Graduate Students

Jasmine Banks

Jasmine Banks is a movement strategist, cultural organizer, and communications leader dedicated to building liberatory futures through a queer, Black, feminist lens. With over a decade of experience in nonprofit leadership, grassroots organizing, and digital advocacy, she is the founder of Generation Common Good and former Executive Director of UnKoch My Campus. Jasmine’s work bridges scholarship and activism, focusing on narrative power, public engagement, and community care. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Engaged Public Humanities at Georgetown University, where she explores the intersections of digital media, collective memory, and transformative justice to amplify marginalized voices and reimagine the public good.

Olivia Cooley

Olivia is a 2023 Graduate from Georgetown University with a B.A. in Sociology and a double minor in Spanish and Government. Throughout her lifetime, she has consistently enjoyed helping others and fostering community in the spaces she inhabits. The ENPH program immediately piqued her interest due to its connections of empathy, community, dialogue, and social change aimed at the betterment of society. She is eager to use her experience in this program to expand upon her mission to be a helper and mover in the spaces she occupies over time, and to learn and grow in the process.

Lulu Griffin

Lulu Griffin (any pronouns) is a recent graduate from the College of William & Mary, with a B.A. in Linguistics and Asian & Pacific Islander American (APIA) Studies. Lulu is interested in examining how Asian Americans use language to express their identities and build community, through the intersection of sociolinguistics and cultural studies. Currently, Lulu serves as the Executive Director of the East Coast Asian American Student Union, and has been involved in Asian/American advocacy all throughout undergrad, with the Asian American Student Initiative and the APIA Studies program at William & Mary. Outside of class, Lulu can be found drinking an iced matcha and/or taking silly 0.5 pictures with friends.

Mia Massimino

Mia Massimino (she/her) is a multimedia artist, writer, and producer based in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. She holds a BFA in Interarts Performance from the University of Michigan and currently serves as Project Director and Program Coordinator at Georgetown University’s Racial Justice Institute. In this role, she has produced the work of more than 25 artists from around the world, managing performance and digital projects, publications, and cross-cultural collaborations. Alongside Dr. Anita Gonzalez, Mia has developed two Massive Open Online Courses—Storytelling for Social Change and Black Performance as Social Protest—which have reached more than 60,000 learners globally. Mia is also a founding member of Call Your Mom, an interdisciplinary performance collective. Her artistic and multi-modal production work centers collaborative process, justice, and the power of storytelling to shift narratives and build community.

Soyun Park

Soyun Park is an organizer, social justice educator, and longtime movement strategist with over 35 years of experience advancing racial and economic justice. She has led national transformation initiatives, helped pass anti-racial profiling, pro-immigrant, and education equity policies, built statewide and national coalitions, and co-created academic-community partnerships across the U.S. She has organized Black-Asian solidarity campaigns in cities devastated by police violence, and designed leadership development and reflection-based learning programs. A child of Korean dissidents and former solidarity delegate to Nicaragua, Soyun brings curiosity, creativity, and a deep commitment to community-rooted problem solving to every space she enters.

Tytianna Pope

Tytianna Pope is a Memphis native and a 2025 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a B.A. in Political Science with minors in Urban Studies and Africana Studies. Her work bridges education, community engagement, and racial justice. Passionate about storytelling and structural change, Tytianna brings experiences in curriculum design, cultural research, and public scholarship. She looks forward to deepening her commitment to equity and belonging through interdisciplinary inquiry and institutional transformation.

Izabelle Romero

Izabelle is a recent graduate from Loyola Marymount University, earning her Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Education. While at LMU Izabelle was an active member of her campus community, serving as a leader for social justice-focused immersion trips, student coalitions, and the First to Go community. Her work in the West Los Angeles area ignited a passion for grassroots organizing and a deep appreciation for the religious history of Los Angeles; Izabelle’s coursework has explored the intersection of faith, justice, and political movements in El Salvador from the onset of the Civil War in the 1980s to the rise of the Sanctuary Movement in LA’s parishes. As a first-generation college student, Izabelle has a deep passion for commemorating her family roots in her study, and at Georgetown she hopes to continue her journey for the education of the whole person. What she looks forward to most, though, is to better understand how physical space and culturally-responsive practices drive belonging and access for marginalized communities.

Ariana Ruiz

Annie Sheinberg

Annie was born in Palo Alto, CA, raised in Park City, Utah, and has spent most of her adult life as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley and then living in Oakland afterward. She majored in American Studies with a focus on Race and Media and minored in English and Race and the Law. She largely focused on the way art in America, with an emphasis on film and television, was influenced by and influenced American culture and rhetoric. Her honors thesis was on Netflix’s “Big Mouth” and its representation of girls, women, and the female body as social education or “positive” propaganda. She wants to continue this type of in-depth analysis and work on equating the educational value of film and television to that of literature in the American education system due to its growing prevalence in our day-to-day lives.

Samantha Simonsen

Samantha Simonsen (she/her) is a double Hoya from San Diego, California. She currently works for Georgetown’s Prisons and Justice Initiative as the administrative coordinator for prison education programs. In her role, she supports the Bachelor of Liberal Arts Program at the Patuxent Institution in Maryland and the Prison Scholars Program at the D.C. Jail. Prior to joining the Prisons and Justice Initiative, Samantha was the program coordinator for the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy. She graduated cum laude from Georgetown in 2023 with a Bachelor’s degree in History and a minor in Justice & Peace Studies. In her free time, she loves to read and travel.

