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854 Galway Lane
Columbia, South Carolina, 29209
United States

Emily Paavola

Attorney

Emily Paavola is the Legal Director at Justice 360, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing high quality legal representation to people facing a death sentence in South Carolina. She is a graduate of Baylor University and Cornell Law School. She has authored a number of scholarly articles about the death penalty, and she regularly speaks at legal training conferences on topics such as race, mental illness, intellectual disabilities and the practical aspects of litigating capital cases.

Jim Mensch

Professor

Dr. Mensch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Education & Athletic Training at the University of South Carolina. Since his arrival to USC in 2000, he has served as Program Director for the Athletic Training Education Program. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Athletic Training from Temple University, Master of Science degree in Kinesiology from Louisiana State University, and PhD in Education from the University of Maryland. He has published numerous research articles in sports medicine journals and authored a text book entitled “The Athletic Trainer’s Guide to Psychosocial Intervention and Referral”. Over the past 10 years Dr. Mensch has been involved in research grants totaling more the 10 million dollars to examine the impact of athletic trainers in diverse settings, including the military and youth sports population. In 2008 he secured a 1.8 million dollar grant through the Department of Defense to integrate athletic trainers into Fort Jackson Army

Laura Riley

Teacher

Laura Sanders Riley was born and raised in Batesburg-Leesville, SC, but calls Columbia her home. She began her teaching career in 1997 and has taught at Hammond School for the past 16 years. She spent 10 years in sixth grade geography, then was socially promoted, allowed to skip a grade, and taught eighth grade government for four years. She has spent the past two years teaching Senior AP US Government and Politics and various other upper school history classes. Laura has been the chair of the history department at Hammond School since 2012. She sponsors the Youth in Government delegation, which annually participates in the YIG conference - a model legislature that writes, debates, and passes mock legislation. In her copious amounts of spare time she is a wife of one, mother of two, dog owner of four, and devoted political junkie. Her TedX talk is entitled: "How to have a political discussion without being punched in the face”.

Maryah Fram

Professor

Dr. Maryah Stella Fram, MSW, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on child food insecurity and hunger, child and family poverty, and early childhood education and care. Recent projects have been funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Nord Family Foundation. She teaches undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students, primarily in the areas of social policy, human behavior in the social environment, and social theories of inequality.

Melody Banks

Teacher

Melody Pineda Banks is the Upper School World History II teacher. Born in San Antonio, Texas, she moved with her family to Arkansas, Colorado, and finally to North Carolina where she earned a BA in International Studies/Peace, War and Defense from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also earned a MA in Political Science in her hometown of Boone, NC at Appalachian State University. After graduation, Melody worked in South Sudan (2 years) and Haiti (6 months) as an aid worker. She focused on refugees and genocide in South Sudan and Sudan and the cholera epidemic in Haiti. Other travels include a summer in Uganda, an internship at U.S. Embassy Madrid, a summer in NYC at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and short term disaster responses to other nations, including Vanuatu. She has also worked extensively as a tutor and academic advisor, primarily for at-risk students. She tutored at USC, Appalachian State, and Upward Bound.