Steve Glomb's M.S. thesis was on “Speciation in the oyster genus Crassostrea: It’s not just a shell game.” He was also the co-author of an academic journal article, “The effect of temperature on growth and ammonia excretion of the Manila clam Tapes japonica,” in Estuarine and Coastal Marine Science.   read more

Susman produced a conference, “The Myth of Superwoman,” which focused on the challenges facing women in the workplace, and she edited a memoir of the life of her late sister who had worked as a photojournalist in the Middle East. In 2011, President Obama appointed Susman as a member of the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts for the JFK Center for the Performing Arts. Named as the top female Texas bundler for Obama, she donated $100,000 to the Obama super PAC, Priorities USA Action.   read more

“After an extensive review process, I have determined that I will not be able to satisfy the Office of Government Ethics requirements without undue disruption and materially adverse divestment of my family's private financial interests,” said Bilden. He is the second Trump armed services secretary nominee to withdraw for financial reasons. Early this month, billionaire Wall Street trader Vincent Viola pulled out as nominee for secretary of the Army due to "insurmountable" financial challenges.   read more

That was the summer when someone at a July 4 weekend pool party pushed her backward into the pool, causing her to hit her head on a wall and to suffer a broken neck. She spent the next few years in recovery, “relearning every single thing that you had to do with a spinal cord injury,” she said. In 2012, Sheehy was named deputy assistant secretary of ODEP. In 2016, President Obama appointed her to be a member of the Committee for Purchase from People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled.   read more

In 1989, Wilkinson became a judicial law clerk to Eric Holder, who was at that time a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. In 1990, Wilkinson joined the criminal division of the U.S. Dept of Justice, where he worked as a trial attorney in the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section and the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section. Three years later, he became special counsel to U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia (Holder), a position that lasted nearly four years.   read more

Smoot's desire to help those in need led her to become a public defender. When she saw an interview with then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on television, in which he said that attorneys who excel at defense work make the best candidates for prosecutors, she applied for one of the 15 open positions and landed the job. She later worked to establish the USPC Mental Health Docket, which provides non-violent criminal offenders who have mental health disorders with alternatives to incarceration.   read more

In 2010, Salzgaber received an appointment to the Senior Executive Service as deputy assistant inspector general for investigations. In that post, he headed the DHS OIG’s Investigative Field Operations Division, in charge of the agency’s investigative operations in 14 regional offices. In 2012, he became principal advisor to the Dept of Homeland Security. In 2015, Salzgaber was appointed deputy director of the U.S. National Central Bureau of INTERPOL.   read more

Harlow was commander of operation FALCON 2007, overseeing development of Toledo’s first fugitive apprehension team made up of numerous law enforcement agencies. Between 2008 and 2011, Harlow was chief of USMS’s Sex Offender Investigations Branch, for which he oversaw the National Sex Offender Targeting Center and the Sex Offender Apprehension Program. He additionally developed the USMS Behavioral Analysis Unit, which helps target fugitive and non-compliant sex offenders.   read more

In 2012, Bracey joined what was then a new federal agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She worked as senior counsel in its Office of Supervision Policy and was involved in student loan servicing, auto lending, and rulemaking. A year later, she was named the Bureau’s senior counsel and executive secretary, and then continued up the ladder to become counsel to the director and executive secretary. She held that post until her appointment at the Justice Dept the following year.   read more

Puzder withdrew his nomination after loss of support from Republican lawmakers showed he wouldn’t have enough votes to be confirmed. The reasons for his dwindling support included his hiring of an undocumented immigrant as his housekeeper and the resurfacing of claims by his ex-wife, Lisa Fierstein, of violent physical assaults. A videotape of Fierstein’s 1990 appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” in which she recounted the abuse, circulated among senators considering Puzder’s nomination.   read more

Among the cases that Gershengorn supervised at the DOJ—and often personally argued in court—was the Obama administration’s defense of the Affordable Care Act against dozens of challenges filed against it across the country. Other high-profile court battles involved the rights of Guantánamo detainees, policy on gays in the military, embryonic stem cell research, and state secrets. “Every day, I deal with two or three cases of a lifetime,” he then told The New York Times.   read more

Flynn’s tenure in the White House lasted all of 25 days. On February 13, he resigned after a behind-the-scenes controversy brewing at the highest levels of government exploded into the open, its focus being Flynn’s alleged lies to U.S. officials about his private calls to Russian officials. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell once wrote that Flynn was “abusive with staff, didn’t listen, worked against policy, bad management,” and “has been and was right-wing nutty ever since.”   read more

Two weeks after Goodling sabotaged her promotion at the Department of Justice in 2005, Ashton left her job. The Obama administration later hired her as head of OPR, a division within the DOJ that has weathered a fair amount of controversy over the years. That includes accusations that the lethargic pace of investigating legal opinions issued by the George W. Bush administration laid the groundwork for the torture inflicted by American interrogators on post-9/11 detainees.   read more

Among Collyer's controversial decisions was her 2011 ruling that limited the release of details of the George W. Bush administration’s memos regarding torture. She also supported the CIA's contention that for it to acknowledge interest in using drones for targeted killing would cause damage to U.S. national security. Her decision was unanimously reversed on appeal. In 2016, she rejected the Libertarian and Green parties' claim of legal right to participate in the U.S. presidential debates.   read more

In 1996, Desai was recruited as a legal assistant to the U.S. arbitrators at the Iran-U.S. States Claims Tribunal in The Hague, a job that continued through 1998. Later that year he went on to practice law with the Seattle firm of Davis Wright Tremaine, focusing on litigation pertaining to copyright, trademark, newsgathering and the First Amendment. Then in 2001, he joined the University of Wisconsin Law School faculty as a professor of law. He has continued in that job to the present.   read more

Born in Mexico, Velasquez served as director of the D.C. Office of Latino Affairs between 2003 and 2006. He then joined the Office of Human Rights, where he worked for nearly seven years, focusing on enforcing civil rights, including non-discrimination practices through the D.C. Human Rights Act. In 2013, Velasquez took over as executive director of the Latino Economic Development Center, a non-profit that helps Latinos find affordable housing and develop business skills.   read more