Natalia Abrams, Fellow

Natalia Abrams is an educational advocate working toward solutions to provide accessible, quality, affordable education for all students. Natalia’s first engagement with activism was protesting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She continued her passion by majoring in Women’s Studies at UCLA where she was a student intern at the Feminist Majority Foundation. Upon graduating UCLA in 2009, amid an economic crisis, the issues of education and student debt became the forefront of Natalia’s advocacy.

In 2011 Natalia co-founded the Occupy Colleges initiative, a national student movement. While serving as a the media representative of Occupy Colleges, Natalia wrote for the Student Nation, personally appeared on The Dylan Ratigan show on MSNBC, CBS Sunday Morning and Free Speech TV. In addition, Natalia has been quoted in the New York Times, Huffington Post, The Nation, NPR, Reuters, AP, Nation of Change, among many other media sources. Natalia is passionate about engaging with college students and tackling the issues of student debt. She currently serves as a Backbone Campaign research fellow and the Co-Founder/Director of Operations for StudentDebtCrisis.org – Follow her on twitter @NataliaAbrams and @BackboneFellows

Kyle McCarthy, Fellow

In addition to his work with Student Debt Crisis, Kyle is currently researches the effects of the student debt crisis as a Fellow with the Backbone Campaign. He was recently listed as one of “10 advocates fighting for student loan reform” for leading a grassroots campaign around DEFAULT: The Student Loan Documentary and for launching OccupyStudentDebt.com. His projects have appeared in over 200 media while personally appearing in The Associated Press, Huffington Post, Salon, The Nation, Nation of Change, Free Speech TV, Christian Science Monitor, AlterNet, Tech President, La Presse, American Urban Radio Network and appears on nationally syndicated The Norman Goldman Show and RT America to discuss higher education issues.

In addition to his work in higher education, Kyle serves as a “people mobilizer” by assisting social change organizations with social media campaigns and marketing for good. Kyle is a graduate of Mount Saint Mary’s University in Maryland where he received a degree in Business and Marketing and received his M.A. from the University of San Francisco. Follow him on Twitter @Swarmster and @BackboneFellows