Catherine Auwarter (she/her) is an Office/Research Assistant at RISE. She is a senior at VCU majoring in Political Science with a minor in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. She has a particular research interest in the rights of women and the queer community. In the Fall semester, she wrote her Senior Seminar paper on the regional differences in Western and Eastern European political cultures through an analysis of transgender rights measured by Legal Gender Recognition. She wants to continue to research and advocate for the human rights of all marginalized people by pursuing a career that supports those rights through encouraging change in legislation. Because of this goal, she has interned at the General Assembly with Team Senator Locke.