Judges
Raqiyah Mays
Category: Domestic News
Affiliation: Amnesty International USA, Stewardship Specialist
Raqiyah Mays is a multi-hyphenated author, journalist, radio personality, and life-long activist. As a college freshman, she helped create the Diversity Union on Penn State’s Altoona campus in response to acts of racism toward black classmates. After college, she joined the staff of VIBE Magazine and began organizing the magazine’s community and youth events in NYC. As a journalist, Raqiyah has written articles covering the intersection of social issues and entertainment for everyone from VIBE, Ebony, Essence, and Black Enterprise to The Associated Press, Billboard, and Complex. Today, she’s expanded her activism to working with the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Amnesty International, the world’s largest human rights organization.
Franco Ordonez
Category: Domestic News
Affiliation: McClatchy Washington Bureau
Franco Ordoñez covers the White House for the McClatchy Washington Bureau. Prior to the White House beat, Ordoñez wrote about Latin American affairs and immigration for McClatchy and the Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald. Prior to the White House beat, Franco wrote about immigration and Latin American affairs for McClatchy and The Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald. He moved to Washington in 2011 after six years in North Carolina covering immigration and criminal justice and working on investigative projects for The Charlotte Observer. He’s also worked as a correspondent in Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, and Haiti.
Jessica Valenti
Category: Domestic News
Affiliation: Author & Journalist
Jessica Valenti is a columnist and the author of six books on feminism, politics and culture. Her latest book, Sex Object: A Memoir, was a New York Times bestseller. She co-edited the ground-breaking anthology, Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, which paved the way for legislation of the same name and set what’s now considered the gold standard for sexual consent. In 2004, Valenti founded one of the first feminist blogs, Feministing.com, which Columbia Journalism Review called “head and shoulders above almost any writing on women’s issues in mainstream media.” She has a Master’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.
Daphne Eviatar
Category: International News
Affiliation: Amnesty International USA, Director of Security with Human Rights Programs
As Amnesty International USA’s Director of Security with Human Rights, Daphne leads our program that tackles issues pertaining to detention, interrogation, national security, and the use of lethal force. She came to AIUSA from Human Rights First, where she served as Senior Counsel. An expert on the prosecution and treatment of international terrorism suspects, she reported on military commission proceedings at Guantanamo Bay, the treatment of detainees at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, terrorism trials in federal courts, and the U.S. drone war. She worked previously as a journalist focusing on law, national security, economic development and human rights.
Geoffrey Mock
Category: International News
Affiliation: Amnesty International USA, Chair of the Middle East Country Specialists
BA in Political Science, University of North Carolina. Member of the Middle East Co-group since 1991. Previously, Country Specialist for Syria and Saudi Arabia. Also served as Amnesty International representative to North Carolinians Against the Death Penalty. Presently Manager of internal communications for Duke University.
Tracy Wilkinson
Category: International News
Affiliation: Los Angeles Times
Tracy Wilkinson has covered wars, crises and daily life on three continents. Her career began with United Press International, where she covered the Contra war in Nicaragua. She moved to The Times in 1987, first as a writer on the Metro staff, then as a foreign correspondent based in San Salvador. In 1995, she moved to Vienna, where she covered the war in the Balkans, winning the George Polk Award in 1999, and then to Jerusalem. From there, she went to Rome, where she covered two popes and did several stints in Iraq. In 2008, she became Mexico bureau chief, where her coverage was part of a team Overseas Press Club Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. Wilkinson was also the 2014 winner of the Maria Moors Cabot Award for coverage of Latin America. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University. She joined The Times’ Washington, D.C., bureau in 2015 to cover foreign affairs.
Hadar Harris
Category: Student
Affiliation: Student Press Law Center- Maryland
Hadar Harris is an international human rights attorney who has worked for more than two decades on a broad range of human rights issues in more than 25 countries. She has specialized in issues of civil and political rights, gender equality, ending torture and genocide, and promoting domestic implementation of international norms. She previously served for 13 years as the executive director of the Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law, Prior to that she was the director of Program and Resource Development for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and earlier, the executive director of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. She is a graduate of Brown University and the UCLA School of Law.
Alli Maloney
Category: Student Journalism
Affiliation: Teen Vogue
Alli Maloney is the news + politics editor at Teen Vogue. She joined the brand in April 2017 to launch the brand’s News + Politics vertical, which centers around news and social justice issues through the lens of how the Teen Vogue audience is impacted and offers thought-provoking analysis of government happenings, and providing young people with actionable advice. Coinciding with Juvenile Justice Awareness Month in October 2017, Maloney conceptualized and produced the vertical’s extensive “Kids Incarcerated” series, which covered topics like immigration and youth detention, the school-to-prison pipeline, bail reform, and solitary confinement, many written from a first-person perspective. The package was awarded a 2018 Leadership Prize by the Juvenile Law Center.
Vibha Venkatesha
Category: Student Journalism
Affiliation: AIUSA National Youth Leader
Vibha is a 21-year-old Detroit-based human rights activist, and is Amnesty USA’s National Youth Action Committee representative for the Midwest. Vibha has lobbied on numerous human rights issues, facilitated workshops, and organized panel discussions and events on a range of issues including mass incarceration, solitary confinement, migrant and refugee rights, and uplifting the narratives of LGBTQ people of color. Vibha graduated from Wayne State University with a BA in Political Science and Sociology. She currently works as a Policy Analyst with a focus on urban planning, public health and economic development policy in Detroit and a Task Force aiming to reduce prison recidivism rates in the city.