2025 Symposium – Legal Frontiers

Alyssa Meller, MA, Chief Operating Officer, joined The National Rural Health Resource Center in 2013. She brings over ten years of Managed Care Medicaid and Medicare experience and has led the process of operationalizing multiple technical assistance programs such as the Delta Region Community Health Systems Development and Rural Hospital Stabilization programs.

Her experience includes care coordination, program development, quality improvement and collaboration with local and state partners. She provides guidance and education in understanding different payment models. She oversees program operations related to the mission, including human resources, finances, contract and equipment compliance, communication, and technology.

Alyssa serves on the Board of Directors for the Minnesota Rural Health Association and Men as Peacemakers. She received a Master of Administration in Management with a concentration in Organizational Development from The College of St. Scholastica and holds a double major from the University of Wisconsin Superior in Psychology and Sociology.

Sue Grafstrom is a dedicated rural health leader with extensive experience advancing healthcare access, workforce development, and public health preparedness in Minnesota. Sue serves as a Public Health Preparedness Consultant for the Minnesota Department of Health, providing planning and technical support to 12 counties and three tribal nations.

In addition, Sue manages the Helmsley Ultrasound Training Grant Program through the Minnesota Rural Health Association, where she designed and oversees a grant process that helps rural hospitals train staff and expand vital ultrasound services.

From 2017 to 2025, Susan served as Homeland Security Emergency Management Director for Roseau County, leading hazard mitigation planning, disaster response, and emergency preparedness education. She guided the county through the COVID-19 pandemic by coordinating mitigation and vaccination strategies while ensuring continued access to healthcare services for residents and visitors.

Her previous work includes a decade as Foundation Director and Grants Manager at LifeCare Medical Center. An active advocate, Sue has served in leadership roles with the Minnesota Rural Health Association and currently serves as the board chair for the Center for Rural Policy and Development. She holds a Masters of Public Health in Administration and Policy from the University of Minnesota.

Jill Krueger, J.D., serves as Director of the Network’s Climate and Health Team, which focuses on innovative legal and policy strategies to mitigate the disparate health impacts of climate change, increase community resilience to climate change and natural disasters, and reverse the impacts of inequitable laws and policies. Jill and her team lead work on extreme heat, flooding, climate migration and displacement, air quality, mental health, and community engaged decision making.

Before joining the Network in 2010, Jill was a senior staff attorney at Farmers’ Legal Action Group, where she analyzed the role of the Farm Bill in the production and distribution of healthy foods; advocated for the integrity of the National Organic Program, and provided education and advocacy to improve federal disaster assistance to farmers. She also served as an assistant attorney general in the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. She graduated with high distinction and Order of the Coif from the University of Iowa College of Law and from Earlham College. Jill serves on the board of the Seward Community Co-op in Minneapolis, whose mission includes sustaining a healthy community.

Kathryn Draeger is Statewide Director for the University of Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships and adjunct professor of Agronomy and Plant Genetics. She oversees statewide programming in sustainable development, including clean energy and sustainable ag and food systems. Dr. Draeger is currently principle investigator on a USDA-AFRI-NIFA grant to develop innovative supply chains for locally produced food as well as other sustainable ag related efforts. She has been a Bush Leadership Fellow and a MacArthur Scholar at the University of Minnesota. She was appointed to the Governor’s Roundtable for Sustainable Development in Minnesota and served on the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency board as the Agricultural Representative and the Vice Chair. Kathy and her family moved to rural Big Stone County MN to farm sustainably and raise grass fed beef and organic grains and edible beans. Kathy holds a doctorate in water resources and a master’s in Soil Science from the University of Minnesota.

Elizabeth Odette is an Assistant Attorney General and Manager of the Antitrust Division at the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. She is the Chair of the National Association of Attorneys General Multistate Antitrust Task Force. Ms. Odette joined the Attorney General’s Office in April 2020. In September 2023, Attorney General Ellison created a new Antitrust Division in the Office and appointed Ms. Odette to serve as its first manager.

She also leads the Office’s enforcement of a new Health Care Entity Transaction law that went into effect in 2023 requiring notice and review by the Attorney General of certain health care mergers for enhanced charities and antitrust issues. She has co-led efforts on behalf of state attorneys general to establish the USDA’s Agriculture Competition Partnership that provides funding to state attorney general offices and promotes cooperation to enhance fairness and competition in the food markets. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Ms. Odette was an associate and partner at Lockridge Grindal Nauen P.L.L.P in Minneapolis. She has also served as a pro-bono volunteer attorney at the Children’s Law Center for the past 14 years, representing youth clients in foster care in child protection cases.

