Julie Fernandes is the Associate Director for Democracy at the Rockefeller Family Fund where she is the Managing Director of the Democracy & Power Innovation Fund, a partnership between state-based organizing groups, social science researchers, and aligned funders in support of learning and innovative programs that explore the connections between organizing, civic engagement, and building progressive power, with a focus on work in and led by communities of color.

Prior to joining RFF Julie served as Advocacy Director for Voting Rights and Democracy at the Open Society Foundations, as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice in the Obama administration, and as Special Assistant for Domestic Policy to President Bill Clinton. From 2002 to 2008, Julie was the Senior Counsel and Senior Policy Analyst at the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights, where she led federal advocacy efforts on a variety of issues, including the successful campaign to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006. Ms. Fernandes has testified before Congress and the UN Human Rights Council and has authored several research reports and magazine pieces primarily in the areas of voting rights and criminal justice reform.

Ms. Fernandes received both her J.D. and A.B. degrees from the University of Chicago and clerked for the Honorable Diane P. Wood at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband and two sons.