Students

CLPP works with students in a variety of different capacities from event planning to academic advising to conference organizing. Here are the students who work in the office and chair student committees throughout the year:

Akira Céspedes Pérez was one of the 2009 Conference Coordinators and has been working for CLPP since Fall 2006. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Puerto Rico, Akira is an assertive, bright, ambitious young woman who enjoys the beach, traveling, and discovering the world. During the past year, she spent most of her time working on her Div II: “Traditions, Perceptions, and Infectious Disease: How Culture and Science Influence our Health,” as well as indulging in her passions for good food, good music, and good people. She hopes to one day pursue an MD/JD. In the meantime, she takes pleasure in living life one sunrise at a time. In 2008, she interned with Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies in New Orleans through the RRASC summer internship program (Reproductive Rights Activist Student Corps).

Anna Saeger is one of the 2010 Conference Coordinators for the CLPP Conference, “From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom”. Anna, originally from Washington State, has been working with CLPP since F’2008. Anna is studying sexual health education with an emphasis on reproductive justice and youth empowerment. Passionate, ambitious, and full of questions, Anna enjoys exploring new places, soaking up the small things, and questioning the world around her. Anna is a member of the Hampshire College Sexperts, a group of peer sexual health and sexuality educators, and works with Girls Inc in Holyoke as a tutor and youth empowerment mentor. Anna finds excitement in particularly precise words, passion fruit, and pickling.

 Brenly Rowland began working with CLPP as a first year at Hampshire College. Now in her third year, she has worked on the Speakout Committee each year, serving as co-chair to the committee the last two. Brenly also works as the Student Coordinator to the Five College Culture, Health and Science program. Her Div II focuses on medical anthropology and public health through an interdisciplinary approach that attempts to evaluate the social, political and biomedical histories that shape contemporary health and medicine. Her guilty pleasures are country music and gory zombie movies. In 2009, she worked as an intern for Our Bodies Ourselves, focusing on health care reform and single payer advocacy.

 Courtney Hooks, a junior at Hampshire College, is one of the 2010 CLPP Conference Coordinators. As a RRASC intern at HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive) in 2008 and she did street outreach, wo-manned the emergency hotline many a night and helped start up the syringe exchange program. Over the summer in 2009, she worked at Justice Now in Oakland, California as a legal advocate, collaborated with activists inside womens' prisons to create a guide about Hepatitis C & HIV, and conducted human rights interviews and research with people inside. She has studied abroad in Cuba, where she created a multi-media documentary deconstructing restrictive and racist beauty ideals and exploring black Cuban women's racial identity through their relationship with hair. She is on the Young Women's Leadership Council of PEP, is currently training to become a birth doula for low-income women and pregnant and parenting people inside prison; and volunteers for The Prison Birth Project. She likes: making jokes, laughing a lot, and cart-wheeling, loves: theater, bellydance, the night sky, good food, her big family, CLPP (of course!), and is currently obsessed with the L word. She really can't help herself...

 Elizabeth Arris is a third-year student of biology and dance at Smith College. She has been active with CLPP since 2007, and was a co-chair of the Entertainment Committee for 2009's conference. This year she is excited to work with CLPP Operations Assistant Lani Blechman to organize the newly-established Accessibility Committee. Elizabeth has been a social activist as a fundraiser and educator, and is currently the vice-president of Smith College's chapter of VOX: Voices for Choice. 

Genevieve Coe is a sophomore at Mount Holyoke College, where she's majoring in Psychology while pursuing a 5-College Certificate in Culture, Health, and Science. She's interested in public health policy and development, and became interested in reproductive rights through working with a domestic violence organization based in her hometown, Middlebury, Vermont. She's excited to be co-chairing the new Hospitality and Evaluation Committee with Katie Crisona. She enjoys ice  cream, riding horses, the word "solipsism", National Public Radio, and art.

Katie Crisona is a fourth year at Hampshire College. Her academic focus has been on gender studies and HIV prevention and her thesis is on the history of sex education. She adores CLPP and is super psyched for this years conference. The Hospitality and Evaluations committee is going to be amazingly fun and the wellness room will knock your socks off this year!!!!!

 Maya Wiener Berkowits is the co-chair for the Transportation Committee for the CLPP Conference. Maya is a third year at Hampshire College and this will be her second time working on the conference. While at Hampshire, Maya studies public health and medical anthropology with a focus on women's health. Maya is also a Massachusetts state certified emergency medical technician and works on campus. Maya is originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota and over the years has worked with many organizations including Planned Parenthood, Basic Health International, Wellstone Action and many others both nationally and internationally. Maya is excited to be working with the CLPP community in preparing for this years conference.

Micaela Linder has been volunteering with CLPP for two years. She is a member of the Hampshire community, where she studies history and law, with a focus on women and reproductive rights. Currently unsure of her future professional and educational path, her ultimate goal is to work and live in her hometown of San Francisco. This year she is the co-chair of the Transportation Committee, where she hopes to help expand on conference advertising and accessibility at Hampshire College, as well as help build a strong student group.

Rebeca Escalona is the co-chair of the CLPP Conference Childcare Committee. Rebeca is concentrating on Feminist Studies, Latin@/African American studies, psychology with an interest in social work and radical social work. This is her first time working with CLPP and she is thrilled about doing so! In her free time Rebeca likes to rock climb, go on adventures, be in nature & appreciate its beauty. Outside of Hampshire, she spends time at Safe Passage (a domestic violence and advocacy shelter) volunteering/interning. She is also full of smiles and is an optimistic, bright side to everything kind of soul.

 Symone New is the co-chair for the CLPP Conference Outreach Committee. Symone is a private, over-analytical, bubbly, dorky, complex, inquisitive, pansexual, goofy, contradictory, friendly, multiracial, vegetarian, chocoholic, Pilates-addicted, feminist, New Yorker! She was a RRASC at the Pro-Choice Public Education Project in 2009, and ultimately hopes to enroll in a JD/MPA program sometime in the near future.

Tana Charlie Pierro [but you can call me Charlie!] has been working with CLPP since 2006 organizing, planning, and running the  Childcare Committee. Charlie, who generally can be found working on their Division III, is a fine art, anthropology, and developmental psychology concentrator. They've spent the past few years working as the art director for youth day camps, and interning with COGO INC, a game production corporation geared towards tween girls who's main goal is to teach environmental justice/awareness. Charlie is a caring, responsible, and often very goofy character who thinks children are some of the smartest, most perceptive people in our population. He hopes to one day bring children and youth to the main stage of the reproductive rights organizing.

  Will Delphia is one of the fabulous student work-studies at the CLPP office (for spring 2009 and beyond..!) He is interested in social justice of all sorts and enjoys finding connections and learning about advocacy, activism, and justice! He is interested in film & video and other arts/media. Around the office, he makes copies, updates spreadsheets and databases, lays out publications, and updates this website! He got his start in Reproductive Rights as a youth-organizer in the Unitarian Universalist Church and did an internship at Advocates for Youth.

 Zoe Linder-Baptie is the co-chair of the CLPP conference Entertainment Committee. Zoe has helped organize the CLPP conference since she attended her first conference in Spring 2007. Raised in Albany, New York, Zoe studies Urban Sociology, Photography, and Environmental Justice. Currently, she is focusing all her attention on her Div III: "Understanding Change: Community Redevelopment in New Orleans”. Passionate about many things, but mostly just enjoying life, Zoe plans to move to New Orleans when shr graduates from Hampshire this May where she will help residents continue to move back to the city and into their homes.