Image: lac.org
Experienced in economics and political science, Sharyn O’Halloran has served as a George Blumenthal professor of political economics at Columbia University since 1993. As a community-minded individual, Sharyn O’Halloran lends her support to several charities and community service organizations including the Legal Action Center.
A nonprofit law and policy organization that fights discrimination against people with criminal records, histories of addiction, or HIV/AIDS, the Legal Action Center opened its doors in 1973 under the direction of Arthur Liman. In 1998, the Legal Action Center honored its founder by launching the Arthur Liman Policy Institute, a state-of-the-art research group that significantly expanded the Center’s public policy work through a combination of publication and education.
Major initiatives of the Arthur Liman Policy Institute include helping people with criminal records reenter society, examining the relationship between welfare reform and recovery from chemical dependence, and studying the effects of syringe exchange programs on regional drug use and the spread of HIV. It also has analyzed the effectiveness of New York State’s controversial Rockefeller drug sentencing laws.