Category: 2016

James Shygelski ’17 is a Law and Public Policy Scholar at Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law. He is currently a McCleary Law Fellow for the Human Rights Campaign. Through this position, Mr. Shygelski hopes to develop a plan for increasing access to healthcare for members of the LGBTQ community.  At Temple Law, Mr. Shygelski is the President of the Philadelphia Legal Network and serves on the Executive Board for Temple’s chapter of the Women’s Law Caucus. He is also a member of the Moot Court Honor Society, through which he has won the 2015 Samuel L. Polsky Moot Court Competition, Temple’s inaugural Regional Appellate Advocacy Competition, and competed as a finalist in the I. Herman Stern Moot Court Competition.

Mr. Shygelski earned his B.A. from the University of Scranton with a major in History and a minor in Theatre. There he was awarded the Michael B. Badzinski Memorial Scholarship for exemplary service and character.

Amy Skiles ’17 is a Law & Public Policy Scholar at Temple University Beasley School of Law. Prior to law school, Ms. Skiles earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a minor in Business from Loyola University, Maryland.  After completing her undergraduate education Ms. Skiles moved to England and received a Master of Science in Wildlife Conservation and Management from Newcastle University.  It was during her pursuit of her master’s degree that Ms. Skiles developed her interest in law and policy.  Ms. Skiles chose to complete her dissertation on a Comparison of the Agri-Environmental Policies of the Untied States and the United Kingdom.  Ms. Skiles is and active member of student organizations at Temple, serving as a Senator for the Student Bar Association and is a member of the executive board of the Temple Environmental Law Society. As a Law and Public Policy Scholar Ms. Skiles is interning with the Aviation and Admiralty Section in the Torts Branch, Civil Division, of the U.S. Department of Justice.  Ms. Skiles’ primary policy interests are criminal justice reform and environmental policy.

Kevin Todorow ’18 is a Beasley Scholar and a Law & Public Policy Scholar at Temple University, Beasley School of Law. While in D.C., he worked for the Department of Justice’s Office of Enforcement Operations, which oversees a host of sophisticated investigative tools and supports US Attorneys’ offices across the country. Back at Temple, Mr. Todorow is an active member of the Federalist Society and the International Law Association. In 2011, Mr. Todorow graduated from Penn State with a B.S. in Economics, a B.A. in Literature and a Minor in International Studies. Between college and law school, Mr. Todorow worked his way up from an intern to a supervising copywriter in pharmaceutical advertising. His policy interests include the effective limits of federal power, extraterritorial application of U.S. law and bipartisan legislative action.

Alejandra Whitney-Smith ’18 is a Conwell Scholar and a Law & Public Policy Scholar at Temple University Beasley School of Law. Ms. Whitney-Smith graduated from Rutgers University in 2015 with a B.A. in Communications and Women and Gender Studies. During her time at Rutgers University, Ms. Whitney-Smith interned at various agencies such as the Department of Public Health, where she worked on analyzing the root causes of domestic violence in Delaware. Her policy interests include prison labor reform as well as the school-to-prison pipeline. More specifically, Ms. Whitney-Smith hopes to further study school discipline policies as it correlates to juvenile incarceration rates. At Temple Law, she is part of the Black Law Students Association and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. Ms. Whitney-Smith’s personal interests include watching sports, traveling and DIY crafting.