Free
Virtual (Zoom)
Her Purpose: In Service of Others
Finding purpose in working for the public good
At the core of the SPS mission is the idea of educating students to build purposeful lives in service to the greater good. But just what does “service to the greater good” mean, and what does it look like out in the world? Join Rector Kathy Giles and SPS Alumnae Board of Advisors member Ellen Greer ’07 as they host a virtual conversation among three alumnae who have found their purpose and passion in service of others: current White House counsel Dana Remus ’93, U.S. Army cyber intelligence officer Maggie Smith ’98, and civil rights lawyer and activist Rhiya Trivedi ’08. “Her Purpose: In Service of Others,” promises to be a lively and insightful examination of a timely topic.
Speakers
Dana Remus ’93
is currently serving as assistant to the President and White House counsel. Previously, she served as general counsel on Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. Prior to the campaign, Remus was general counsel of the Obama Foundation and President and Mrs. Obama’s personal office. During the Obama-Biden administration, Remus was the deputy assistant to the President and deputy counsel for ethics. Previously, she was a professor of law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, where she specialized in legal and judicial ethics and the regulation of the legal profession. Remus clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Judge Anthony J. Scirica of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and was an associate at the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore. She earned her undergraduate degree at Harvard University and her J.D. at Yale.
Margaret “Maggie” Webber Smith ’98
enlisted in the Army on a whim in 2004 but serving quickly became a passion and turned into a career. Most recently, Smith has served as a cyber operations planner and senior mission commander within U.S. Cyber Command. She completed her PhD at George Washington University and is currently assigned to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, where she is a researcher at the Army Cyber Institute, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences, and the director of the Competition in Cyberspace Project for the Modern War Institute. Smith also is a cancer previvor who underwent prophylactic surgery after learning she had inherited a genetic mutation that put her at elevated risk for developing breast and/or ovarian cancers, and volunteers to counsel others with the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 mutations. She and her spouse, Patrick, have a teenage daughter they adore.
Rhiya Trivedi ’08
is the second lawyer in the two-lawyer Law Office of Ronald L. Kuby. Since 2017, Trivedi and Kuby — the former law partner of the late William Kunstler, who was perhaps best known for his defense of the Chicago Seven back in the 1960s — have specialized in pursuing the exoneration of the innocent, appealing the convictions of non-citizens facing deportation, representing at trial unrepentant activists and revolutionaries, and working to increase the chances of parole for individuals accused of killing New York City police officers. Trivedi also is increasingly focused on the struggle of criminalized domestic violence survivors. She says she wouldn’t be where she was without her three-legged law dog, Jack, the training she received in the Immigrant Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law, or the community she found at Middlebury College.
Ellen Greer ’07, cohost
is a member of the SPS Alumnae Board of Advisors for the School’s yearlong commemoration of coeducation. Greer works in tech as a product manager and is a vocal advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community. She leads the global LGBTQIA+ employee group at Vistaprint and Cimpress, where she also looks after the ecommerce site. An alumna of Georgetown University, Cornell University’s product management certificate program, and the feminist community organization Femex, she lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her many tropical plants.