Staff
Greg Lukianoff
President
Greg Lukianoff is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and has been with FIRE since 2001, when he was hired to be the organization's first director of legal and public advocacy. Greg is a member of the State Bar of California and the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. Greg has published articles in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, the New York Post, The Stanford Technology Law Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Fraternal Law, Inside Higher Ed, Reason, Free Inquiry, Congressional Quarterly, The Daily Caller, The Charleston Law Review, and numerous other publications. He is a blogger for the Huffington Post and authored a chapter in Templeton Press's anthology New Threats to Freedom, edited by Adam Bellow. Greg is a frequent guest on local and national syndicated radio programs, has represented FIRE on national television shows, including CBS Evening News, The O'Reilly Factor, MSNBC's Dr. Nancy, The Abrams Report, Hannity and Colmes, Stossel, Scarborough Country, and Buchanan and Press, and has testified before the U.S. Senate about free speech issues on America's campuses. In 2008 he became the first ever recipient of the Playboy Foundation Freedom of Expression Award and in 2010 he received Ford Hall Forum's Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award on behalf of FIRE.
Greg is a graduate of American University and of Stanford Law School, where he focused on First Amendment and constitutional law. Before joining FIRE, Greg practiced law in Northern California, interned at the ACLU of Northern California and the Organization for Aid to Refugees in Prague, Czech Republic, and was the development manager of the EnvironMentors Project in Washington, D.C. Greg, along with Harvey A. Silverglate and David French, is a co-author of FIRE's Guide to Free Speech on Campus. Greg is also a proud member of the board of directors of Philadelphia's Theatre Exile.
Robert Shibley
Senior Vice President
Robert L. Shibley, FIRE's Senior Vice President, is a native of Toledo, Ohio, and a graduate of Duke University and Duke University School of Law. Robert's undergraduate experience serving as the managing editor of the Duke Review newspaper, which frequently decried (and faced) administrative censorship and bias, led him to a career defending the rights of college and university students and faculty members. Since starting at FIRE in 2003, Robert has aided students and faculty members at dozens of colleges and universities. As Senior Vice President, along with traveling to various campuses to speak about First Amendment issues, Robert has represented FIRE publicly on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, in national and international radio and TV interviews, and in published editorials in the New York Post, Boston Globe, National Review, Providence Journal, Daily Oklahoman, and other newspapers. He also writes columns for The Daily Caller and Pajamas Media. Robert and his wife Araz live in Apex, North Carolina, with their two daughters, Grace and Cecily.
Adam Kissel
Vice President of Programs
Adam Kissel graduated from Harvard University and from the University of Chicago, where he served as Student Liaison to the Board of Trustees and earned a master's degree from the Committee on Social Thought. His academic interests include the history and theory of liberal education, the history and theory of rhetoric, and rhetoric's relationship with philosophy. He also has served as a professional editor for Nobel laureate James Heckman and for faculty in a variety of disciplines. Before joining FIRE, Adam was a director of the Lehrman American Studies Center and the Jack Miller Center for the Teaching of America's Founding Principles. With Sharon Browne he wrote a Faculty Rights Handbook in 2007. Since joining FIRE, he has spoken about individual rights on college campuses in California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In 2009, he won a First Prize in education reporting from the National Education Writers Association.
William Creeley
Director of Legal and Public Advocacy
Sean Clark
Director, Finance and Operations
Sean Clark graduated from Penn State University in 2003 where he earned a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in History. As an undergraduate, he presided over Undergraduate Student Government Senate as its president, co-hosted a student run radio talk show called Radio Free Penn State, chaired the Student Organization Appeals Board, and served as vice-chairman and later as chairman of Penn State Young Americans for Freedom. In 2001, Sean became involved with FIRE when the foundation intervened on the behalf of YAF in a religious liberty dispute with the university. Sean first started with FIRE in 2005 as a Program Associate, later serving as a Program Officer and Assistant to the President and now manages the day-to-day operations of the FIRE office.
Alisha Glennon
Director of Development
Alisha is a Philadelphia native who graduated from the College of William and Mary with a B.A. in Economics and a minor in Business Marketing. While in school, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority and played an active role on the chapter's Philanthropy committee. Alisha leads FIRE's development activities including donor relations, foundation grants, and fundraising events. Before joining FIRE, Alisha held a public affairs internship at Planned Parenthood. Alisha is a member of the Junior League of Philadelphia and the Association of Fundraising Professionals Philadelphia Chapter. She currently volunteers as a birth doula and lives in the Northern Liberties section of the city with her husband, two Boston terriers Murphy and Millie, and one naughty kitten Georgie.
Samantha Harris
Director, Speech Code Research
Samantha K. Harris, a Philadelphia native, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and from Princeton University, where she earned an A.B. magna cum laude in politics. As an undergraduate, Samantha completed a senior thesis that analyzed the constitutional implications of former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s quality-of-life initiative in New York City. During law school, she served on the editorial board of the Journal of Constitutional Law. Before joining FIRE, Samantha clerked for the late Honorable Jay C. Waldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and most recently was an associate at the law firm of Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia.
