Shawn Armbrust, Executive Director

Shawn has been MAIP’s Executive Director since 2005. Prior to her work at MAIP, she served as a law clerk to Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and was the case coordinator at the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law. Shawn has been a board member of the Innocence Network since 2007, and is a member of the National Committee on the Right to Counsel, and the D.C. Superior Court Ad Hoc Committee, which examines the causes of wrongful convictions in the District. Shawn is a graduate of Northwestern University and Georgetown University Law Center, where she was an articles editor of the American Criminal Law Review and published an article on compensating the wrongly convicted. She has one daughter and enjoys hiking, travel, cooking, reading, and tennis.

Jenny Ash, Operations Manager

Jenny joined MAIP in January 2021. She comes to MAIP from a journalism non-profit where she served as the director of operations and program manager for eight years. She has worked extensively in office finances and operations, including running her own small business. Over her career, Jenny has had a private massage practice, and managed a 1,200-booth convention. She received her B.A. in Economics from Union College in New York. Jenny loves to travel, particularly internationally, or anywhere with lakes and rivers.

Isabel Corngold, Backlog Fellowship Attorney

Isabel (Izzy) has been with MAIP since 2015 first as an intern, and now as a legal fellow. Prior to MAIP she interned with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Public Defenders Agency in Anchorage, Alaska. Izzy is a graduate of Reed College, and the George Washington University Law School where she was an articles editor for the American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal. In her spare time, Izzy enjoys cardio dance classes and comedy podcasts.

Todd Kimmelman, Deputy Director

Todd joined MAIP in June 2017. He received his MPA degree from George Washington University, and recently moved back to D.C. from Los Angeles, where he raised money for social justice organizations, large and small.

Charles McLaurin, Counsel

Charles joined MAIP in 2019. Previously, Charles worked at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. Before working at Legal Aid, Charles was a Chesterfield Smith Fellow at Holland & Knight, where he represented clients on a pro bono basis. Charles is a graduate of Howard University School of Law and Columbia University.

Emily Heun Pate, Paralegal/Investigator

Emily, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, is a paralegal and investigator. She earned her B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Maryland Baltimore County before earning an M.A. in English from the University of Nevada, Reno where she also taught introductory writing courses. She has worked with native communities in South Dakota and Arizona and served as a law clerk for the Navajo Nation Supreme Court. Emily received her J.D. from Vermont Law School, earning a certificate in mediation. Always passionate about social and community justice, Emily began to focus specifically on criminal law while serving as a law clerk and District Court Commissioner for Maryland’s 10th district in Howard County.

Michele Nethercott, Director, University of Baltimore Innocence Project Clinic – an affiliate of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project

Michele is the director of the University of Baltimore Innocence Project Clinic and is a graduate of Northeastern University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts. Over the years she has represented numerous clients who were exonerated on the basis of post-conviction DNA testing and other forms of newly discovered evidence. She began her career as a trial attorney with the Office of the Public Defender for the State of Maryland in 1988 and has handled numerous felony trials including several death penalty cases. She created and ran a Foreniscs Division in the Office of the Public Defender in the early 1990’s and has served as the co-chair of the Forensics Committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Michele is an expert on DNA and various other forms of scientific evidence and has lectured around the country and published articles in NACDL ‘s Champion on the topic. She has taught law students at the University of Maryland School of Law and the University of Haifa.

Elizabeth P. Raman, Screening Director

Elizabeth (Eily) came to MAIP in 2006 with a strong background in criminal defense. Prior to MAIP, she spent five years as an Assistant Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt. Previously, she clerked for the Honorable Edith Brown Clement of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, and was an Associate at Crowell & Moring LLP. Eily is a graduate of Harvard College and the Georgetown University Law Center, where she was an articles editor of the American Criminal Law Review and a student attorney in the Georgetown Criminal Justice Clinic. In her spare time, Eily enjoys reading contemporary fiction and spending time with her husband and family.

Sophie Vick, Investigator

Sophie has been with MAIP since 2018. Prior to that, she spent 5 years as an Investigator at DC’s Children’s Law Center, where she assisted guardians ad litem in their representation of children in family court. She holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Dayton. After several years in a PhD program that focused on philosophical analyses of race, gender, and oppression, she left to pursue a career in legal solutions to those issues. She specializes in trauma-informed interviewing and creative, in-depth research that blends traditional sources with the ever-expanding range of internet and social media content. Sophie regularly conducts trainings for law schools and firms on strategies for open source intelligence investigation. She loves baseball, roller skating, and the Eurovision Song Contest.

Frances Y. Walters, Legal Director

Frances joined the team at MAIP in 2013. Previously, Frances worked at the law firm of Williams & Connolly, where she maintained a strong pro bono practice and was named to the D.C. Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll each year. While at University of Michigan Law School, she was a member of the inaugural class of the Michigan Innocence Clinic; she graduated magna cum laude and Order of the Coif. Prior to her legal career, Frances earned a B.S. in Engineering from Princeton University and taught in Cape Town, South Africa, Boston, and San Diego. She is a mother of three children and enjoys yoga, baking and international travel.