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Akemi Mechtel (she/her) joins the LEAP team as a Program Manager, with nearly a decade’s worth of experience working across the non-profit and public sectors. After graduating from Augsburg University in Minneapolis, she started her career in education working as a tireless advocate for accessibility and equity in the classroom. After witnessing the barriers her students faced she went back to school to better understand the impact of policy in our communities, and obtained a Master’s in Public Policy. She has impacted both large government systems and small nonprofits to think critically about the way that race shows up in how we do our work, and build better systems that decentralize power, maintain momentum, and push back against the status quo. The years she has spent supporting students to further their education, engaging in policy reform, and building relationships across the communities that she occupies has further solidified her passion for working towards a socially-just future. When Akemi isn’t working to change systems she can be found spending time with her dog, reading a good book, or traveling to see friends and family.