IPC Staff |
Walter Ewing, Senior Researcher
Walter Ewing, Ph.D., is the Senior Researcher at the Immigration Policy Center. He has authored or co-authored 20 reports and opinion pieces for the IPC and has published articles in the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, Stanford Law and Policy Review, and Immigration Law Today. Before joining the IPC, he was an Immigration Policy Analyst at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Program Director of the National Citizenship Network at Immigration and Refugee Services of America. Mr. Ewing received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School in 1997 and his B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1987.
Mary Giovagnoli, Director
Mary Giovagnoli is the Director of the Immigration Policy Center. Prior to IPC, Mary served as Senior Director of Policy for the National Immigration Forum and practiced law as an attorney with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security—serving first as a trial attorney and associate general counsel with the INS, and, following the creation of DHS, as an associate chief counsel for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Mary specialized in asylum and refugee law, focusing on the impact of general immigration laws on asylees. In 2005, Mary became the senior advisor to the Director of Congressional Relations at USCIS. She was also awarded a Congressional Fellowship from USCIS to serve for a year in Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s office where she worked on comprehensive immigration reform and refugee issues. Mary attended Drake University, graduating summa cum laude with a major in speech communication. She received a master’s degree in rhetoric and completed additional graduate coursework in rhetoric at the University of Wisconsin, before receiving a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School. She spent more than ten years teaching public speaking, argumentation and debate, and parliamentary procedure while pursuing her education.
Seth Hoy, Communications and Research Associate
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Seth Hoy is a Communications and Research Associate at the Immigration Policy Center and Editor of Immigration Impact, IPC's blog. Previous to joining IPC, Mr. Hoy worked at an academic publishing company and more recently as a staff writer/reporter for a city paper in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he covered multiple beats. Mr. Hoy has also volunteered as an educator in China and the Marshall Islands through Harvard University's WorldTeach program. In addition to teaching students, Mr. Hoy organized and staffed professional development workshops for local educators. He received his B.A. in English with a minor in German from Boston College in 2003.
Benjamin E. Johnson, Executive Director
Benjamin E. Johnson was named Director of the American Immigration Council in June 2007. Prior to that, he was Director of the Council's Immigration Policy Center since February 2003. Mr. Johnson has written extensively on immigration law and policy, and has appeared on National Public Radio, Fox News, BBC World News, and other television and radio programs. In 1994, Mr. Johnson co-founded and served as the Director of the Immigration Outreach Center in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1999, he joined the staff of the American Immigration Lawyers Association as Associate Director of Advocacy, where he worked with Congress, the Administration, and federal agencies on a wide variety of immigration-related issues. Prior to his work on immigration issues, he worked as a criminal and civil trial attorney in San Diego, California. Mr. Johnson is a graduate of the University of San Diego School of Law and studied international and comparative law at Kings College in London.
Travis Packer, Policy Research Assistant
Travis Packer is a Policy Research Assistant at the Immigration Policy Center. Prior to joining IPC, Mr. Packer worked at the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and before that at the University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights. Mr. Packer received his B.A. in Political Science from North Carolina State University in 2005 and his J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 2009.
Wendy Sefsaf, Communications Director
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Wendy Sefsaf is the Communications Director at the American Immigration Council. Prior to joining the Council, Ms. Sefsaf served as Director of Development at New America Media, after having worked at the Open Society Institute, and public radio station WAMU as the Manager of Foundation Relations and Public Information. Ms. Sefsaf has spent much of her career in the non-profit world including with The California Hispanic Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse in East Los Angeles and The Young Adult Institute and Latino Worker’s Center in New York City. Ms. Sefsaf received her M.A. in Public Communication from the American University in Washington D.C. and she holds a B.A. in Liberal Arts from the New School University in New York.
Michele Waslin, Senior Policy Analyst
Michele Waslin, Ph.D., is the Senior Policy Analyst at the Immigration Policy Center. She has authored several publications on immigration policy and post-9/11 immigration issues. Ms. Waslin appears regularly in English and Spanish-language media. Previously, she worked as Director of Immigration Policy Research at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and Policy Coordinator at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. She received her Ph.D. in 2002 in Government and International Studies from the University of Notre Dame, and holds an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Political Science from Creighton University.
