Graduate School
BC Law

Undergraduate School
University of Vermont

Mentors
Paula Lyons, Deputy General Counsel, Mass. Dept. of Labor; 2007 Rappaport Center Fellow

Kristen Bor-Zale, Equal Justice Works Fellow at Greater Boston Legal Services; 2017 Rappaport Center Fellow

Fellowship
Office of State Senator Joan Lovely

Biography
Catherine “Katie” Bekel is a 1L at Boston College Law School and a graduate of the University of Vermont (UVM), Phi Beta Kappa, where she studied Psychology and English. After graduating from UVM, she served as an AmeriCorps Member at Groundwork Lawrence in Lawrence, MA, and then followed her passion to pursue a career in sustainable agriculture. Bekel worked and managed small vegetable farms in eastern Massachusetts for nearly a decade. In these roles, she advocated for fairer wages for her staff and herself and created programs to make local produce more accessible for lower-income community members. Throughout this work, she became keenly aware of the challenges facing low-income workers and deeply invested in questions intersecting wealth, equity, and labor. Bekel is interested in civil rights, worker protection, immigration, and public policy. She will be interning this summer in the Office of State Senator Joan Lovely.