Nathan Poland is a member of the Class of 2020 from Rockville, Maryland. He is pursuing the Race and Public Policy track within the African American Studies Department, as well as certificates in Spanish & Portuguese and Statistics & Machine Learning. Within Race and Public Policy, Nathan intends to study mass incarceration, institutionalized racism, and the legal history of discrimination following his experience working as an investigator for the Bronx (Public) Defenders Office in the summer of 2017. Most recently, he participated in the African American Studies Department's Global Seminar in Kyoto, Japan where Professor Imani Perry led a seminar on the intersections of Black life and Japanese culture.

Outside of his course of study, Nathan is deeply committed to realizing social justice and inclusion. He gives his time to two in-prison tutoring programs, one that supports incarcerated men earning their GEDs and another that helps prepare soon-to-be-released women to apply for jobs, create resumes, and rejoin the workforce. Nathan is also proud to serve as a fellow for the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding. Additionally, he is a member of the Undergraduate Board of Advisors for the African American Studies Department and a Residential College Advisor in Rockefeller College. After he completes his undergraduate degree, Nathan hopes to continue his studies in a graduate school or law program and eventually work as either a public defender or human rights lawyer.