Please Join Temple University Beasley School of Law in Celebrating a Decade of the Sheller Center for Social Justice

Mona Alsaidi is a legal counsel at American Progress. Alsaidi most recently served as the race equity in journalism legal fellow at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, where she worked on First Amendment issues affecting the press. While in law school, Alsaidi was the lead articles editor of the law review. Before law school, she worked as an educator in New York City. She is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University, and Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Alicia Anguiano is a Chief Legal Officer at Justice at Work Pennsylvania where she oversees the comprehensive legal services provided to Pennsylvania’s low-wage workers and survivors workplace crimes. Alicia was previously the Lead Immigration Attorney at Justice at Work, a role in which she provided direct legal representation to immigrant survivors of human trafficking and other crimes in their pursuit of immigration relief. Alicia joined Justice at Work in September 2020. From summer 2020 through spring 2021, Alicia served as an Adjunct Professor in the Clinic for Asylum, Refugee, and Emigrant Services (CARES) at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. Prior to joining Justice at Work, Alicia spent four years at a Philadelphia-based immigration law firm, representing immigrants before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Executive Office for Immigration Review in affirmative and defensive applications for immigration relief. Alicia was previously a staff attorney at Justice at Work (then Friends of Farmworkers), where she worked with immigrant survivors of workplace sexual violence and was a part of the medical-legal partnership with a community health clinic in Philadelphia. Alicia is a 2015 graduate of Temple University Beasley School of Law.

Senator Amanda Cappelletti is a 2017 graduate of Temple Law School and also has a Master’s in Public Health from Temple. She represents the Seventeenth Senatorial District, covering parts of Montgomery and Delaware Counties. In the Pennsylvania Senate, Senator Cappelletti has prioritized fighting for safe and healthy communities, using her public health expertise to fight for action on climate change and address the increasing gun violence epidemic. Currently serving as the Democratic Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Cappelletti leads the conversation on criminal justice reform, community safety measures, and court reforms for the Commonwealth. As a fierce reproductive rights advocate and the former Director of Policy at Planned Parenthood, Senator Cappelletti continues to be at the front lines of fighting for reproductive freedoms and comprehensive healthcare in Pennsylvania. She serves as the co-chair of the Pennsylvania Women’s Health Caucus and fights for accessible and affordable healthcare, including reproductive healthcare, for all Pennsylvanians.

Brandon DeShields is a Supervising Attorney in the Employment Unit at Community Legal Services (CLS), where he primarily focuses on criminal records as barrier to employment. Prior to joining CLS, Brandon was an Assistant Defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. He is a 2019 graduate of Temple University Beasley School of Law, where he was a Rubin-Presser Social Justice Fellow and a recipient of the Eve Biskind Klothen Law Student Pro Bono Distinction Award from the Philadelphia Bar Association. While at Temple, Brandon participated in the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic and a criminal defense practicum with the Defender Association. He was also co-chair of the Temple NLG Expungement Project with CLS and interned for the ACLU-PA, the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project, and the Defender Association of Philadelphia.