Carson Eckhard is pursuing a PhD in history at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences, and a JD at Stanford Law School as a Knight Hennessy Scholar. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in history and English. Named a University Scholar and a Dean’s Scholar, Carson won the Rosengarten Prize for the most outstanding honors thesis in History and the Samuel Huntington Award for Public Service. As a Marshall Scholar, Carson received an MSc in Economic and Social History at the University of Edinburgh, where she received the Peter Parish Dissertation Prize, and an MPhil in American History at the University of Cambridge, where she was a Prize Fellow at the Centre for History and Economics.

Following graduation, Carson served as a founding board member and Vice Chair of The Liberation Foundation (TLF), a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that supports incarcerated Pennsylvanians. A winner of the Penn President’s Engagement Prize, Carson’s work with TLF included working with a small team to establish Project HOPE, a reentry preparation program for currently incarcerated men and women, and advocating for Pennsylvanians with wrongful conviction claims. TLF’s first client returned home in 2021 following 24 years of wrongful imprisonment, and to date, Project HOPE has served more than 300 incarcerated Pennsylvanians across three prisons. In addition to her work with TLF, Carson has also worked as the Supreme Court practice assistant at McDermott Will & Emery LLP in Washington, DC, where she worked on pro bono appellate matters. After law school, Carson hopes to combine her advocacy experience and legal history training with her passion for public service. Carson is also the Co-Director of Vote That Jawn, a youth voting initiative that encourages young people across Philadelphia to get to the polls and speak up about the causes that matter most to them.

Carson is originally from Tampa, Florida. In her spare time, she enjoys running, yoga, hiking, and cooking with friends.