Position/Program: Administrative Management and Communications Specialist

Pronouns: She/her/hers

Pets: Unfortunately I don’t have any pets, but I hope to someday! 

3 favorite things: Pomegranates, wood shelving, and the smell of freshly cut grass   

Something I like to do outside of work: Outside of work I love to go out with my friends, spend my day outside, or spend some time reading!  

Something interesting about me: I’m really good at building Ikea furniture. 

Why I do what I do: Throughout my life, I have always felt a deep curiosity and passion for the world around me. During my time studying psychology, I was struck by the vast disconnect between academia and the communities it aims to serve. As someone with lived experience, I recognized a need in our community to establish a new type of system—one that prioritizes intersectionality, community, and the growth of all individuals as just that: people. My goal is to dedicate both myself and my career to establishing ethical, informed, and equalized change throughout the various systems and institutions that uphold inequality.

A little more about Lilie:

I grew up in Eugene and in 2020 I chose to attend the University of Oregon for psychology. I’m graduating with a B.S. in Psychology with a focus on neurocognition. Throughout my academic career, I focused on the neuroscientific basis of organizational behavior, neural habituation, as well as the possibility of detecting false memories in the brain using fMRI analysis. Academics for me were both liberating and isolating. My schooling provided me with the tools to communicate the systems and behaviors that I had always known existed, and more importantly modulated the way I experienced the world. Yet, as I continued to move through higher education, I found that it was not only exclusionary to those with lived experience but often dehumanizing. It was this realization that inspired me to use my own experiences to deconstruct the elitism in the structures that influence society by pursuing a career in law and policy surrounding marginalized communities.