Elizabeth Frankel, Former Young Center Associate Director, 1977-2021

Elizabeth Marie Frankel, July 15, 1977 – January 12, 2021

Elizabeth Marie Frankel, age 43, died on January 12, 2021, of complications from breast cancer. Elizabeth was born at NYU Hospital, NY, NY on July 15, 1977; she arrived shortly after power was restored from a total blackout in New York City. From age 6, she grew up in Short Hills, NJ. Liz graduated from Millburn High School in 1995 and from Middlebury College in 1999.

Following college, she spent two years teaching at a middle school in the South Bronx through Teach for America. She received her law degree from NYU Law School in 2005 and clerked for Justice Susan Calkins on the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. After a few years of law firm practice, where she devoted substantial time to asylum defense, Liz moved to Chicago where she joined the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. She was passionate about her work with the children, training volunteers to serve as their advocates, and teaching law students at the University of Chicago Law School.

Liz later became Associate Director of the Young Center, a position she held at the time of her death, and returned to New York in 2015 when the operations of the Young Center expanded to various cities across the US. Liz dedicated her life to advocating for unaccompanied immigrant children from all over the world, developing an entirely new model for fighting for their rights. Thousands of children are safe and reunified with their families because of her work.

Read more at Dignity Memorial