Ellie Kemper

Ellie Kemper joined CJJR in October of 2024 as a Research Assistant, working primarily with Dr. Alex Miller on uplifting Crossover Youth.

Ellie is a senior at the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service from Louisville, Kentucky. An honors thesis candidate, Ellie completed a year-long thesis program in December of 2024. Her thesis addresses the ongoing mass incarceration of gang members in El Salvador within a historical context. Since her first year at Georgetown, Ellie has worked in the President’s Office as a Student Assistant and has focused her energy into the largest social interest club on campus, Georgetown Students for Prison Justice. Serving as co-President since May of 2024, Ellie oversees 200 students working on campus-based advocacy and research projects, in addition to educational programming in the Alexandria and Arlington jails. During the summer of 2023, Ellie was an inaugural intern at the Office for Access to Justice at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she worked to improve legal accessibility across economic, racial, ability, and linguistic barriers.

During her spare time, Ellie enjoys volunteering with Trabajadores Unidos (Workers United) in DC, which provides legal support and free ESL courses to day laborers and migrants in the area. Ellie is passionate about alleviating the root causes of system involvement and hopes to dedicate her career to this field.