Announcement:
The ’17-’18 North American Executive Board
Here at Students For Liberty, we are thrilled to be working with dedicated and passionate students who care about making the world a freer place. Our North American Executive Board works with students to help them coordinate their events and activism to ensure they are as impactful as they can be. Today, we are honored to announce the 2017-2018 North American Executive Board. We are confident our North America program is in good hands with these students using their talents to spread liberty in the United States and Canada!
Chris Harelson – Chairman, North American Executive Board
Chris has served as a Students For Liberty Campus Coordinator & West Regional Director, Young Americans for Liberty State Chair, Field Director for Americans for Prosperity, Staff for a Utah State Senator, Executive Producer of a political radio show, and in several campaign positions. Chris intends to continue to advance liberty throughout his lifetime by working within the liberty network to encourage entrepreneurship and business creation. He’s an experienced activist who is excited to help take Students For Liberty even further in the fight for liberty.
Cory Massimino – Senior Chair of Academic Programs
Cory Massimino serves as the North American Senior Chair of Academic Programs and Blog Manager. He is also a Young Voices Advocate and the Mutual Exchange Coordinator for the Center for a Stateless Society. Cory studies philosophy and economics in Texas, where he lives with his partner and their four cats and a dog. When he’s not organizing reading groups exploring the radical globalist vision of libertarianism, Cory is marveling at the border-less, nation-less price system while grabbing some Indian food downtown.
Michelle Zhitomirsky – Academic Programs Chair
Michelle is an interdisciplinary Arts and Science undergraduate student pursuing an economics major at McMaster University. She is in her final year of study and aspires to work for a think tank or an educational organization focused on public policy and economics. Michelle is looking forward to developing academic programs for SFL and is interested in looking at strategies to make education more accessible and engaging.
Savannah Lindquist – Communications Chair
Originally from Norfolk, Virginia, Savannah is a senior Neuroscience major at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. She also serves as a FEE Campus Ambassador, and has been recognized at the highest tier of distinction, as a Leonard Read Ambassador. In her spare time she enjoys reading, volunteering with her church, and trips to the local gun range: a lifelong hobby she learned from her grandfather. She’s absolutely thrilled to join the North American Executive Board and cannot wait to help Students For Liberty’s network grow and advocate for a freer future!
Jesse Velay-Vitow – Canada Regional Director
Jesse Velay-Vitow was born and completed his undergraduate degree just outside of Vancouver, Canada and is currently pursuing his Master’s degree in Physics at the University of Toronto. Jesse got involved in Students For Liberty in 2015 and hasn’t looked back since. He hopes to meld his passions for science and Liberty to promote a freer market for scientific inquiry.
Benjamin Waldman – Blue Ridge Regional Director
Benjamin Waldman joined the liberty movement as a freshman in the Fall of 2015 when he decided to join the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Young Americans for Liberty chapter. After becoming a YAL member, Benjamin switched his major from Business to Political Science and Criminal Justice. Since then, his passion for liberty has been growing everyday. He has gone from Recruitment Director to Vice President of his YAL chapter as well as becoming a State Chair and intern with YAL. Before becoming a State Chair he was a Campus Coordinator with Students for Liberty and has since become the Blue Ridge Regional Director on the NAEB with SFL. In the liberty movement, his greatest influences include Judge Napolitano, Ron Paul, and the peers he works with each and every day. Benjamin’s main goal is to continue fighting for individual liberty throughout his career.
Anna Richter – Great Plains Regional Director
Anna is currently pursuing bachelor’s degrees in both Psychology and English at the University of Missouri and is working towards becoming a clinical psychologist. She has been with Students For Liberty since 2015 as a Campus Coordinator and is most passionate about advocating for free markets and drug policy reform.
Yusuf Mahmood – Mid-Atlantic Regional Director
Yusuf was born and raised in the Baltimore area, and currently attends the University of Maryland at College Park where he is pursuing a degree in economics and philosophy. Yusuf previously served as a Campus Coordinator with Students For Liberty and President of the Young Americans for Liberty chapter on his campus, and is now the Maryland State Chair of Young Americans for Liberty and Mid-Atlantic Regional Director with Students For Liberty. In addition to a deep interest in politics and philosophy, he is also interested in general issues of science, religion, and the human mind. When he’s not buried in books, you will find Yusuf singing, playing music, or engaging in a friendly debate.
Reese Brooks – Midwest Regional Director
Reese Brooks is a third year business student at The Ohio State University specializing in Marketing. He first became a Campus Coordinator in July of 2016. In addition to being a Regional Director with Students For Liberty, he was also a chapter president for Young Americans for Liberty and currently serves as an Ohio State Chair for YAL, as well as a Campus Ambassador for the Foundation for Economic Education.
Nathan Amundson – North Central Regional Director
Nathan Amundson is a senior attending the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities pursuing a degree in Applied Economics. He first became interested in the liberty movement in 2014 when he joined his local Young Americans for Liberty chapter. After serving as president of his YAL chapter and the YAL state chair for Minnesota, he became involved in Students for Liberty as a Campus Coordinator.
Garett Roush – Northeast Regional Director
Garett derives from the Great Lake State of Michigan, and is an avid Detroit sports fan. He dove into the liberty movement after starting a Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) chapter at his university in 2015. He worked on Senator Rand Paul’s presidential campaign as the Michigan Youth Director, and helped secure a strong victory at the Mackinac Straw Poll. Following the campaign, Garett became the Northeast Regional Director for YAL and later took on the role as the Northeast Regional Youth Director for the Gary Johnson presidential campaign. Garett was also a Campus Coordinator, and served as the North American Leadership Intern with Students for Liberty. He is currently finishing his degree in Political Science at Syracuse University.
Isaiah Lopez – South Central Regional Director
Isaiah Lopez is a history and French major at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. He joined the campus coordinator program in 2015. As the south central regional director Isaiah hopes to expand the liberty movement throughout Texas and it’s surrounding states. Isaiah’s top 3 issues are immigration, the drug war, and military expansion. Isaiah is a first generation American, he is the son of two Mexican immigrants.
Mike Avi – Southeast Regional Director
Mike is a student at Florida State University, studying Economics and Portuguese. Within the liberty movement, his interests include cryptoanarchy, geolibertarianism, libertarian transhumanism, and free market economic policy. This is his third year with Students for Liberty and his first as a member of the North American Executive Board. He’s the SFL Southeast Regional Director, chair of Tallahassee Liberty on the Rocks, president of FSU Tallahassee College Libertarians, and has been a delegate at Libertarian Party conventions. In the past, he has interned with the SPN network’s James Madison Institute through the Koch Internship Program and currently works at the DeVoe Moore Center, an economic policy think tank based at FSU in Tallahassee, Florida. His favorite figures in the liberty movement are Jeremy Bentham and Frederic Bastiat.
Matthew Grooms – Southwest Regional Director
Matt Grooms is a junior at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah pursuing a B.A. in Media Arts (Film). He loves learning as much as he can, not only about film form and production and liberty, but sandals, international development, economics, French language and culture, rugby or even woodworking. As a proud Montanan, Matt has a deep appreciation for all the beauty in this world and is inspired by the principles of free market environmentalism. The 2017-2018 school year will be the first year Matt will serve as the Southwest Regional Director for SFL’s North American Executive Board, after serving as a Campus Coordinator in 2016/2017. He is excited for this unique opportunity to advance liberty throughout the Southwest, and the Western states in general, in any way he can.