A proud Houstonian turned New Yorker (and now Angeleno), Demme Durrett is 2019 Phi Beta Kappa inductee and magna cum laude graduate from Columbia University, Barnard College.

Demme has a passion for helping others in all that she does. As the founder and co-director of Youth for Human Rights – USA, a nonprofit dedicated to universal human rights education through youth activism, Durrett created Houston’s first annual Human Rights Walk and Festival at the age of 14. Combining her academic and cultural interests, Demme interned at the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See where she discovered the world of cultural diplomacy while working in the Public Affairs Section. Inspired by this experience, she took the opportunity to dive deeper into political representation by writing a thesis on fashion as a weapon of Cold War diplomacy, focusing on the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow.

Durrett received a B.A. in American Studies and Human Rights and has since worked with US Department of State at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Durrett is the recipient of the Human Rights Hero Award, Presidential Volunteer Service Award, and the Girl Scout Gold Award.

In the future, Demme looks forward to building upon her interest in public relations and diplomacy by gaining expertise from Annenberg’s incredible faculty and extolling the value of cultural diplomacy

In her free time, you can find Demme museum hopping, shooting hoops at one of the city’s many courts, or grabbing a matcha.