the issue of drug policy and the intersection of state and federal law.

Todd received her B.A. from the University of Vermont and her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center, where she graduated magna cum laude and served as executive editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. After law school, she clerked for the Hon. Emmet Sullivan on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and she spent several years representing death row inmates as a staff attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. Todd is a member of the California and Alabama bars.

Tony Newman is director of media relations, a position he has held since 2000. Newman has more than 20 years of public relations experience. Before joining the organization, he was the media director for the human rights organization Global Exchange and co-founded the public relations firm Communication Works. Newman received his B.A. from the University of California Santa Cruz.

Read Tony's writings.

Anthony Papa is manager of media and artist relations. He is an artist, writer, freedom fighter, noted advocate against the war on drugs and co-founder of the Mothers of the New York Disappeared. Papa’s stinging opinion pieces about the drug war have appeared in news sources across the country. He is a frequent public speaker and college lecturer on his art and criminal justice issues.

Read Anthony's writings.

On 12/31/16 Papa received a pardon from Gov. Andrew Cuomo and became the first person in NYS history to receive both clemency (from Gov. George Pataki 1997) and a pardon. Papa is the author of This Side of Freedom: Life After Clemency, his second memoir about his 18 years of freedom after imprisonment, and 15 to Life: How I Painted My Way to Freedom (2004), a memoir about his experience of being sentenced to state prison for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense under New York’s draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws.

Papa has been interviewed by a wide range of national print and broadcast media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, National Public Radio, “Democracy Now,” Court TV, “Extra,” C-Span, WPIX, RNN among others. His art has been exhibited widely from the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York to many cultural centers, and he has appeared on nationally syndicated talk shows such as CNN's Your Money, MSNBC Live withTamron Hall, “Charles Grodin,” “Geraldo Rivera,” and “Catherine Crier Live.”

Derek Rosenfeld is DPA's manager of social media and media relations, based in New York. He strives to promote harm reduction strategies for dealing with drug use, enjoys staying current on drug policy reform issues, and makes every effort to share current events with as many people as possible.
 
Prior to joining the organization, Rosenfeld interned with New York City Council Member Stephen Levin (D-33) in Brooklyn, NY, where he handled constituent casework, budget responsibilities, and other tasks. He also worked side-by-side with the Greenpoint/Williamsburg Community Liaison in an effort to establish a “wet” homeless shelter in the Greenpoint area of Brooklyn.
 
Rosenfeld grew up in New York and received a B.A. in Social Sciences Interdisciplinary, with a concentration in Legal Studies, from the University at Buffalo. He also completed a minor in Sociology. His interests in criminal justice and civil rights, as well as a Sociology class called “Drugs & Society,” catalyzed his passion for drug policy reform.

As Communications Associate, Ifetayo focuses on developing new systems and enhancing existing ones that foster communication and collaboration across DPA’s communications team and other departments. Ifetayo also helps coordinate the communications team’s regular retreats and meetings.

Ifetayo comes to the Drug Policy Alliance after previously interning in the media department in 2013 and later opening the International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Denver, Colorado with a speech that focused on her experience of growing up with a parent incarcerated.

Ifetayo has spoken about her experience on National Public Radio and HuffPost Live. She is a native of Charleston, South Carolina and has a B.A in History and African Studies from Smith College.

As director of communications strategy, Jag Davies works with communications, program, development and senior management staff to oversee production of all DPA publications and to facilitate best practices in the implementation of the organization’s messaging and brand identity.  Davies manages a team that includes DPA’s research coordinator and communications coordinator, as well as external consultant relationships with writers, designers, and multimedia content producers.

Davies also plays a key role in DPA’s media work.  He is regularly quoted in a wide range of media outlets and his writings have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC.com, CNN.com, and dozens of regional and online publications.

Davies has more than a decade of professional experience working to establish drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.  Before joining the organization, he served as director of communications for MAPS, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company conducting clinical trials aimed at developing marijuana and certain psychedelic drugs into federally-approved prescription medicines.  Davies also previously served as policy researcher for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Drug Law Reform Project (now known as the Criminal Law Reform Project), where he coordinated local, state, federal, and international efforts to end punitive drug policies that cause the widespread violation of constitutional and human rights.

Davies grew up in Miami and is a graduate of New World School of the Arts, where he majored in theater.  Davies is also a graduate of New College of Florida, the honors college of the state university system of Florida, where he majored in cultural anthropology.  He currently lives in New York City.

