Nuzhat Chowdhury is a Senior Counsel with the Democracy & Justice Program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

Nuzhat comes to the Institute from the Brennan Center for Justice, where she worked as a legal and legislative consultant on projects to reform elections administration in New York and to increase election security across the country. Prior to the Brennan Center, Nuzhat worked at the New York City Council, where she was legislative and committee counsel to the committees on Aging, Civil Service & Labor, and Veterans. At the Council, Nuzhat helped draft and pass laws meant to protect marginalized New Yorkers, including the City’s first ever package of legislation addressing age discrimination in the workplace.

Originally from the center of the Midwest–Columbia, Missouri–Nuzhat is a 2015 graduate from Columbia Law School. During her time in law school, Nuzhat participated in the Columbia Human Rights Clinic, interned with the Legal Resources Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, and was a Teaching and Writing Fellow with the Columbia Foundations Moot Court Program. She was also the Executive Production Director for the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, in which she had her student note on the Civil Rights Violations of the NYPD Muslim Surveillance Program published. After law school, Nuzhat held a fellowship at the Center for Appellate Litigation, doing criminal appellate defense work. She also has a B.A. in Political Science and Communications from the University of Missouri.

Nuzhat will be serving on the Government Ethics and State Affairs Committee for the New York City Bar Association for the upcoming 2022-2025 term.