Peter Bonilla
Assistant Director, Individual Rights Defense Program
Peter Bonilla joined FIRE as a Program Associate in 2008 and became Assistant Director of FIRE's Individual Rights Defense Program in 2011. As Assistant Director he manages FIRE's significant caseload, writes frequently for FIRE's blog, The Torch, and has lectured to student groups and at student conferences around the country. Since January 2011, Peter has also been a contributor for the political commentary website PolicyMic, covering issues in American higher education. Prior to joining FIRE, Peter was the literary manager of Philadelphia's InterAct Theatre Company, one of the country's top theatres for the development and production of new politically and socially-themed plays. He is also a past recipient of a fellowship in playwriting from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and his first play was produced to critical acclaim in Arizona in September 2011. In 2009, Peter was a contestant on the television game show Jeopardy! His undergraduate degree, with a double major in theater arts and economics, is from the University of Pennsylvania.
Joseph Cohn
Legislative and Policy Director
Joseph Cohn, FIRE’s Legislative and Policy Director, is a 2004 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Fels Institute of Government Administration, where he earned his Juris Doctor and Masters in Government Administration. Prior to law school, Joe attended the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV), where he graduated cum laude and co-founded the university’s ACLU chapter. A former staff attorney for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and law clerk in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Joe joins FIRE having demonstrated a career-long dedication to advancing the cause of civil liberties. He has served as a staff attorney at the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, where his work earned him accolades from The Legal Intelligencer and Pennsylvania Law Weekly (“2007 Lawyer on the Fast Track”) in 2007 and from Super Lawyers magazine (“Rising Star”) in 2008. In 2010, Joe taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School as an adjunct professor, where he lectured on good trial practices and supervised law students as they represented real clients in both state and federal courts. Just prior to joining FIRE, Joe served as the interim legal director for ACLU affiliates in Nevada and Utah.
Peyton Cudaback
Assistant to the Vice President
Peyton graduated from Drexel University in 2011 with a B.A. in communications, concentrating in global journalism. Through Drexel's cooperative education program, Peyton began working for FIRE in the spring of 2008 as a Program Assistant. After being on FIRE's staff for three years while finishing her undergraduate degree, she took on a full-time position as Assistant to the Vice President after her graduation. As part of her work at FIRE, Peyton will also supervise students from the same program that brought her to FIRE. Throughout her time at Drexel, Peyton was a member of the women's crew team. Outside of her involvement at FIRE, Peyton is a proud New Yorker and is passionate about the music and culture of the 1960s.
Jaclyn Hall
Associate Director, Campus Freedom Network
Jaclyn Hall graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010 with a B.A. in political science and a minor in history. While at Penn, she advocated for undergraduate research opportunities (and learned a lot about university bureaucracy) as a member of the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education. She also taught public speaking and helped fellow students improve their research presentations as the Senior Advisor to the Communication Within the Curriculum program and as a board member for the Emerging Scholar Talk. She is a life-long lover of theater, most recently performing with the Underground Shakespeare Company at Penn. Jaclyn was inspired by her experience as a 2008 summer intern, and she is excited to share FIRE's message with students through the Campus Freedom Network.
Andrew Kloster
Legal Fellow
Andrew Kloster is a graduate of the University of Miami where as a freshman, he joined (and later led) a new student group that, thanks to FIRE, had just been allowed on campus. At New York University School of Law, Andrew was the Senior Articles Editor for the Journal of Law and Liberty and head of the NYU Law chapter of the Federalist Society. Also while at law school, Andrew worked for the U.S. Attorneys Offices in Chicago (N.D.IL.) and New York (S.D.N.Y.), where he was involved in several First and Fourth Amendment cases. Prior to working at FIRE, Andrew worked for a human rights NGO at the United Nations and on Capitol Hill.
Gina Luttrell
Program Associate, Public Awareness Project
Gina graduated cum laude from Georgia's Agnes Scott College in 2011, receiving a B.A. in philosophy and political science. Gina is an alumna of the Koch Summer Fellowship Program, and she completed internships at the Goldwater Institute and the Sam Adams Alliance before her passion for discourse ultimately led her to FIRE.
Azhar Majeed
Associate Director of Legal and Public Advocacy
Azhar Majeed, a native of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, received a B.A. in Political Science with a minor in History from the University of Michigan in 2004. He is also a 2007 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. As an undergraduate, his academic interests included comparative constitutional law and political philosophy, particularly from the time period of the Enlightenment. During law school, Azhar represented the University of Michigan at the 2006 Tulane International Moot Court competition. Azhar was one of FIRE's inaugural Robert H. Jackson Legal Fellows and was also a FIRE legal intern in 2005.
Alison Meyer
Development Associate
Alison Meyer graduated cum laude from Tufts University in 2011, where she earned a B.A. in philosophy. While in school, she was Editor-in-Chief of a targeted campus newspaper, the Primary Source. Her experiences with a hostile university administration and a variety of forms of censorship led her to FIRE and, more importantly, to the defense of free speech on campuses across the country. She has also interned at the Cato Institute, where she researched the implications of tax increment financing and worked on media relations.
Bridget Sweeney
Assistant to the President
Bridget Sweeney graduated cum laude from Fordham University with a B.A. in History and Political Science in 2007. After earning her undergraduate degree, Bridget worked as a press officer at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in New York City, focusing on issues such as culture, immigration, and higher education. In 2009, she returned to Fordham University to pursue an M.A. in Modern European History, completing her Master's thesis on the intersection of socialist and feminist ideologies in late 19th century Britain. This passion for the study of competing ideologies and her belief in the value of open scholarship drives her commitment to the preservation of liberty on America's college campuses.
