Advisory Committee – Cambridge Civic Assembly

Reverend Dr. Jeremy D. Battle

The Reverend Dr. Jeremy D. Battle is a pastor, scholar, and community leader who has served in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for more than 15 years. He is Senior Pastor of The Avenue Fellowship, encompassing the historic Western Avenue Baptist Church and Massachusetts Avenue Baptist Church, and President of the Cambridge Black Pastors Alliance, a coalition of 13 congregations.

A native of Brighton, Alabama, Dr. Battle attended Stanford University as a Chappell Lougee Scholar for his freshman and sophomore years before transferring and graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Morehouse College with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. He earned his Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, where he also serves as Baptist Denominational Counselor and Lecturer in Baptist Polity, and his Doctor of Ministry in Biblical Interpretation and Proclamation from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology.

His academic research spans the intersection of religion and politics, political participation, and the experiences of historically underrepresented communities. A former internal auditor for the State of Texas, Dr. Battle brings experience in organizational leadership, institutional accountability, and community advocacy.

His civic engagement reflects a commitment to ensuring that public decision-making includes the perspectives of those whose voices are too often absent from traditional forums, particularly individuals and families for whom time, resources, and access present barriers to meaningful participation.

Ty Bellitti

Ty Bellitti is a Cambridge native who turns a commitment to community into action. Across the corporate, non-profit and small business sectors, he has led organizations, built high-performing teams and cultivated a broad network of relationships grounded in honesty, respect, empathy and resiliency.

Ty is an independent business owner and is the Co-Founder and Co-President of My Brother's Keeper Cambridge (MBK), a non-profit that serves and builds community. He also serves on the board of the Cambridge Community Foundation.

Earlier in his career, Ty worked in worldwide travel operations in the corporate sector, then directed operations and programs as Managing Director at another non-profit. For more than twenty years, he coached Babe Ruth baseball in Cambridge, developing young people and building teams that succeed by drawing on the strengths of every member.

Ty champions education as a means of empowering people, a conviction that shapes his leadership at MBK and that he brings to every table: assemble the right people, honor what each one contributes, and drive toward solutions that strengthen the community.

Nikolas Bowie

Nikolas Bowie is the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. A legal historian, he teaches and writes about democracy and constitutional law at the federal, state, and local level.

He is a graduate of Cambridge Rindge & Latin School who remains active in civic and civil rights work in the Cambridge area.

Jenny Chung

Jenny Chung has taught in the Cambridge Public Schools for over 20 years. Her passion is civic education and she has worked hard to help design curriculum, support educators, and elevate student-led civics projects. Jenny’s Chinese name means “heart as big as the sky,” and she learned as a young child that her role in the world was to love all people, especially those who didn’t feel that they belonged; that approach is the foundation of her work.

Jenny is Californian, born and raised, transplanted to Cambridge, MA. At Pomona College, she studied Cultural Psychology and then went on to study Race & Ethnic Studies in Education at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies. After obtaining her M.A., she worked as a Human Relations Specialist in Orange County, CA, working with schools to build campus environments that are respectful and inclusive.

John DiFava

John DiFava holds the position of Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police at MIT. He is responsible for the oversite of the Police Department, Emergency Management, International Safety and Security, the Background Check Program and Emergency Medical Services.

Prior to his arrival at MIT, DiFava spent 28 years with the Massachusetts State Police, where he rose through the ranks in the department and retired in the top position of Colonel/Superintendent. Following the terrorists’ attack on September 11, 2001, he was assigned as the Interim Director of Security at Logan Airport by Acting Governor Jan Swift. During his tenure at Logan, DiFava was successful in returning credibility and security to an airport whose reputation suffered following the aircraft attacks on the World Trade Center.

DiFava holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology, a Master’s Degree in Education, and has attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Executive Institute and MIT’s Leader to Leader Program.

He is the recipient of numerous awards and citations from within and outside the law enforcement community.

A Boston native, he resides in the Roslindale neighborhood of the city.

Marjan Ehsassi

Dr. Marjan H. Ehsassi is a leading democracy advocate and sought-after expert on citizens' assemblies and their potential for democratic renewal. As the Executive Director of FIDE – North America fidemocracy.org/north-america, Marjan combines her extensive academic background with a keen and pragmatic practitioner’s lens to advance institutional reform.

Holding a Doctorate from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a law degree from McGill University, she is the author of Activated Citizenship, The Transformative Power of Citizens' Assemblies (August 2024), which explores how CAs can promote democratic renewal, social cohesion and build mutual trust between elected officials and their constituents. Her book introduces the term "voice insecurity" to spotlight the lack of meaningful and consequential voice as one of the drivers of political grievance.

Prior to leading FIDE – North America, she held positions at the World Bank, the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative and the National Democratic Institute, where she led governance programs across Asia and the Middle East. She is a Future of Democracy Fellow at the Berggruen Institute and a Senior Innovations Fellow at OSU’s Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA). Marjan serves on several boards including as Co-Chair of Democracy Fitness Global, Advisory Committee of the Democracy R&D Network and the OECD’s Innovative Citizen Participation Network.

She is a frequent speaker at forums such as the Council of Europe, the Athens Democracy Forum, the American Democracy Summit and has been featured in prestigious publications, including the New York Times, Toronto Star, the Boston Globe and the Guardian. Based in Washington, DC, Dr. Ehsassi is fluent in English, French and Farsi.

Nasser Eledroos

Nasser Eledroos is a computer scientist passionate about using technology to promote safety and dignity. He is an Oxford Global Atlantic Fellow and currently consults on AI and national security for the Brennan Center for Justice. His work focuses on artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, privacy, and criminal justice policy.

He has held research and leadership roles across civil liberties, government, and academia — including the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, Color Of Change, and Northeastern University School of Law.

Katy Naples-Mitchell

Katy Naples-Mitchell is Justice Policy Counsel at the ACLU of Massachusetts, where she anchors a broad portfolio of non-litigation advocacy related to the criminal legal system. Previously she served as Special Litigation Advisor to the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School and Program Director of the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School from 2022 to 2026. Before that, Katy spent four years as a legal fellow and then staff attorney at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, a research and policy institute at Harvard Law School focused on building community justice and dismantling racial oppression. In her career as a movement lawyer, she has worked to develop rooted relationships with people and communities directly affected by criminalization, incarceration, and violence, in Massachusetts and nationally. Katy graduated cum laude with Distinction in Political Science from Yale University before earning a JD from CUNY School of Law, where she was a Graduate Fellow. After law school, she clerked for the Hon. Anne E. Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.