Ford Foundation Fellowship in Nonprofit Law
2023 Fellow
Alissa Clarke
The third Ford Foundation Fellowship in Nonprofit Law was awarded to Alissa Clarke. Prior to joining Ford, Alissa worked as a corporate associate for over three years at the Boston law firm Foley Hoag, supporting both tax-exempt and for profit clients on a variety of corporate matters. She previously served as a legal fellow at American Ballet Theatre, and while in law school, she assisted refugees through her work with the Refugee Status Determination Unit on the Syria desk at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Amman, Jordan. Alissa received a JD from New York University School of Law, where she was a Joyce Lowinson Scholar at the Institute for International Law and Justice, and a BA in Psychology from Harvard University.
2022 Fellow
Fernanda Basaglia Teodoro
The second Ford Foundation Fellowship in Nonprofit Law was awarded to Fernanda Basaglia Teodoro. Fernanda received a bachelor’s degree in law from São Paulo Law School of Fundação Getulio Vargas, Brazil, and an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, Fernanda worked with the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program to expand restorative justice processes within the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and the communities of Suffolk County. She also served as a member of the Harvard Law School Brazilian Studies Association and the Women’s Law Association. Prior to the LL.M. program at Harvard, Fernanda worked extensively in Brazil with nonprofit organizations and human rights as an associate at Mattos Filho, Veiga Filho, Marrey Jr. e Quiroga Advogados. Before devoting her studies to law school, she attended Miami City Ballet School as a full scholarship international student and Boston Ballet School as a trainee.
2021 Fellows
Juan J. Martinez-Hill
The first Ford Foundation Fellowship in Nonprofit Law was awarded to Juan J. Martinez-Hill. Juan graduated from New York University School of Law in 2020. While at NYU Law, Juan was a Root-Tilden Kern Scholar, a Staff Editor for the Review of Law and Social Change, worked extensively with the NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic, and served as Co-President of the Latinx Law Student Association. During law school, Juan worked as a Peggy Browning Employment Law Fellow at Make the Road New York and a Summer Law Clerk with Centro de los Derechos del Migrante in Mexico City. Since graduating from law school, Juan received the Clifford Chance Foundation Fellowship in Nonprofit Law to work at the Vera Institute of Justice, Inc. where he produced reports on expanding access to postsecondary education for incarcerated students. Prior to law school, Juan worked as a paralegal with the New York Legal Assistance Group, an immigrant rights organizer with the United Farm Workers Foundation, and received bachelors’ degrees in philosophy and political science from Brown University.
Beenish Riaz
The first Ford Foundation Fellowship in Nonprofit Law was awarded to Beenish Riaz. Beenish graduated from New York University School of Law in 2020 and was elected to the Order of the Coif upon her graduation. While at NYU Law, she was a student advocate at the Global Justice Clinic, an Institute of International Law and Justice Scholar, an International Law and Human Rights fellow and the Book Annotations editor for the Journal of International Law and Politics. She served as a teacher’s assistant, a research assistant and published several articles. After graduating from law school, she was granted the Arthur Helton Global Human Rights Fellowship to work at the Aurat Foundation in Pakistan. Beenish graduated summa cum laude from Macalester College with a B.A. Political Science and English.