Sara-Paige Silvestro L’25

Sara-Paige is a first-generation college graduate from South Jersey, working to protect access to the ballot and increase the responsiveness of institutions to underserved and marginalized communities. Her lived experiences, family history, academic pursuits, and time working with communities in Philadelphia are the foundation for her public interest career.

Sara-Paige’s involvement in voter outreach began in 2012, working with grassroots organizers to help Pennsylvania voters comply with the state’s new voter identification law. Though the law ultimately did not go into effect, Sara-Paige saw how easily partisan actors could create confusion and deny certain communities access to the polls.

During college, Sara-Paige had internships where she aided with a variety of research, from the efficacy of local after-school programs to the recent reinvigoration of white supremacist groups. In 2016, she earned a BA in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, with a concentration in Government & Public Policy.

Following graduation, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked at a non-profit researching and mapping indicators of socioeconomic inequality. Sara-Paige then served on Capitol Hill for four years as a Senate staffer. There, she worked on economic development and judiciary policy portfolios on topics including voting rights, government ethics, criminal and juvenile justice, transportation, and housing.

Sara-Paige’s experience watching the will of the people fail to translate into proper representation and meaningful policy change inspires her work towards more responsive institutions. She believes that equitable access to the ballot is foundational for other necessary progress to ensure that communities are able to secure resources and use them in ways that they see fit.