Staff
Patrice McDermottPatrice McDermott joined OpenTheGovernment.org as Director after more than 4 years as the Deputy Director of the Office of Government Relations at the American Library Association Washington Office. At ALA, she had lead responsibility for government information and privacy policy, and e-government policy issues. She joined ALA in December 2001, after having served for 8 years as the senior information policy analyst for OMB Watch.
She previously served as the Assistant Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association, taught information politics at Clark Atlanta University, and worked at the National Archives and Records Administration.
Patrice was awarded her doctorate from the University of Arizona in political science and received an M.Ln. in library and information management from Emory University.
Dr. McDermott is the author of Who Needs to Know? The State of Public Access to Federal Government Information. She is a frequent speaker on public access and e-government issues.
Amy Fuller Bennett
Program Associate
Amy Fuller Bennett joins OpenTheGovernment.org after receiving her Masters in Public Policy (MPP) from the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in May 2008. She received her BA from Tufts University in Political Science in 2001.
After graduating from Tufts, Amy worked in the office of Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (May 2002 - February 2005). While attending Georgetown, Amy worked as a Legislative Assistant in the Government Relations department of Drinker, Biddle & Reath, LLP (March 2006 - April 2007), a Legislative Aide at Washington Strategic Consulting (May 2007 - September 2007) and then transitioned from government relations to the non-profit world to work as a Program Manager for the Alliance for Plasma Therapies (May 2007 - June 2007).
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