Jack Watkins

Jack is a DC native and lifelong lover of history and the humanities. He looks forward to his time at Georgetown as a way of expanding his horizons, both in terms of career paths and study of the humanities. In his free time he enjoys books, games, the outdoors, and spending time with his grandparents.

Amara Aimufua

Amara recently graduated from UC Davis in the summer of 2024, obtaining her bachelor’s degree in sociology with a law and society emphasis. While in Davis, she minored in African American Studies and played D1 Volleyball. She has been honored as a Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society member since Spring 2024. She is grateful to be nominated for excelling in disciplines about which she is passionate, like improving societal functionality through social institutions, processes, and culture. During undergrad, she worked with city council members and government representatives in various charters, gaining invaluable experience in political advocacy and passionately working towards increasing diversity in the government sector. She is thrilled to expand her knowledge of the public humanities and aspires to apply those insights in law and government!

Lena Beasley

Kendall Bryant

Anjelika Deogririkar Grossman

Anjelika Deogirikar Grossman (she/her) is an educator, activist artist, and researcher. Interested in the connection between arts, culture and public policy, she is curious to explore: How might arts and culture build understanding and communities of belonging? She is an artist-in-residence at Georgetown Lombardi Arts and Humanities Program at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital; and serves on the Board of the DC Arts and Humanities Collaborative. She received a Certificate in Arts and Peacebuilding Culture from George Mason University; and she holds a Master of Public Policy, and Bachelor of Science in Biological Science and a minor in Chemistry. By day, Anjelika is the Associate Director of the Massive Data Institute in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

Samantha Forshay

Samantha (Sam) grew up in Puyallup, Washington with Deaf parents and an older brother. After graduating high school in 2017, Sam moved to D.C. to pursue a degree in Mathematics (B.S.) at Gallaudet University and graduated with honors in 2021. In that summer of the same year, Sam joined a conservation corps crew where she got to work with CorpsTHAT and U.S.F.S in Virginia and Maryland. She connected with some of the CorpsTHAT folks and ended up working as CorpsTHAT’s AmeriCorps VISTA Member for two years. After ending her second AmeriCorps term, Sam decided to apply at the ENPH program to dive more into the nonprofit sector and public policy.

Tomás Harmon

Tomás Harmon is an award-winning public relations professional whose career began in the newsroom in Charlottesville, VA. He has since supported U.S. foreign diplomacy, worked on underage substance use prevention, tackled America’s mental health crisis, protected voting rights, and advanced health care for Veterans. A passionate visual storyteller, Tomás is interested in how art helps us make sense of the world. Growing up a queer, Cuban kid in Northern Virginia, he credits Selena, Greek mythology, and cafecito Cubano for getting him through high school and into college. At Georgetown, he looks forward to exploring the humanities, making art accessible and meaningful for people now and in the future, and sharing cafecito with his new community.

Denelle Joynes

Denelle is a Baltimore native dedicated to leveraging her passion for writing and storytelling to generate transformative change and shed light on undertold stories. She is a Grants Associate working at the Johns Hopkins University Office of Research Administration supporting the development, review, and submission of proposals to sponsors to fund world-class research & activities of University faculty and affiliates.

Prior to her current role, she served as Grants Manager for the Maryland Food Bank submitting proposals and applications to government entities, corporations, and foundations to fund the organization’s mission. Denelle has a B.S. in English from Towson University and during her undergraduate journey worked alongside a team of student grant writers to garner financial support for grassroots nonprofits across Baltimore City.

Karolina Kalset

Karolina Kalset is a first generation college student who graduated from the University of Maryland with dual degrees in American Studies and Philosophy Politics and Economics. Academically, her interests center on political polarization, social perceptivity of politics, morality of war, and social stigmas. Professionally, she is a social media and digital marketer that has held public relations and public affairs roles for local companies, political candidates, and the federal government. The ENPH program guides her interests in philosophy, history, culture, and society to explore how respective topics work collaboratively to resolve complex issues present in the modern world.

Elle Lapsen

Elle is from Seattle, Washington, and attended Smith College for undergrad, where they double majored in English and Sociology. They are passionate about social change, particularly LGBTQ+ rights, and doing interdisciplinary work that translates the academic into the activist. They aim to bridge the gap between awareness of social issues and action. At Georgetown, they hope to strengthen their academic skills and translate them into socially impactful, public-facing work.

In their free time, Elle enjoys hiking, going to concerts, and hanging out with their cat, Tasha.

Siera Nezaj

Janiah Rorie

Madeleine Vahey

Maddie graduated from Yale in 2015 with a degree in American Studies. Since graduating from college, Maddie has worked as an elementary school teacher in Boston and Washington, DC. While teaching, Maddie earned her master’s in elementary education and certification special education. Maddie will continue working as a special education teacher in DC while pursuing her master’s in Engaged and Public Humanities at Georgetown. While at Georgetown, Maddie is excited to study how Americans engage with television through podcasts, especially after the fall of the monoculture.

Zachary Vossler

Zachary Vossler, originally from Syracuse, New York, graduated from Brandeis University in 2022 with a BA in History and a minor in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. Zachary’s passion for the hospitality industry began in his toddler years and he plans to use the Engaged and Public Humanities to help others learn about the industry and the impact its practitioners have on others and the world. His main focus areas include hospitality and faith traditions, the history of hospitality, and how nations use hospitality through diplomacy. Zachary also works as an Operations Coordinator at the School of Continuing Studies.