Webster Scholars

J.D. Candidates, 2024

Madeline Derango
J.D. Candidate, 2024

Madeline Derango hails from the Chicagoland area. She attended North Central College (NCC), graduating summa cum laude. While at NCC, Madeline sought out many opportunities to travel, participating in study abroad programs in Spain, Japan, and China, in order to broaden and deepen her understanding of human experience globally and in the United States. Madeline spent some of her time at NCC as a research assistant collecting and analyzing data from U.S. Census information and editing textbook chapters on inequality. In the future, Madeline hopes to land a clerkship after law school graduation and then to pursue government work.

Emily Graue
J.D. Candidate, 2024

Emily Graue, who grew up outside Chicago, was an active history major at The Ohio State University, studying past injustices experienced by minorities and women and encountering similar present-day inequities. Taking these experiences to heart and pursuing ways to address the underlying problems, Emily was a founding member of Platform, a bipartisan training and lobbying group for women, and she assumed a leadership role within the organization. She also began working in 2018 at The Legal Aid Society of Columbus, Ohio, to support individuals in the Bankruptcy Bypass Program. Emily hopes her J.D. will help her widen access to legal services among historically oppressed populations. After graduation she hopes to pursue a judicial clerkship, and a dream job would be to work with the ACLU.

Rosalyn Jules Langrohling-Amanor
J.D. Candidate, 2024

Rosalyn Jules Langrohling-Amanor grew up in the deep south of Mobile, Alabama, but attended Amherst College on the east coast, where she double majored in mathematics and psychology and graduated magna cum laude with distinction in 2018. She wrote an honors thesis on white racial identity and the understanding of race across twelve years, which in turn formed her approach to education as a teacher in Escambia County, Florida. Since 2018, Rosalyn has instructed 5th grade students with underprivileged backgrounds in math and science. Rosalyn seeks a J.D. to champion the rights of children. Through her work with students and with her involvement in working alongside the foster care system in her personal life, she has seen the legal system’s imperfections, which she hopes she can help address in her career.

Elaine Pennington
J.D. Candidate, 2024

Elaine Pennington, originally from Texas, completed Washington University’s Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program, graduating with college honors in 2020. Before joining the Class of 2024, Elaine served as a student consultant within the School of Law’s Environmental Law Clinic, assisting on an active matter involving federal and state coal ash regulations. Elaine also worked at a criminal justice reform center in Dallas, where she researched unique challenges that rural communities face in accessing justice. These experiences fueled Elaine’s desire to earn her J.D. so that she can provide legal aid to underserved communities and increase access to justice.

Christina Ralston
J.D. Candidate, 2024

Christina Ralston attended the University of Kansas, where she studied biology with an emphasis on genetics, aspiring to a medical career. Yet, after graduating with highest distinction in the University Honors Program in 2015 and several years working in a hospital and then in healthcare software, she found that medicine did not fulfill her passion. During that time, she discovered new interests, including environmental issues affecting her community. Using her influence within her company, Christina was able to make organizational changes to promote sustainability efforts. With her J.D., Christina can envision future work in environmental law, health law, and/or intellectual property.

Elise Zaniker
J.D. Candidate, 2024

Elise Zaniker discovered her passion for discourse and debate in interactions with her father. At Purdue University, majoring in environmental and ecological engineering, she gained expertise in an area worth fighting about the climate crisis. Elise pursued relevant opportunities, joining the Green Infrastructure Design Team and the Indiana Resilience Cohort. Both groups looked for engineering solutions to advance “green” initiatives. In the future, Elise hopes to work at the intersection of science and law to address global issues requiring innovative, cross-disciplinary interventions, including issues of sustainability.

J.D. Candidates, 2025

Annesley Clark
J.D. Candidate, 2025

Annesley Clark, who comes from Wilmette, IL, and currently hopes to stay in St. Louis for her career, graduated from St. Louis University in 2018, with a major in Women’s Studies. Annesley brings to the law school a passion for disability rights and women’s rights. She founded the Disability Peer Group at SLU and has spoken at many conferences and symposia, including the Global and Local Social Justice Conference. Annesley has worked with disability advocacy attorneys on The Hill during various conferences. She has also served an intern at Planned Parenthood, informing members of the public about health care and advocacy initiatives, and at the ACLU of Missouri, completing Sunshine Law information requests and working directly with complainants. Annesley is a graduate of The Second City’s Musical Improvisation Conservatory, a year-long intensive improvisation and music program in Chicago.

