Dustin Palmer
Year: 2016-2017
Nominating Institution: Washington University in St. Louis
Field of Interest: International Development
Placement Organization: MyJustice
Placement Location: Yangon, Myanmar
About Dustin
(updtead 6/2017) During his Luce Year, Dustin Palmer is working in Yangon, Myanmar with MyJustice , an access to justice initiative managed by the British Council alongside civil society partners. MyJustice supports over a dozen local organizations in strengthening access to justice, and conducts innovative research, programming, and policy work to empower communities to develop solutions to challenges they face. Dustin is connecting MyJustice’s various activities to policy engagement with the Myanmar government, as well as helping to develop robust monitoring, evaluation, and learning efforts, including a national legal awareness survey. Prior to moving to Myanmar, Dustin finished his Master in Public Affairs degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. As a student, he interned in Jakarta, Indonesia with KontraS, an Indonesian NGO dedicated to human rights and access to justice issues and consulted for the India-based Research Institute for Compassionate Economics. He was a graduate fellow in the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, where he supported city-wide efforts to combat the school-to-prison pipeline and implement arrest diversion programs. He also spent two years as a tutor to young incarcerated men in mathematics at the Albert C. Wagner correctional facility. Before the MPA degree, Dustin worked on governance and rule of law programs at the National Democratic Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that supports and strengthens democratic institutions worldwide. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Washington University in St. Louis, where he interned with the St. Louis County Public Defender and the U.S. State Department, and served as a two year research assistant to the Director of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy. In his spare time, Dustin enjoys bicycle touring, mountain biking, and cooking inventively mediocre meals. He has been an associate editor of the Journal of Public and International Affairs, and his writing has appeared in the Jakarta Post, OpeningParliament.org, and the Baines Report.Dustin's Scholar Story
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