Kristen Millnick is a Digital Communications Coordinator at the Drug Policy Alliance. Her interest in drug policy reform began when she wrote a medical marijuana bill for a government class in high school. She attended Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, where she studied Art & Culture Studies and Criminology. While living in Canada, she had the opportunity to learn about the progressive drug and harm reduction policies and practices in Vancouver and has been passionate about ending the war on drugs ever since.

After interning at the Drug Policy Alliance, Office of National Affairs, she graduated and served as field director and associate director at the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative where she gained experience with grassroots organizing and mobilized clergy and the faith community to advocate for a variety of drug policy reform legislation including medical marijuana, marijuana decriminalization, needle exchange, and overdose prevention. She is particularly interested in harm reduction, pain management, destigmatizing and humanizing addiction, and amplifying the role of women in the drug policy reform movement.

Megan Farrington is Director of Digital Communications. Before joining DPA's communications team, Farrington did technology planning for nonprofit community-based organizations in New York City and worked for Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.
 
Farrington grew up in the Washington, DC, area and has a B.A. in Modern Languages and Linguistics from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She became interested in drug policy when she realized the scare tactics and misinformation put forth by traditional drug education programs were actually harming young people.

Melissa Franqui is the manager of communications and marketing for the Drug Policy Alliance, based in New York. She is responsible for supporting the execution of campaigns with visual components, as well as the development and promotion of the organization’s publications and merchandise. Franqui also manages internal and external branding for DPA’s offices, conferences and events.  She is passionate about social justice and is driven to combat the inequities created by America’s failed war on drugs, particularly in communities of color.

Franqui has ten years of experience in communications strategy and event management. She previously worked as a communications consultant for Housing + Solutions, a grassroots nonprofit serving homeless women in Brooklyn. She also previously served as the director of communications for the Abyssinian Development Corporation, a community-based organization dedicated to the empowerment of Harlem residents through economic development, affordable housing, education and social services. Prior to that, she worked to produce walk-a-thons in Central Park for a breast cancer awareness organization, and began her career at Fordham University’s Development and Special Events Office.

Franqui attended Wellesley College where she majored in English literature and concentrated in Africana studies.

Stefanie Jones is director of audience development at the Drug Policy Alliance, based in New York. In this role she oversees communication and outreach to specific communities on drug use and drug policy topics, including on novel psychoactive substances (NPS) and DPA’s youth drug education work.  She personally runs the Music Fan program, which introduces harm reduction principles and drug policy alternatives to partygoers, public health officials and city nightlife regulators across the U.S. 

In her prior role within the organization as event manager she produced four progressively larger editions of the biennial International Drug Policy Reform Conference, as well as numerous local policy conferences, fundraisers and coalition-building meetings.

Suchitra Rajagopalan is the research coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance. She is responsible for creating content for DPA-branded materials, conducting secondary research to inform DPA’s publications, media, web and policy work, and maintaining a comprehensive reference library of relevant research on drugs, drug policy and criminal justice reform. 

Prior to joining DPA, Suchitra was based in Mumbai, India, where she worked on drug policy issues at the HIV/AIDS unit of a legal aid organization called Lawyers Collective. Her passion for drug policy reform stems from a commitment to human rights and social justice.

Suchitra studied political science at Sciences Po Paris and studied law at Trinity College Dublin and the University of Mumbai.

Tommy McDonald is director of multimedia. After earning his B.A. at Tennessee State University, McDonald began his career as a sports writer for The Nashville Banner in 1991. He was a community news reporter at The Sacramento Bee and a local sports editor for ANG Newspapers, which owns The Oakland Tribune. McDonald also worked as a freelance writer and consultant for several years.

After an eight-year journalism career, McDonald made the transition into public relations in late 1998, joining Communication Works, a San Francisco-based nonprofit public relations firm in the public interest. During his tenure, Communication Works became the largest such PR firm on the West coast. In early 2001, Communication Works merged with Fenton Communications, the nation’s largest public interest PR firm. In late 2001, he joined Children Now, a nationally recognized child advocacy organization based in Oakland. McDonald managed national media campaigns on social justice issues, such as juvenile justice, consumer litigation, affordable housing, drug policy, human rights and gun control.

