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Staff Bios
Sahar Fathi, Esther Handy, and Josh Fogt
Sahar Fathi, Legislative Aide
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Prior to joining Councilmember O’Brien’s staff, Sahar Fathi served as a legal clerk for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, an extern for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, and a legal intern at the Attorney General’s Office of Washington. Sahar graduated from the University of Washington Law School and passed the New York bar exam. She also earned a Masters in International Studies from the University of Washington, and graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California with a dual Bachelor of Arts in French and International Relations. During her graduate studies, Sahar served as a panelist on the subject, “Child Labor on Family Farms: the Case of India” at the inaugural Graduate Research Symposium at the University of Washington. Additionally, Sahar attended the Sorbonne Université in Paris, France on exchange from 2003-2004 and received a diploma in International and European Law from the Université
Jean-Moulin in Lyon, France in 2008. Sahar currently serves as Vice President for the Middle Eastern Legal Association of Washington. In her free time, she enjoys cooking and travel.
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Esther Handy, Legislative Aide
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Esther Handy came to Councilmember O’Brien’s office from the Office of the King County Executive where she served as a policy analyst under Executives Ron Sims and Kurt Triplett. As staff to the County’s Equity and Social Justice Initiative, Esther worked across departments and with communities to begin applying an equity lens to County policy and decision-making. Most recently she coordinated the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine plan for Public Health, Seattle and King County. Esther has a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College. In her free time, you can find Esther running, biking, or swimming in the Green Lake neighborhood, organizing for racial justice with some of Seattle’s finest activists, or relaxing inside with a knitting project. Born and raised in Olympia, she is happy to be back living and working in the Pacific Northwest.
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Josh Fogt, Legislative Aide
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Josh Fogt joins Councilmember O'Brien's office having served as Public Policy Manager for the statewide hunger relief organization, Northwest Harvest. There he helped develop a new advocacy program that engages state and federal lawmakers in support of policies to fight hunger and poverty. Josh is originally from Minnesota where he attended Macalester College and received Bachelors degrees ineconomics and philosophy. He spent four years in Washington, DC working for Peter D. Hart Research Associates, a leading public opinion research firm. In 2007 Josh moved to Seattle to pursue a Masters in Public Health at the University of Washington. In the community-based public health practice track, he studied the social determinants of health and health disparities while organizing for health, equity and social justice. In his free time, Josh is active in Seattle’s anti-racist organizing movement and likes to spend weekends biking, playing soccer or hiking and exploring the beauty of the Northwest.
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