Patrick Cook-Deegan

In the summer of 2006, Patrick Cook-Deegan bicycled 2,800 miles through Burma, Laos, and Cambodia, raising over $22,500 to build schools and provide educational scholarships in the region. While traveling through many towns and villages isolated from foreign contact, Patrick heard dozens of first-hand accounts of life inside Burma's brutal military dictatorship.

Following the trip, Patrick began volunteering with the US Campaign for Burma, a DC-based advocacy group that promotes freedom, democracy, and human rights in Burma. Over the past three years he has spoken at over 75 schools and universities about the situation in Burma, including Duke, Yale, and the Clinton School of Public Service.

During Burma's Saffron Revolution, the monk-led uprising in the fall of 2007, Patrick helped organize demonstrations at college campuses throughout the country. At Brown University, he spearheaded one of the largest political demonstrations in recent campus history, attended by 300 students and Fernando Cardoso, the former President of Brazil.

In January 2008, Patrick traveled into eastern Burma to interview victims of the junta's campaign of ethnic cleansing. He spent ten days along the Thai-Burma border speaking with the leaders of various advocacy and humanitarian organizations.

Patrick graduated from Brown University in May 2008 and is the winner of a Fulbright scholarship. Patrick has been featured in the Washington Post, Providence Journal, and the Sunday Boston Globe. He has appeared on NPR and Radio Free Asia and ABC NewsNow. Patrick is currently the Director of Strategic Partnerships at the US Campaign for Burma.