Aric Putnam is in his second term representing the Greater St. Cloud area in the Minnesota Senate.  He is Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Veterans, Broadband and Rural Development and is Vice Chair of the Committee on Higher Education. Senator Putnam is passionate about rural communities, and he tours farms across the state throughout the year. In the legislature he works hard to ensure that farmers and residents of Greater Minnesota are represented and supported, and he has a front-row seat to innovative solutions such as turkey lasers to prevent the spread of avian flu, sustainable aviation fuel made out of winter camelina crops, and various forms of bio-energy, to name a few. Originally from Northern California, he came to Minnesota 30 years ago to complete a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota and for 23 years has been a professor of rhetoric at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in Minnesota.

Sigrid Jewett is a third-year law student and the Symposium Editor for Volume 52 of the Mitchell Hamline Law Review. She grew up on an animal farm in Northern Minnesota and spent her childhood learning the ins and outs of family farming and sustainable agriculture. Sigrid started her own sheep flock when she was 13 and sold the meat and wool at the Grand Rapids Farmers Market.

In her first year of law school Sigrid published an op-ed in the Minnesota Reformer titled The Fourteenth Amendment Won’t Save Small Farms. During law school she has done public defense in rural Minnesota and has worked for the Chair of the Minnesota Senate Agriculture and Rural Development Committee. Sigrid is passionate about bridging divides, fostering understanding of rural communities, and advocating for the continued survival of small family farms.

Sarah Brenes is Executive Director of the Binger Center for New Americans at the University of Minnesota Law School. She is a specialist in immigration public interest law practice with a focus on holistic client services and interprofessional collaboration. 
Brenes provides leadership and management for the Center’s operations and leads strategic planning for the Center’s collaborative model. She works closely with the Center’s faculty, staff, law firm and non-profit partners to develop and implement the Center’s mission to expand legal services for noncitizens, pursue litigation to improve immigration laws, and support noncitizens in the region through education and community outreach. Brenes directs the Center’s Education and Outreach Program, and is a Lecturer in Law, teaching courses including the Rural Immigrant Access Clinic.

Prior to joining Minnesota Law, Brenes spent over a decade practicing immigration law at The Advocates for Human Rights. She worked with clients, pro bono attorneys and colleagues on immigration matters that involve human rights violations, including asylum, human trafficking, immigration detention, and unaccompanied minors.  

Layne Sutherland is the Chief Public Defender of Minnesota’s Ninth Judicial District. She began her career with the Board of Public Defense as a summer law clerk in 2006 after her first year at the University of North Dakota School of Law. Prior to her appointment as Chief Public Defender, Layne served as a managing attorney and assistant public defender in various counties in the Ninth Judicial District. As Chief Public Defender, Layne leads a staff of 80+ attorneys, investigators, paralegals, dispositional advisors, & legal office assistants serving 17 counties across 25,000 square miles of rural Minnesotan landscape.

Her team represents indigent adults who have been charged with criminal offenses, and children age ten or older in juvenile delinquency and child protection matters. With her guidance, the team carries out the mission of the Board of Public Defense, which is to protect the liberty of, and engage in transformational criminal justice reform on behalf of, those individuals we are privileged to serve by respecting the whole individual, being culturally responsive, and providing a well-resourced and trained defense team. Layne is a proud graduate of the University of North Dakota School of Law, Bemidji State University, & Blackduck High School.

As the founder and Executive Director of Farm Commons, Rachel Armstrong leads the organization’s innovative approach to farm law risk reduction. Rachel believes that farmers have what they need to be expert legal risk managers and that the right tools can awaken that capacity. She has led dozens of effective, interactive trainings for thousands of farmers nationwide.

As a leading authority on direct-to-consumer farm law, Rachel has also authored many publications on farm law matters for farmers, published academic and trade articles for attorneys, and teaches university classes in farm law. She is a graduate of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and the University of Wisconsin Madison and now lives in northern Minnesota (near the old farm where she grew up) with her husband and three children. She is licensed to practice law in Wisconsin and Minnesota. 

Professor Kim Vu-Dinh is the Louis L. Ainsworth Distinguished Professorship in Business and Law, Director of the Center for Law and Business, and Director of the Economic Inclusion Clinic at Mitchell Hamline. She came to Mitchell Hamline in 2022 after teaching at the University of Arkansas Bowen School of Law, where she worked with rural clients involved in agriculture and small business. She has trained students and lawyers to be legal observers, coordinated election protection in Black churches and barbershops, and supported litigation ensuring 2020 absentee ballots were counted. Previously a Yale Law clinical fellow and Tulane adjunct, she worked on post-Katrina redevelopment in New Orleans, served as a public defender in Alaska, and helped develop university-based social enterprise projects in Kosovo. Her scholarship includes Where’s the Beef: Meat Shortages, Farmer Needs, and Long-term Recovery Policies in a Pandemic Era, examining economic hardships faced by small ranchers and farmers in rural America.