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Friend,
Say hello to S.T.O.P.’s newest interns! We’re thrilled to welcome this talented group and can't wait to see what the rest of the summer has in store.
Our Summer 2026 Intern Class
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Aashka Vyas
Legal Intern
Aashka Vyas is an LL.M. graduate from Georgetown University Law Center, with a focus on technology law, data privacy, surveillance regulation, and AI governance. Her academic and professional interests center on building rights-oriented legal frameworks for emerging technologies, particularly where unchecked surveillance and weak data protection disproportionately affect civil liberties and marginalized communities. Having grown up in India and witnessed the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure without robust privacy safeguards, she became deeply interested in questions of state surveillance, accountability, and equitable technology governance. Her work has included research on India’s data protection law, privacy-by-design safeguards such as pseudonymization, and policy proposals addressing surveillance and cybersecurity frameworks. At Georgetown, she has further developed these interests through coursework in privacy law, AI liability, constitutional law, and platform governance, as well as through her research assistantship at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), where she analyzes governance risks in AI-enabled decision support systems. She has received the LL.M. Post-Graduate Public-Interest Fellowship Award from Georgetown Law to support her internship.
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Adebusola Owoseni
Advocacy Intern
Adebusola Owoseni is a Mellon Fellow and a student at Hunter College, where she majors in political science and minors in business. Her academic and professional interests center on civil rights and pressing humanities issues, particularly those affecting marginalized communities. She is committed to advancing equity, justice, and democratic accountability through research, advocacy, and public engagement. Deeply engaged in her church and broader community, Adebusola brings a values-driven perspective to her work, grounded in justice, integrity, and service. She plans to build a career at the intersection of law, government, and technology, advancing policies that safeguard civil liberties while promoting innovation.
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Daniel Dunn
Legal Intern
Daniel is a student at Yale Law School, currently focusing on poverty law, consumer protection, and government transparency. Drawing on 15 years of experience in technology consulting, he aims to abolish harmful surveillance systems that disproportionately impact marginalized communities.
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Grace Harris
Legal Intern
Grace Harris is a J.D. candidate at Fordham Law with a professional background in intellectual property. Her academic focus is on the intersections of IP, data privacy, and internet governance with the goal of curbing private sector and government surveillance of historically disenfranchised communities. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Homeland Security from Tulane University.
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Ianna Choi
Social Media & Communications Intern
Ianna Choi is a junior at Binghamton University studying political science and human rights. Her research focuses on the intersection of electronic monitoring, surveillance, human rights, and privacy rights, particularly in the contexts of protest participation and incarcerated individuals. She previously interned at the Brennan Center for Justice and plans to attend law school after graduation.
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Katelyn DeKeersgieter
Legal Intern
Katelyn DeKeersgieter is a Juris Doctor candidate at Harvard Law School (Class of 2028). At HLS, Katelyn is involved with the Journal of Law and Technology, the Women’s Law Association, and the Mississippi Delta Project. Her past professional experience includes working for the Yale Efficient Computing Lab, supporting child care advocacy as a Liman Fellow at All Our Kin, and performing machine learning research related to poetry. Before law school, Katelyn earned a bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics with a concentration in linguistics from Yale College. Her senior thesis consisted of fine-tuning large language models for legal services applications. In her free time, Katelyn enjoys playing the viola, tinkering with coding projects, and exploring new restaurants with friends.
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Padraig Pearlman
Civil Rights Intern
Padraig is a student at the University of Chicago pursuing a major in computer science. He is passionate about civil rights and tech equity and plans to go to law school to study tech law, including AI and surveillance regulation.
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Layla Ardalan
Research Intern
Layla Ardalan is a junior at Barnard College majoring in Sociology. She is passionate about intercultural relations, transnational identity, and the social dynamics which shape communities. Previously, she worked as a Research Intern at Barnard’s Sociology Department, where she conducted ethnographic research on the Arab community in Astoria, with a focus on the ways surveillance operates both internally and externally. Her interests center on migration, identity formation, and diaspora studies.
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Summer Sun
Civil Rights Intern
Summer Sun is a student at Harvard studying Government. On campus, she leads Harvard’s Responsible Computing Collective, the Chinese Students Association, and was part of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society’s Student Leaders in AI 2026 cohort. She also conducts research with the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation on digital civic infrastructure. She is originally from a small town in California and always loves trying new coffee.
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Lena Habtu
Research Intern
Lena Habtu is a recent graduate of Swarthmore College, where she studied Political Sociology, Computer Science, and Arabic, earning Highest Honors. Her work focuses on security, consent, and privacy, and she has researched age assurance technologies in collaboration with researchers at the University of Melbourne, Princeton University, and Carnegie Mellon University; biometric data collection of vulnerable populations supported by the Aydelotte Foundation; and worked to secure HIPPA-compliant and cybersecure data practices for the Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health department. Lena is also passionate about ethical and political questions that emerge at the nexus of state and corporate authority, particularly with regards to digital identity systems, platform governance and content moderation, and internet regulation in various international contexts.
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Leslie Lan
Research Intern
Leslie is a student at Barnard College majoring in Political Science and Human Rights. She is interested in the intersection of human rights and digital surveillance, with a particular focus on freedom of speech and access to information. Her past research includes work on TikTok's surveillance of user data and collaboration with law enforcement and surveillance practices in different countries.
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Charlotte Siohan
Research Intern
Charlotte is a student at Georgetown University majoring in International Politics and minoring in French and English. Her interests center on government transparency, democratic resilience, and the rise of online extremism. She previously interned at the Government Accountability Project, where she researched whistleblower protection policy and advocacy initiatives. She is interested in the role of surveillance technologies in chilling free speech and shaping political participation. Through her work, she hopes to better understand how policymakers can address evolving technological threats while preserving democratic norms and constitutional protections.
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Naba Sheikh
Advocacy Intern
Naba Sheikh is a junior at New York University studying Social & Cultural Analysis and Politics with a concentration in American Studies. As a Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar and Richie Jackson Service Fellow, she is interested in how law, public policy, and systems of surveillance shape and structure everyday life. Her work centers the knowledge and experiences of minoritized communities and examines the genealogies of power that continue to inform contemporary social and political institutions. She is committed to advancing civil liberties and hopes to pursue a career in civil and human rights law.
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Lexi Shakhnazarov
Research Intern
Lexi is a graduate of New York University where she studied political economy. Her past research has concerned legal and political histories and the transformation of governance under digital capitalism. She has worked across research and policy environments in NYC and is especially interested in the intersection of antitrust law, platform governance, and institutional power in the age of Big Tech.
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Rose Bilicki
Research Intern
Rose Bilicki is a rising senior at the University of Iowa studying political science. She is a member of the universities policy debate team where she competes against peers from across the country. She is passionate advocate for labor rights, disability justice, racial equity and privacy protection.
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Kristen Wang
Research Intern
Kristen is a recent graduate of Swarthmore College, where they studied Computer Science and Philosophy. They are interested in the deployment and function of surveillance in institutions of higher education.
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Sneha Palle
Research Intern
Sneha is a technologist and policy thinker with 7 years of experience in Big Tech, now working at the intersection of technology governance, AI regulation, antitrust, and climate change. She studied Computer Science Engineering at the University of Michigan, and recently completed her Master's in Public Administration at Columbia University. She's passionate about bridging policy, innovation, and sustainability to build a more equitable and resilient future.
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Keep an eye out for the great work ahead!
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In Solidarity,
Team S.T.O.P.
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