Amy Hildebrand ‘16 | DePaul University

Amy Hildebrand is currently a senior at DePaul University in Chicago, majoring in American Studies. Having previously ventured into wrongful convictions casework with the Chicago Innocence Center, she sought to build the rest of her academic experience at DePaul around the history of systematic oppression and race relations in the US, with emphasis on popular culture, social movements, and media studies. She has known she wanted to fight the war on drugs since high school and views finding SSDP as an act of fate. Amy restarted the DePaul SSDP Chapter in 2016 upon beginning an internship with the Illinois Cannabis Industry Association, which she found through SSDP’s career services. Since then she planned and hosted the 2016 Midwest Regional Conference and grew the DePaul chapter from a one woman show to a thriving group of over 20. At SSDP2017 in Portland she was awarded SSDP’s Rising Star award and at SSDP2018 in Baltimore, her chapter was awarded Outstanding Chapter. She has been an SSDP State Policy Intern since June ‘17, working closely with the legislative team pushing cannabis legalization in Illinois.