Claire Barker is the intake advocate at the Veteran Advocacy Project. She joins VAP with years of experience as a care manager, housing navigator, and advocate. Claire has worked at Well-Life Network, Communilife, and the Center for Justice Innovation. Most recently, Claire provided education and advocacy at New Destiny Housing. She is a CASAC-T and earned her B.P.S. in Technical Management with a Concentration in Human Resource Management from DeVry College of New York.
Jennifer Blackman is a staff attorney at the Veteran Advocacy Project. Jen began her legal career as a fellow at Equal Rights Advocates in San Francisco, California. She went on to hold numerous positions at law firms and the Brain Injury Rights Group (BIRG), along with running her own practice. She earned a B.A. with distinction in Sociology from McGill University and a J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Madeline Colvin is a law graduate at the Veteran Advocacy Project. She earned her J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where she focused her clinical and research work on veterans law issues. Prior to law school, Madeline graduated from Middlebury College with a bachelor’s in neuroscience and worked as a paralegal in the Boston area. She is passionate about serving the veteran community, especially veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, and mental health challenges.
Coco Culhane is the founder and executive director of the Veteran Advocacy Project. She is also an adjunct professor of clinical law at Brooklyn Law School, where she teaches the Veterans’ Rights Clinic and Seminar. Coco presents on veterans’ legal issues and conducts trainings for attorneys, social workers, and students across the country. She also sits on several advisory boards, including the New York State Discharge Upgrade Advisory Board, and has served on Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s service academy selection committees each year since 2014. After launching VAP as a part of the Mental Health Project of the Urban Justice Center in 2010, Coco received an Equal Justice Works Fellowship sponsored by the CIGNA Foundation and Cravath, Swaine & Moore, LLP. She started expanding VAP and its services and in 2019 spun off the project to form an independent not-for-profit.
Coco received a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School, where she was the symposium editor of the Brooklyn Law Review and co-president of the student health law association. Prior to law school she was an editor at The New Republic for six years. She received a B.A. in English from Wesleyan University.
Robin Emmanuelli is a senior staff attorney at the Veteran Advocacy Project. She brings 30-plus years’ experience as a housing attorney to VAP. Robin held various positions in the New York City Civil Court, Housing Part, before retiring after 26 years of service. Upon retirement from the Court, Robin commenced not-for-profit work and spent two and a half years each at The Neighborhood Association for International Affairs (NAICA) and the Urban Justice Center (UJC). Robin is a member of the New York City Bar Association, where she has served on the Housing Committee, and is admitted to practice in New York State and the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York.
Zoltan Lucas is an advocate at VAP with a focus on investigations. Zoltan has worked as a legal analyst at the Manhattan DA’s office and an editor on accountability-focused investigations at TYT Investigates. He holds an M.A. from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where he worked on corporate and government accountability investigations and he received his B.A. in International Studies from The City College of New York. More recently he has worked as an editor and reporter covering the criminal justice system, immigration, and community issues at The Haitian Times and The Crime Report, a non-profit criminal-justice publication housed at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Felicia Mullaney is senior counsel at the Veteran Advocacy Project. Prior to joining VAP, Felicia was the Director of Veterans Benefits at Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA).
Felicia served in the United States Army as mechanic from 2005-2009, including service in Iraq from 2006-2007. After separating, Felicia used her Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) education benefits to earn a B.A. from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from American University Washington College of Law. With a drive to serve underrepresented populations, Felicia began her legal career at the American Legion, advocating for veterans in disability compensation appeals before the VA’s Board of Veterans Appeals. Felicia soon joined VVA as a National Appellate Attorney and then as the Deputy Director of Veterans Benefits, overseeing the screening, training, and compliance for over 500 Veteran Service Officers. As the Director of Veterans Benefits, Felicia spent four years overseeing VVA’s legal team, which prioritized the cases of unsheltered, senior, and terminally ill veterans, along with claims on behalf of veterans’ survivors.
Felicia received and Executive M.B.A. from University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business in June 2023. She is passionate about expanding quality representation for underrepresented veterans in VA disability claims and uses a combination of skills learned in her M.B.A. and her legal background to explore new ways to serve veterans. Outside of work Felicia enjoys beekeeping and spending time in nature.
Aleyna Silcott is the Finance and Operations Manager at the Veteran Advocacy Project. She joins VAP with experience in financial, operational, and administrative management within higher education and research institutions. Previously she led day-to-day operations supporting research and administrative teams, managing multi-million-dollar budgets, procurement, compliance, and cross-departmental coordination in various roles at Columbia University. Aleyna was accepted into Columbia Business School’s Executive MBA program, where she continues to expand her expertise in finance, leadership, and organizational management. She is passionate about building efficient, transparent systems that empower teams and advance impactful public service initiatives.
Katelyn Vaiana is a staff attorney at the Veteran Advocacy Project. She is passionate about providing access to mental health and legal services to underserved populations. Prior to law school, Katelyn spent several years working with veterans at the Economic Opportunity Council of Suffolk in their homelessness prevention program, Supportive Services for Veterans’ Families (SSVF).
Katelyn received her J.D. from the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University and her B.S. in Social Work from Stony Brook University, where she graduated summa cum laude. During law school, Katelyn participated in both the Veterans Law and Asylum Clinics, and she was an associate editor of the Hofstra Law Review, where her note on creating medical exceptions to the Controlled Substances Act was published in 2020.