Penn State Law alumni receive Alumni Achievement Award

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State Law alumni Iyadh Abid (’16 LL.M.) and Teleicia Dambreville (’13 J.D.) are among 15 recipients of the 2019 Penn State Alumni Association Alumni Achievement Award.

The award honors prominent alumni, 35 years of age and younger, for their outstanding professional accomplishments. Award recipients are nominated by an academic college or campus and invited by the president of the University to return to Penn State to share their expertise with students and the University community. Honorees demonstrate to students that Penn State alumni succeed in exceptional fashion at an early age.

Abid serves as an advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation of Tunisia. He provides legal analysis for the minister and cabinet, relating to investment law reforms and streamlining market entry, contributing to Tunisia’s improved ranking in the World Bank’s “Doing Business Report.”

Abid also is charged with coordinating the Assembly of People’s Representative (“parliament”) and communicating with members of parliament. In support of his alma mater and specifically for the master’s law program, he also serves as the director of Africa Programs for Penn State Law. Between 2011–13, Abid worked for the American Bar Association—Rule of Law Initiative—to help develop trainings for law students and local practitioners. He was also legal analyst for Al-Bawsala local parliament watchdog NGO, where he analyzed bills, drafted policy papers, monitored assembly proceedings and was responsible for the Natural Resources governance reform project.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Abid co-founded the NGO LEAD Tunisia (Legal Education Advancement and Development), aimed at reforming the legal education system in Tunisia. LEAD Tunisia provides opportunities for Tunisian law students to draft model constitutions and participate in moot courts. LEAD Tunisia also works with universities outside Tunisia, creating exchange opportunities for law students and faculty. 

Abid was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for 2015–16. In 2014, he was the keynote speaker, Mouvement Rural de Jeunesse Chrétienne (Rural Movement of Christian Youth), a French youth-focused NGO working on social, political, economic and environmental challenges of rural France. In 2013, he was the head of a delegation, representing the Tunisian Young Lawyers Association at the American Bar Association mid-year meeting.

A member of the Penn State Alumni Association, Abid resides in Tunis, Tunisia.

Dambreville is in-house counsel for Burlington Stores, Inc., and a leading advocate for diversity and inclusion in the legal profession. She manages all aspects of employment litigation for Burlington and leads its nationwide early dispute resolution program, including conducting internal investigations, handling grievance appeals and all aspects of the arbitral process.

Previously, Dambreville worked as an associate at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, providing management-side counseling and representation in a wide variety of employment matters. She is active in the Philadelphia Diversity Legal Group (PDLG), an organization that fosters participation of a more diverse group of lawyers in the Greater Philadelphia Region and offers programming for diverse entry-level associates to provide tools for success in the legal profession, mentorship opportunities and career support.

In October of 2018, Dambreville was a speaker at the sold-out Pennsylvania Conference for Women as part of the Small Business Roundtable. She has received many honors, including being named to Pennsylvania’s Super Lawyers Rising Stars (2017, 2018), Billy Penn’s Who’s Next Leaders in Law (2017), and The National Black Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 (2016).

She serves on the Academy Planning Committee for the National Employment Law Council and is a board member of the Providence Center and the PDLG Alumni Association. She is an active alumna of the National Black Law Student Association, obtaining corporate sponsorships for its events, serving as a panelist at conferences, and providing assistance on event planning. Along with her husband, Daivy ’13, Dambreville is a frequent admissions volunteer for Penn State Law and in October of 2018, she served as a continuing legal education presenter for the law school.

A life member of the Alumni Association, she and Daivy live in Media, Pennsylvania, with their son, Clay.

Penn State School of International Affairs (SIA) alumnus Shadi Ghrayeb (’12 M.I.A.) was also selected as a recipient of the 2019 Alumni Achievement Award. Penn State Law is closely connected to SIA; both schools operate under the leadership of Dean Hari M. Osofsky and share space in the Lewis Katz Building at University Park.

Abid, Dambreville, and Ghrayeb, along with the other Alumni Achievement Award recipients, will be officially recognized at an award ceremony on March 29, 2019, on the University Park campus