Seeking justice

The case prompted national outrage and ignited Damis’s passion for public policy—and set him on a path that would bring him to the White House.

“It all started there,” says Damis, who was particularly inspired by Kenneth Thompson, the lead prosecutor who later became Brooklyn’s first Black district attorney.

Today, Damis is a senior legislative analyst for the nonpartisan Office of Management and Budget (OMB), within the Executive Office of the President of the United States. In his role, Damis coordinates the interagency review process for all legislative items related to the Justice Department and his legislative portfolio, including such issues as drugs, gun control, domestic violence, terrorism, antitrust matters and election law.

So far, his proudest accomplishment is playing a role in passing the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform law enacted in 2018.

“Most of my proud moments seem small because no one hears about them,” Damis says, “but they were assignments when we ensured every voice was heard and that whatever we pushed forward was based on good conscience and good government.”

On his road to the executive branch, Damis earned a bachelor’s in forensic psychology in 2009 and completed a series of internships with the New York State Attorney General, Assembly and Governor’s Office that provided deep policy and legislative experience. In addition, to gain the management skills he’d need for future leadership roles, Damis enrolled in the UB School of Management’s dual JD/MBA program.

All of Damis’s hard work paid off in 2013, when he was selected from more than 12,000 applicants for the two-year Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF), the federal government’s flagship leadership development program.

“For me, the MBA program was all about becoming a better leader and learning how to make an organization or team better,” says Damis, who was honored with the School of Management’s Emerging Alumnus award in 2017. Damis will also receive the Students of Color Trailblazer Award from the UB Law School this spring.

“LeaderCORE was a huge reason I was selected for the PMF program,” he says of the School of Management’s competency-based leadership certification for MBAs. “During my interview, I was able to immediately bring up experiences I had in LeaderCORE and talk about my growth and even my failures and how I developed various competencies.”

Through his fellowship, Damis was initially assigned to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where he drafted, solicited and negotiated contracts for the agency. Later, he moved to OMB and accepted his current role after his fellowship ended in 2015.

In addition to his day job, where he has served three presidential administrations, Damis is back in the classroom—as a student and teacher. Currently on a brief sabbatical from OMB, Damis is set to graduate from Princeton University with a master’s in public policy this May. He also teaches justice and public policy as an adjunct faculty member at American University.

“In my class, I explain how government works and its power and limitations, so students can understand policy—not politics,” Damis says. “For me, the importance of teaching is seeing your efforts compounded when former students, who are now in law school or on the Hill, email me and share why my course was so helpful for them. It’s been phenomenal.”

Written by Matthew Biddle