Tony Newman is director of media relations, a position he has held since 2000. Newman has more than 20 years of public relations experience. Before joining the organization, he was the media director for the human rights organization Global Exchange and co-founded the public relations firm Communication Works. Newman received his B.A. from the University of California Santa Cruz.

Read Tony's writings.

Alexis Martin is the development associate at DPA, where she supports all functions of the development department.

Alexis was drawn to drug policy as an undergraduate student at Columbia University, as she sought work that allowed her to combine her knowledge gained from personal experience of the drug war, as well as her commitment to social justice and liberation.

This commitment was strengthened by a variety of internship, organizing, and work experiences, including working with the New York Civil Liberties Union as a Communications Intern, the War Resisters League as a Sara Bilezekian Organizing Intern, and with DPA’s close ally, VOCAL-NY, as a Civil Rights Organizing Intern. She was also a Research Assistant for Professor Samuel Roberts at Columbia University, and aided his work on the history of harm reduction in New York City. During the 2016 election, she was an Election Fellow for BYP100, registering young Black New Yorkers to vote and engaging them on Election Day and beyond.

Alexis is based in New York City, with roots in the Philadelphia area. She is especially indebted to the Black and Brown writers, organizers, and dreamers who have inspired her work. 

David Glowka is DPA’s director of development and helps raise funds from institutional and individual donors to support the organization’s programs and campaigns across the country.

Before joining the organization in 2003, he worked at Community Servings, an AIDS service provider based in Boston, where he helped secure corporate, foundation and government grants. He was also involved for a number of years with the Prison Book Program, a volunteer-run group that provides educational materials and other support to incarcerated people. Prior to that, he worked as a research assistant in the Office of Boston City Councilor Paul Scapicchio.

Glowka received his bachelor’s degree in human services from Northeastern University in 2001.

As development manager, Elizabeth is responsible for creating and implementing strategies to engage philanthropists with the mission and programs of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Prior to joining DPA in 2015, Elizabeth was a development officer at the Center for Arts Education. Before that, she had a long career in the commercial art world, including 16 years at Christie’s.

Elizabeth is deeply committed to DPA’s mission and vision, and is alarmed to see a resurgence of hateful rhetoric and failed drug war policies.

Ellen Flenniken manages the Drug Policy Alliance’s development and donor engagement efforts. 

Before joining DPA, Ellen worked extensively as a political campaign manager and fundraiser. She served as finance director for Oregon’s successful campaign to regulate, legalize and tax marijuana, campaign manager for Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), finance director for Kate Brown’s winning campaign for Oregon Secretary of State, and deputy finance director at Oregon United for Marriage. Ellen received her B.A. in political science and Mandarin Chinese from Middlebury College.

Josh Pearson is the director of membership at the Drug Policy Alliance, where he manages the organization’s digital fundraising and email communications. 

Before joining DPA, Josh worked in the digital advocacy department at FreedomWorks, and was the delegate operations coordinator for Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign. Josh grew up outside of Philadelphia and went to University of Pittsburgh. He is currently based out of Washington, D.C.

As development operations manager, Judh helps connect people to the Drug Policy Alliance’s mission and programs and runs the back-end functions of our fundraising department.

Before joining DPA, Judh worked as a supervisor and maintained the database for a market research company that conducted surveys, primarily with doctors, for pharmaceutical companies to analyze the effects of certain drugs prescribed to patients.

When he started at DPA in 2007, then tasked with improving and managing our database, he was a self-described drug policy reform skeptic. Now he regularly speaks and writes about the injustice of the drug war and the need to break down stigma and embrace a harm reduction approach to drugs. Judh credits his personal growth to his colleagues, our members, and the social justice organizations we partner with. 

Lesedi Ntsele is the Membership Marketing Associate at the Drug Policy Alliance. She is responsible for supporting all functions of the development department, with a particular focus on the organization’s digital fundraising and membership campaigns. 

She received her B.A in Liberal Arts, with a concentration in journalism and politics, from Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Her interest in drug policy developed while she was enrolled in a combined writing course at a maximum-security women’s prison. The yearlong class allowed her to study alongside people incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility where the inequalities of the war on drugs were illuminated for her. Prior to joining DPA, Lesedi interned at various arts organizations including the Poetry Project, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the New York City Ballet. 

Lesedi is a native of Johannesburg, South Africa. Before moving to New York, she attended the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan where she majored in saxophone performance and creative writing.

