A brilliant thinker, social justice leader and generous colleague – that’s how Professor Elizabeth Britt of the Department of English describes Yachi Christie Lee, who will graduate in May with a Bachelor of Science in English and Biology and a 3.95 GPA.
Christie, who plans to attend law school at New York University to focus on health and racial justice has been an active participant in many organizations and activities at Northeastern. She founded NAACP Northeastern and organized town halls with NUPD and BPD, conducted Narcan training, and wrote for The Huntington News and NU Sci magazine. Christie claims her essay “Morality of Identity: Whitman in Chamoiseau and Glissant”—which was published in NU Writing—to be her most significant achievement. “I firmly believe that the personal is the political,” she says, “and that literary analyses are profoundly important to every one of our individual lives and our communities at large.”
Professor Britt says Christie was a top student in two of her courses, including Rhetoric of Law. “Christie impressed me with her fearlessness in wrestling with complex ideas and her commitment to social justice. Her proposal for her final project, and the final project itself, far exceeded what most students are able to accomplish in this course, especially when they do not have a background in rhetoric, which Christie did not.”
Christie’s ambition and ability to take on the unknown will help her when she pursues health law and policy in law school and beyond. She was a research intern at NUSL’s Health in Justice Action Lab, investigating media reports of overdose deaths prosecuted as “drug-induced homicide.” As a lay advocate at the Center for Law and Education, she supported lower-income and underrepresented youth in the Boston Public School system. She also participated as a paralegal in a co-op at O’Malley and Harvey, LLP and interned for Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly.
Volunteerism is important to Christie. She is a Student Athlete Support Services tutor and was an undergraduate assistant for Biology Project Lab. Additionally, she hosted phonebooks for president candidate, Bernie Sanders and Boston mayoral candidate, Michelle Wu.
Professor Britt lauds Christie as “an exceptional reader, writer, and verbal communicator. And she is tenacious and committed to the causes she cares about.”
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An exceptional reader, writer, and verbal communicator. And she is tenacious and committed to the causes she cares about.”
Professor Britt