As an intern, Avalon has worked in the offices of history-making women leaders such as Secretary Clinton, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and Stacey Abrams. Additionally, she has supported the legal, global government affairs, and public policy teams at companies like Intel, Verizon, and Google, where she primarily focused on issues such as broadband access, responsible AI, human and civil  rights monitoring, and closing the digital divide. She has interned in both houses of Congress: first with Congressman Tom Suozzi in his district office in her hometown of Huntington, Long Island, and then as a United States Senate Page nominated by Senator Chuck Schumer.

 

This May, she graduated from Barnard College of Columbia University with majors in Political Science and Human Rights, and a minor in Science, Public Policy, and Ethics. At Columbia, she was selected for participation numerous prestigious programs, including the Athena Fellowship at Barnard College’s Athena Center for Leadership, the Bartsch Fellowship at the Columbia Committee on Global Thought, and the Student Scholars Program at the Columbia Institute of Global Politics, which has a less than 4% acceptance rate among Columbia students across both the undergraduate and graduate schools. She was the Founder of the Columbia Journal of Science, Technology, Ethics, and Policy (JSTEP), where she led a first-of-its-kind virtual STEP research program for 150+ high school students across the globe. A passionate advocate for educational access, she also led a team of peers in informally raising and redistributing nearly $100,000 in financial and material resources to students who were experiencing immediate financial need over the course of her time at Barnard.

 

Throughout college, Avalon was the winner of three student leadership awards from Barnard College, awarded to her in recognition of her service as the longest-serving Student Government Association member at the time of her graduation. She was elected both her freshman and sophomore years to serve as Class President, and then ran and won a two-year seat representing the 3,000+ students of Barnard College on the Columbia University Senate. During her time on the Senate, she served on the Student Affairs Committee (SAC), the Commission on the Status of Women, the University Rules of Conduct Committee, and was Vice Chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion SAC Subcommittee. 

 

She got her start in the world of politics as a teenaged award-winning local and national organizer at March For Our Lives, where she spent two years collaborating alongside survivors of the Parkland, FL shooting to mobilize thousands of young people at the polls and online around gun violence prevention. It was for this activism that she was named the 2019 Harry Chapin Young Humanitarian of the Year and was selected to receive the National Puffin Prize for Creative Citizenship on behalf of the organization.