Boris Sporer is director of information technology and knowledge management, based in New York. He has worked for over 20 years in the information field with a focus on non-profit, non-governmental and academic organizations.

His most recent position was senior director of information systems at the Fortune Society, a non-profit service provider and advocate facilitating successful reentry for ex-offenders and promoting alternatives to incarceration. He also has extensive experience in database development, website content management and project management at such institutions as Foreign Affairs Magazine, the United Nations and other international organizations in Russia, Croatia, Central Asia and the Caucasus.

A native New Yorker, Boris received his B.A. in Computer Science from Columbia College and his Masters in International Media and Communications from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

David Abbott was born and raised in the Boston area and relocated to New York City after completing his BFA in painting, education and film at Massachusetts College of Art.

After first working in the private sector and then managing his own business, Abbott worked in the non profit area for the last ten years with organizations dedicated to human rights, environmental justice, and procuring health care and legal services for low income, physically and mentally challenged individuals.
For over twenty-five years Abbott has also volunteered at various HIV/AIDS organizations.

Devon Hutchins manages the people function of the organization, including recruitment, onboarding, staff trainings, performance management, and employee relations. She has worked exclusively in nonprofits over the past decade in both program and operations roles, most recently supporting human resources talent at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She returns to DPA after formerly serving as the policy associate for the DC Metro Project.

Devon received her master’s degree from the University of Cambridge in Modern Society & Global Transformations and went on to complete coursework in operations management and professional human resources.

As events manager, Jim Clapes handles logistics for DPA’s International Drug Policy Reform Conference, staff retreat and other organizational events.  Jim has ten years’ experience in meeting and event management, including more than eight years coordinating events in the nonprofit sector.  Before joining DPA, Jim served as the manager of conferences & events with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for more than seven years, where he spearheaded the Greenbuild International Conference & Expo.  Prior to USGBC, Jim served as events director for the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., planning the organization’s two annual flagship events.  Jim started his career in events and developed a passion for the industry as a conference director at Financial Research Associates, where he produced industry events in the financial services arena.  Jim also served as a Congressional intern on Capitol Hill in the office of Representative Sam Farr (D-CA).

Jim grew up in Northern California and received his Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of California, Santa Cruz. 

Ryan Chavez is managing director, finance and administration, based in New York. Ryan has over 20 years of progressive experience in government and nonprofit management, emergency feeding programs, technical assistance and AIDS housing services. Prior to joining the organization, Ryan served for seven years as deputy executive director of Community Health Action (CHASI), a community organization based in Staten Island that provides services to individuals and families challenged by health disparities.

Before joining CHASI, he was director of strategic planning for NYC’s HIV Health and Human Services Planning Council. Previously, he worked at Bailey House, a nationally-recognized AIDS housing provider, where he developed a technical assistance department providing program planning and evaluation, fiscal management, conflict resolution and trainings to NYC AIDS housing agencies. He was a member of NYC’s Housing Works Group and the Massachusetts statewide Housing Advisory Committee. While at Bailey House, he worked closely with the city to develop a number of new housing models, including the Sustainable Living Fund. Ryan has an M.S. from the University of Massachusetts at Boston with a concentration in nonprofit management, and a B.A. in Psychology from Cornell University.

Stephanie Polito is the operations coordinator for DPA's public policy program. She is responsible for supporting the internal operations of the program, including developing systems that foster communication and collaboration, managing regular retreats and meetings, and coordinating the development of content for the bi-annual International Drug Policy Reform Conference.

In her prior role within the organization, Polito served as program associate for the Drug Policy Alliance’s advocacy grants program, supporting the organization’s grant-making efforts and managing the National Scholarships Program for the bi-annual International Drug Policy Reform Conference. Prior to joining DPA, Polito worked as a clinical interviewer for the Institute for Social and Psychiatric Initiatives, a research project run by the NYU School of Medicine, administering diagnostic assessments to individuals with mental illnesses hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital.

She previously interned with the Mental Health Court Advocacy Program in Brooklyn, a pre-arraignment diversion program for individuals with mental illness. She also volunteers with the Crime Victims Treatment Center at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital and is certified as a rape crisis counselor in the state of New York.

Polito received a Bachelor’s Degree in psychology from Loyola University Maryland in 2006 and continued her education in New York, receiving a Master’s Degree in forensic psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a Master’s Degree in mental health law from New York Law School.