Jennifer Nagda is the Chief Programs Officer for the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. For more than a decade, her work at the Young Center has focused on protecting the rights of immigrant children in government custody—in particular, their right to have their best interests considered in every decision. In 2015, Jennifer was appointed by then-DHS Secretary Johnson to the ICE Advisory Committee on Family Residential Centers. From 2012-2015, she staffed the federal Interagency Working Group on Unaccompanied and Separated Children, which published its Framework for Considering the Best Interests of Unaccompanied Children in 2016. Jennifer is a lecturer in law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School’s Interdisciplinary Child Advocacy Clinic and previously taught at the University of Chicago Law School. Before joining the Young Center, Jennifer was an attorney at the Midwest Regional Office of MALDEF, where she litigated immigration, education and employment discrimination cases. She clerked for the Honorable James B. Zagel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Prior to law school, Jennifer was the Associate Director of what is now the CityBridge Foundation in Washington DC. Jennifer received her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and her undergraduate degree from Duke University.