Molly Cooke
J.D. Candidate, 2025

Molly Cooke joins WashULaw after graduating from the University of Kentucky in 2022 with majors in Political Science and Sociology. Molly participated as a Varsity member on the University of Kentucky Mock Trial Team, serving as the Vice President and Team Captain. She also interned at MML&K Government Solutions, a government research firm, and served as a Government Relations Coordinator for UK’s Student Government Association. Molly’s interests focus on criminal defense and trial advocacy, as well as wrongful conviction and post-conviction relief initiatives. Molly moved from England to Columbus, Ohio, at the age of eight.

Michell Taikeff
J.D. Candidate, 2025

Michelle Taikeff grew up in San Jose, California, and graduated from San Jose State University in 2019 with a major in Justice Studies. Michelle served as Co-Captain for the San Jose State University NCAA Division I Women’s Water Polo Team and as the Executive Secretary for the Student Athlete Advisory Committee. Michelle then became a Project Assistant for the Record Clearance Project, spending several years working in San Jose with persons seeking expungement services and providing resources to formerly incarcerated persons to assist with their reintegration into society. Michelle aspires to create a world in which individuals facing challenges in the justice system are treated with dignity and in which all people have equal access in navigating the law.

J.D. Candidates, 2026

Jonathan Crosmer
J.D. Candidate, 2026

Jonathan Crosmer joins WashULaw after working as a principal software engineer for QAD Redzone. In addition to his software background, Crosmer is a classical musician – composing music and playing the viola and piano professionally. Crosmer graduated from Hendrix College summa cum laude in 2005 with majors in computer science and music, and he received his Master of Music in Composition and Doctor of Musical Arts in Viola Performance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2008 and 2011, respectively, where he studied under Clark Potter. Crosmer is interested in government lawyering and trial advocacy, and he aims to pursue public defense or prosecution before becoming a judge. In his free time, you can find Jonathan working on a composition or playing gigs in Lexington or St. Louis. As an arts entrepreneur, he enjoys producing chamber music concerts. WashULaw is excited to have Jonathan’s perspective and background in the Class of 2026.

Allison Whitehead
J.D. Candidate, 2026

Allison Whitehead joins WashULaw after graduating from Mercer University with a Bachelor of Arts with a concentration in Law, Public Policy, and Economics. While at Mercer, Allison was on the President’s List, she was named a Mercer Service Scholar, and she was selected as the Outstanding Student in Economics and Outstanding Junior in Law and Public Policy. Beyond her studies, Allison served as Executive Director of MerServe, Mercer’s student-led community service programming board, where she implemented strategies and projects to help alleviate city-level poverty tailored to needs in Macon, GA. She also formed an Environmental Committee to plan more sustainability-focused events. During her senior year, she partnered with several nonprofits including Bike Walk Macon, Napier Heights Food Co-op, and Georgia National Plant Society to fight poverty and blight in the city. She also worked for the Macon-Bibb County Clerk on a project to increase citizens’ ease of access to public records. Based on her experience in Macon, after earning her law degree Allison

Class of 2023

Erin Brinkman
J.D. 2023

Erin Brinkman was born in Chicago, but grew up abroad, spending the majority of her childhood and high school years in Kosovo and a small village in Germany. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College; received her BA in English from Covenant College, where she served as editor of the creative writing journal; and earned a Master of Urban Education degree through the Memphis Teacher Residency program. Erin then taught for seven years at the high school and college levels in Memphis, TN, with duties that included career counseling, coaching the cheer squad, teaching a feminist literature elective, and leading a support group for pregnant students and young mothers. Erin currently focuses her commitment to public interest on issues at the intersection of gender, sexuality, and race.

