CHLP Staff

Ashley Burczak, Administrative and Development Associate, was the founder and first Executive Director of Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER), where she continues to serve on the Board of Advisors. Prior to joining the Center for HIV Law and Policy, Ashley worked with the HIV project at Lambda Legal, and as an anti-violence educator with the State University of New York at Plattsburgh and the Violence Intervention Project of Behavioral Health Services North.

Catherine Hanssens, Executive Director, has been active in HIV legal and policy issues since 1984. She currently is founding director of the Center for HIV Law and Policy, an incubator project of the National Center for Civic Innovation. Earlier, as AIDS Project Director at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund for eight years, Hanssens lead the development of Lambda’s HIV litigation and policy work, and was lead attorney on all of Lambda’s briefing on U.S. Supreme Court cases affecting the Americans with Disabilities Act and people with HIV. Hanssens also worked with the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, where she created and managed a model on site legal assistance program for single parents with AIDS in Philadelphia-area hospitals and clinics that brought together legal, medical, and social services. While working for the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate in the 1980's, she successfully litigated the state’s first case addressing involuntary HIV testing, a system-wide challenge to segregation and treatment of prisoners with HIV, and the only federal appeals court decision recognizing the right of incarcerated women to funded elective abortions. She also has been a visiting clinical professor at Rutgers University Law School-Newark, and regularly writes and conducts trainings on HIV legal and policy issues.

Margo Kaplan, Staff Attorney, is a graduate of New York University School of Law and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Before joining CHLP, she was a Staff Attorney Fellow with the American Civil Liberties Union. Margo also assisted with the research and drafting of the sixth edition of Professor Derrick Bell’s text, Race, Racism, and American Law. Previously, she clerked for the Honorable Judge Julio M. Fuentes in the Third Circuit and the Honorable Judge John G. Koeltl in the Southern District of New York. She has worked for numerous human rights organizations, including the Center for Economic and Social Rights, the International Center for Transitional Justice, and the Carr Center for Human Rights. Margo is also a published author on the use of international law and cooperation to address human rights violations and end conflict. She is a former Teaching Fellow on the subject of international trade at Harvard University and a former Junior Fellow at the Center for International Studies for New York University School of Law.

Alison Mehlman, Director of Planning and Policy Research, is a 1996 graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School and has been an HIV advocate for nearly a decade. Before joining the Center for HIV Law and Policy, Alison was a senior policy analyst for the HIV/AIDS Bureau at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. There she was involved in several initiatives, including the development of HIV testing policy and protocols for privacy and confidentiality of client information. She also oversaw the development and implementation of a statewide system of community coalitions dedicated to improving services for people living with HIV. She is especially interested in health care policy related to women and HIV, as well as state policies on criminalization of HIV exposure and transmission. Prior to her work at the HIV/AIDS Bureau, Alison was the director of a small legal services organization in western Massachusetts that provides free legal services and referrals to people living with HIV. During that time, she was an active participant in five Ryan White Title II consortia and served on several bylaws and evaluation committees.

Consultants

Aaron Bauman, Web Developer, is a graduate of the Columbia University School of Engineering with a B.S. in Computer Science. Beginning in June 2006, Bauman overhauled and continues to help maintain hivlawandpolicy.org. In addition, Bauman has worked part-time for S.M.A.R.T. University as Computer Class Instructor, and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center as full-time Web Developer. For a small sample of Bauman's web design and development work, visit www.aaronbauman.com.

Deirdre Reznik, Information Design, developed the logo for CHLP and continues to provide design and production services to the organization, including the development of CHLP's Briefing Paper newsletter and Web site redesign. Reznik is a freelance consultant and has worked in print and web design and production for educational and non-profit institutions in New York City since 1994. www.deirdrereznik.com