Our Board

ERIN JACOBSEN (SHE/HER)

CHAIR OF THE BOARD

Erin is an Assistant Attorney General at the Office of the Vermont Attorney General and Co-Director of the office’s Community Justice Division, which seeks to improve equity, public safety, and fairness in all aspects of the criminal legal system. She was previously a Professor of Law and Director of the South Royalton Legal Clinic at Vermont Law and Graduate School and the Senior Staff Attorney at Vermont Immigrant Assistance project, where she supervised student clinicians on humanitarian immigration cases and taught Immigration Law and Legislation & Regulation in the classroom.

FAITH ORR (SHE/HER)

SECRETARY

Faith is a first-year law student at Vermont Law and Graduate School. She graduated from Concordia University in Montréal in 2015, specializing in French-to-English translation, and worked as a French-to-English translator and legal assistant. Faith has experienced her own immigration challenges and finally became a Canadian permanent resident last year. She moved back to Vermont during COVID-19 to continue her studies and help to better the lives of asylum seekers in Vermont. She plans to practice immigration law after passing the bar.

REBECCA (BECKY) WASSERMAN (SHE/HER)

BOARD MEMBER

Becky is an attorney in the Office of Legislative Counsel for the Vermont General Assembly. Her portfolio is primarily focsed on budget, tax, and public financing-related legislation. Becky started working with asylum seekers more than ten years ago through her law school’s immigration clinic. Since then she has worked in a pro bono capacity on a number of immigration matters, including volunteering at the southern border in 2018 and 2019. She is licensed to practice law in Vermont and New York.

CAITLIN JENNESS (SHE/HER)

TREASURER

Caitlin lives with her husband Miles on a small homestead in Huntington, VT. In 2013, Caitlin earned her M.B.A from Antioch University in Sustainable Business Management, and has spent the last 10 years working in financial leadership of multiple mission-driven entrepreneurial businesses across Vermont. She is excited to bring her affinity for spreadsheets, budgets and financial planning to the organizational efforts of the VAAP team.

KATE PAARLBERG-KVAM (SHE/THEY)

BOARD MEMBER

Kate has a PhD in Latin American Studies, and spent ten years teaching college prior to directing the Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP) in Brattleboro. In that role Kate learned firsthand the transformative power of legal representation for asylum seekers, and worked with CASP to co-found the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project with Rebecca Wasserman. Kate now directs the Milk with Dignity Standards Council, a Burlington-based nonprofit working to ensure the human rights of Vermont's dairy workers. Kate has worked as a researcher and a solidarity activist with social movement organizers in Colombia and is fluent in Spanish, occasionally helping VAAP with interpretation and translation needs.