Cody Dickerson
J.D. 2023

Cody Dickerson comes from Plattsburg, MO. Majoring in Religious Studies & Chinese, he graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2013. Cody’s interests focus on public service and diplomacy. He served within the U.S. Foreign Service as a Consular Fellow in Beijing and Shanghai and used his Mandarin language skills to conduct nearly fifty thousand visa interviews. He served in the Fraud Prevent Unit at both posts and has successfully taken aim at human trafficking. He hopes to land a position in DC that would allow him to use his foreign work experience and JD degree to create policy proposals and recommendations.

Class of 2022

Sylvia Wilson
J.D. 2022

Sylvia Wilson, a 2018 graduate of the University of Kentucky – Lexington with majors in Political Science and Biology, has long dreamt of becoming the Mayor of her hometown, St. Louis, MO. Her goals include eliminating the Delmar Divide and bringing economic development to poor areas. As a project scientist at Trileaf Corporation, Sylvia has performed National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews on telecommunication projects and has consulted with Native American Tribal Offices, the State Historic Preservation Office, and the Department of Natural Resources. In her spare time, Sylvia volunteers for the St. Louis Cardinals by helping raise funds for the Cardinals Winter Warm-Up.

Class of 2021

Ryan Schultheis
J.D. 2021
Ryan Schultheis is a first-year law student from Evansville, Indiana. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2015 with majors in Political Science and International Economics. Before coming to Washington University Law, Ryan spent a year in Oaxaca, Mexico on a Fulbright scholarship teaching English in a public high school and volunteering at a shelter for unaccompanied migrant children from Central America. After his Fulbright year, Ryan interned with the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) in Washington D.C., where he published research on return migration to Mexico. He then spent two years working as a program assistant and paralegal for Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) in Houston, Texas, a non-profit legal organization that represents unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children in their deportation proceedings.

Rachel Mattingly Phillips
J.D. 2021
Rachel Mattingly Phillips grew up in Indiana and spent a year in Dresden, Germany before attending Denison University in Granville, OH. There she majored in International Studies and Environmental Studies, focusing her senior research on sustainable development in rural Thailand. Rachel was a leader in the campus interfaith discussion group and the fair trade alliance, as well as a founding member of the venture philanthropy club. After graduating in 2011, Rachel returned to Indianapolis to work for a neighborhood-based community development corporation, where she managed a program that provided energy efficiency upgrades to aging homes and businesses in a low-income area. After the completion of that program, Rachel worked for a statewide association of nonprofit organizations. In that role, she developed and led training, conducted organizational assessments, provided technical assistance, and planned educational events for the association. In addition, Rachel served on the boards of directors for a neighborhood community center and neighborhood-based school in Indianapolis. She looks forward to using her law degree to continue serving her community, with a particular interest in supporting small businesses and cooperatives.

Class of 2020

Spencer Bailey
J.D. 2020
Spencer Bailey graduated in 2015 from the Institute for Law, Justice, and Society at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN. While in college he volunteered, interned, and worked for various organizations promoting human rights, fighting human trafficking, providing legal aid, conducting SNAP outreach, and more. Following graduation he served as an AmeriCorps City Year member in Boston, working in an under-resourced urban school. After City Year, he was the Nashville Community Engagement Fellow with UNICEF USA in the Global Citizenship Fellowship.

Hopey Fink
J.D. 2020
Hopey Fink is a second-year law student who graduated from Georgetown University in 2015 with majors in anthropology and linguistics. As an undergraduate, she studied abroad in Senegal, where she interned at a children’s rights NGO. She also worked at a research center in Washington, DC, on projects covering vulnerable children and international development. After graduation, she spent two years teaching in rural Montana on the Ft. Belknap Indian Reservation through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest/AmeriCorps, which led to her interest in tribal law, child advocacy, environmental justice, and the intersections of these practice areas. Hopey spent the summer after her 1L year interning with the Oglala Sioux Tribe in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, through the American Indian Law Summer Program, focusing on policy initiatives affecting tribal education and families. As a 2L, she is a co-chair of the Public Service Advisory Board’s Careers Committee and a staff editor for the Washington University Journal of Law and Policy. She is also a student attorney for the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic.

