SHABHIA AKTER

Shabhia is a third-year student at Fordham University School of Law. She was born in Bangladesh and raised in Queens, NY. Shabhia was the first in her family to graduate from college and pursue a law degree. She received a full-tuition scholarship from the Posse Foundation to attend Lafayette College and earned her B.A. in English and Psychology.

Shabhia has received numerous student leadership awards for her role in enhancing Lafayette College’s commitment to racial and socioeconomic justice.  In college, Shabhia worked as a Writing Associate for the College Writing Program and volunteered at various organizations with the Landis Community Outreach Center.

In 2015 Shabhia was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to teach English in Sri Lanka. The Fulbright program, founded in 1946, is a flagship international educational program sponsored by the U.S. government. It is designed to increase mutual understanding between Americans and people of other countries. As a Fulbright Scholar, Shabhia spent a significant amount of time working at Chundikuli Girls’ College in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. In 2016, Congressman Crowley from the 14th Congressional District of New York, recognized Shabhia for her work as a Fulbright Scholar.

At Fordham Law, Shabhia is an Associate Editor of Fordham’s International Law Journal. She is vice president of the Muslim Law Students Association and a research assistant to Professor Tanya Hernandez. Shabhia is also a recipient of the New York City Bar Diversity Fellowship – a program which provides law students with the rare and valuable opportunity of jumpstarting their careers by placing them in law firm or corporate legal departments.

Shabhia has worked at the New York Immigration Court and is currently working for the City Bar Justice Center’s Immigrant Justice Project (IJP) assisting asylum seekers fleeing persecution in their home countries.