Megan Ferguson
J.D. 2020
Megan Ferguson is currently a second-year law student. Although she grew up outside of Portland, Oregon, she went to college at Seton Hall University, in South Orange, New Jersey, where she graduated with honors and majored in Diplomacy and Philosophy. While in undergrad, Megan tutored adult English language learners and taught an English club for underserved middle-schoolers while studying in Taipei. After graduation, she taught elementary English in Kinmen, Taiwan, through the Fulbright program. She is now excited to begin exploring options for her legal career.

Jake Villarreal
J.D. 2020
Jake Villarreal is a 2L from Monterey, California. Before coming to WashU Law, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in Connecticut, then worked as a labor organizer for the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union in New York City. He loves documentaries, snakes, and contemporary fashion. After law school, Jake plans to either work in criminal defense or provide legal services to nonprofits, and to remain politically active.

Class of 2019

Sean Carlson
J.D. 2019
Sean Carlson is currently a third-year student at the law school. In 2013, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he majored in History and Russian Studies. Before coming to law school, Sean worked in three different AmeriCorps service positions focusing on environmental conservation, disaster preparedness, and youth at risk of homelessness. Sean is a member of the Public Service Advisory Board (PSAB), and is part of PSAB’s Public Service Committee.

Joshua Katz
J.D. 2019
Joshua Katz graduated in 2019. He attended college at SUNY Geneseo, where he majored in math and philosophy. After college, he took graduate coursework and attended paramedic school at Texas A&M University. He is the former Chief of Emergency Medical Services for the Department of Parks and Recreation for the Town of Hempstead, a municipality with almost 800,000 residents on Long Island. Mr. Katz oversaw emergency response to the Town’s park district, which is the largest suburban park district in the United States. After working as a paramedic, he taught high school at a small boarding school in Westbrook, Connecticut, for seven years. In addition to overseeing health and safety and emergency preparedness, he chaired the math department and served as a dorm master. At the same time, he earned his master’s degree in mathematics at the University of Connecticut. He then spent several years teaching mathematics and statistics courses at Connecticut College and the University of Hartford. During that time, he also served as the Connecticut state director for Gary Johnson’s 2012 Presidential campaign, a member of Westbrook’s Zoning Board of Appeals, and a publicly elected commissioner on Westbrook’s Planning Commission. He served as a national board member for his political party, where his expertise as a Registered Parliamentarian and member of the National Association of Parliamentarians is heavily utilized. More locally, he was Vice President of Outreach of the Federalist Society and President of the Jewish Law Society at Washington University Law. He also helped found, as served as Vice-President of, the Arch Metro Unit of the National Association of Parliamentarians. Throughout his life, Joshua has volunteered as a firefighter and paramedic whenever possible and holds numerous certifications in emergency services.

Mr. Katz spent his 1L summer at Cunningham, Vogel & Rost, P.C., in Kirkwood, Missouri. The firm exclusively represents municipal governments. He is spending his 2L summer at Schlichter, Bogard & Denton in downtown St. Louis, a plaintiff’s firm specializing in breach of fiduciary duty and public-interest litigation against corporate defendants. He currently is clerking for the Honorable Clint Bolick on the Arizona Supreme Court, and will clerk in 2021 for the Honorable Paul B. Matey on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Jiyeon Kim
J.D. 2019
Jiyeon graduated from Yale University with a B.S. and M.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. During undergrad, she was not only involved in many activities on campus but also in the New Haven community through teaching English as a second language and volunteering at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. This led her to pursue training in medicine through the MD-PhD program at University of Pennsylvania. During medical school, Jiyeon started working with a global non-profit organization helping rare-disease patients who underwent whole-genome sequencing by connecting them to experts around the world and through crowdfunding. Experiencing and recognizing issues in the healthcare system and governance of genomics and new technology, she found a deeper passion in health law and policy fueled by experiences in Europe including a Medical Ethics and Law program at King’s College London, which ultimately led her to study law at Washington University School of Law.

Jung-Hyun (Sandy) Lee
J.D. 2019
Jung-Hyun (Sandy) Lee is from South Korea. She graduated from Boston College in 2014, majoring in political science and psychology. While at Boston College, she was a college student group leader at her church for three years. She organized numerous volunteer trips to alcoholics’ shelters and impoverished outer Boston area. After graduating from Boston College, for about two years, she worked in two NGOs on North Korean human rights. She was an English teacher at Heavenly Dream School in South Korea, which was a school for North Korean adolescents and adults refugees. Also, she worked as an intern at International Coalition to Stop Crimes against Humanity (ICNK), which is an umbrella NGO made up of 50 member NGOs on North Korean human rights worldwide. This organization’s main goal is the referral of North Korea to the International Criminal Court.

Tim Parrington
J.D. 2019
Tim Parrington is currently a third-year student at the law school. He received a master’s of education, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado. During his undergraduate career, Tim worked on several campaigns that sought to make the campus a more inclusive environment for undocumented students and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Additionally, he volunteered for a youth center that provided after-school programming for at-risk students. After graduation, he joined Teach For America, a two-year service program that strives to place highly motivated teachers in low-income communities. Through TFA, Tim taught middle school science and sponsored several after-school programs in Colorado Springs. Following completion of his term, Tim taught for three years at the American International School of Vietnam, in Ho Chi Minh City. Currently, Tim serves as a co-chair for OUTLaw’s annual Midwest LGBTQ+ Law Conference. The Conference is designed to build community involvement in the fight for equality and justice.

Matt Tharp
J.D. 2019
Matt Tharp is a third-year law student from Round Rock, Texas. He graduated from the University of Missouri in 2014 with University Honors, majoring in Political Science. Prior to law school, Matt worked for two and a half years at Democracy Works, a Brooklyn-based technology start-up working to break down the logistical and practical barriers to voting. During law school, Matt was co-chair of the 2017 Midwest LGBTQ+ Law Conference and co-instructor of an undergraduate class on the intersection of law, gender, and justice. During the summer of 2017, Matt was a summer associate in the Washington D.C. office of Steptoe & Johnson. During the summer of 2018, Matt was a summer associate in Kirkland & Ellis’ New York City office. Matt will spend his final semester of law school as a full-time judicial extern to The Honorable Naomi Reice Buchwald, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. After graduation, Matt will clerk for the Honorable Gabriel W. Gorenstein, also of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Class of 2018

Ellen Coogan
J.D. 2018
Ellen Coogan is a 2018 graduate of Washington University School of Law. Ellen is from Des Plaines, Illinois. She graduated in 2014 from the University of Alabama, majoring in philosophy and Spanish. As an undergraduate, she interned at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, Illinois, where she interviewed detained immigrant children, primarily from Central America, and delivered relief determinations from supervising attorneys. This experience inspired her to research the impact of the Cuban Adjustment Act on Cuban families while studying abroad in Havana, Cuba, and she based her philosophy honors thesis on exploring whether states have a right to exclude immigrants. She also volunteered by providing art therapy to an Alzheimer’s patient and her family in rural Alabama and by tutoring a third-grade student through READ Alabama. After graduating, she moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she worked for a healthcare real estate consulting firm and private equity fund. While in Milwaukee, she was a volunteer English tutor to Spanish-speaking immigrants through the English Language Partners of Wisconsin. In the summer after her first year of law school, Ellen worked on the Humanitarian Relief Project of the Immigrant Rights Program at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto. In the summer of 2017, she worked to protect internet privacy rights at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. Ellen is currently a Domestic Surveillance Fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), where she uses FOIA, agency comments, and other administrative routes to advocate for transparency and civil liberties. For example, I recently submitted comments pointing out that the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ new practice of transferring data obtained from unaccompanied immigrant minors to ICE for enforcement purposes was directly in contravention of the agency’s relevant Privacy Impact Assessment. “I love my job, and I am thrilled to be in Washington, DC.”

Karen Hinkley
J.D. 2018
Karen Hinkley graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2009 with a bachelor’s in Psychology. During her undergraduate years she volunteered for organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters and Habitat for Humanity and worked for AVID, an organization whose mission is to close the achievement gap by preparing all students for college readiness and success in a global society. After college, Karen worked in youth ministry while attending Dallas Theological Seminary, where she obtained a master’s in Christian Education in 2011. During graduate school, Karen spent a summer volunteering in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she designed and instructed an undergraduate-level course and taught a seminar for international youth. After finishing her master’s, Karen worked for two different non-profit organizations, teaching in Dallas-area middle and high schools and doing mission work in Asia.