Our 2025-2026 Team
Meet the students leading HLSBFI’s programming, community, and flagship annual conference, and the industry leaders who tirelessly support, advise, and mentor them.
HLSBFI is a student-run community at Harvard Law School focused on the legal, economic, and policy frontiers of blockchain and financial innovation. Our board organizes the Annual Conference, lunch panels, and networking programming throughout the academic year.
During the 2025–2026 academic year, HLS BFI delivered a robust slate of high-quality lunch programming, convened a flagship annual conference featuring leading voices in digital assets and fintech, and expanded its membership by more than 300 students. Together, these efforts significantly deepened student engagement, strengthened industry relationships, and solidified BFI’s role as a central hub for blockchain and fintech discourse at Harvard Law School.
HLSBFI 2025–2026
Michaelle Yeo
Michaelle is a 3L. Prior to law school, she worked for about seven years at several law firms, both on not-for-profit formations and exemptions, and in the emerging companies space, supporting financings, IPOs, M&A, and day-to-day corporate governance. She also spent time at Coinbase, where she worked on executive equity compensation, and on strategy and compliance for the Coinbase GiveCrypto Foundation. Michaelle will join Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP's Restructuring practice following graduation. Michaelle served as the Conference Co-Chair on HLS BFI's board during the 2024-25 academic year, during which she co-organized the Fourth Annual Conference. Under her leadership, during the 2025-26 academic year, HLS BFI greatly expanded its lunch programming and networking activities, hosted its Fifth Annual Conference, and increased student membership by over 300 members.
Christine Dong
Christine is a 2L from Vancouver, Canada. Before law school, she worked on strategic initiatives at Paxos, helping launch PYUSD and wind down BUSD. Previously she worked at Reservoir Labs and Bridgewater Associates. Christine is interested in how financial institutions adopt crypto innovations and how regulatory frameworks evolve in response.
Aviva Wang
Aviva is a 3L from Shenzhen, China. Before law school, she worked at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School as a research specialist, using empirical methods to examine topics that intersect FDA regulations, drug pricing, and pharmaceutical market policy. Aviva spent her 2L summer at Sidley Austin LLP in Palo Alto, where she worked across the Corporate and Securities Enforcement & Regulation groups.
Thaís Calixto Abreu
Thaís is an LL.M. candidate at Harvard Law School, focusing on financial regulation, capital markets, and corporate governance. She earned her LL.B. from the University of São Paulo, complemented by a double degree at Université Lumière Lyon 2, and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Law from Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3. Before coming to Harvard, she practiced for four years as an associate at Yazbek Advogados, a leading boutique firm in São Paulo specializing in corporate law and capital markets regulation, where she worked on regulatory and enforcement matters before the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission and the Brazilian Central Bank.
Jami Park
Jami Park is a 2L from Virginia. Prior to law school, he worked as a software engineer in the Bay Area. He’s interested in the regulatory challenges posed by the integration of crypto with the traditional financial institutions, and the regulatory challenges created by the decentralized training and inference of large language models.
Liz Junghyun Kim
Liz is a 2L from Seoul, Korea. Prior to law school, she majored in finance, studying investment banking and financial engineering. She subsequently worked for two years at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton’s Capital Markets and M&A teams as a corporate paralegal. She is also a Certified Securities Investment Advisor. Liz will spend her 2L summer at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP's corporate practice in New York.
Henry Dai
Henry Dai is a second-year student at Harvard Law School. Originally from the Seattle area, he studied Economics and International Relations at Georgetown University. Prior to law school, he worked on a distressed debt trading desk at Barclays, where he developed an interest in financial markets and the legal frameworks that govern them. At Harvard, he is involved with the Journal for Law and Public Policy and serves as Chief Operations Officer of the Harvard Association for Law and Business. His interest in cryptocurrency stems from its potential to expand economic freedom, modernize global financial infrastructure, and influence geopolitical dynamics. He has conducted research and writing on cryptocurrency taxation and regulation.
Akiva Stern
Akiva is a Harvard Law School student (Class of 2027) interested in business law and the future of FinTech. Before HLS, he earned a Talmudic degree from Yeshivas Novominsk and studied Jewish law abroad. He also worked as a paralegal at a business arbitration firm and has lectured internationally on various aspects of Jewish law. Akiva enjoys traveling and spending time with family.
Tenzin Yonten
Tenzin is a 1L from Bangalore, India. Before law school, he taught across Asia and is deeply interested in blockchain and fintech.
Ben Mays
Ben is an LLM student from the UK, where he completed his undergraduate law degree at the University of Cambridge, graduating in July 2025. His interests in blockchain and fintech include regulatory issues, but revolve particularly around the principles of private law applicable to cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, an area which will form the basis of his LLM Paper in the coming year. Next summer, he will return to England to pursue a career as a commercial barrister, with a focus on the banking and financial sector. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking, playing tennis, and evenings in the pub with friends.
Grace Ma
Grace Ma is a LLM student from Beijing, China. Prior to Harvard, she was a partner at Tian Yuan Law Firm and later joined Evershed Sutherland as of-Counsel, where her practice focused on cross-border M&A, outbound investment and project finance. Grace is a strong believer in crypto's potential, while staying pragmatic about regulation and risk. She is also a passionate food blogger and a creative cooking enthusiast.
Sergio Mendoza
Sergio Alejandro Mendoza is an LL.M. candidate from Colombia with a background in economics and financial regulation. Previously, he worked as an Associate in a Colombian Tier 1 law firm in banking and capital markets regulation where he advised multiple clients on the incorporation of cryptoassets service providers and their applicable regulation. Later, as Senior Lawyer for Regulatory Compliance at a Colombian neobank, he led the corporate governance strategy and the legal compliance team ensuring the entity complied with the instructions of the Colombian regulators. Sergio’s research has focused on the regulation of cryptoassets in Latin America and the impact of monetary policy in microlending and other fintech businesses.
Maytav Dagan
Maytav Dagan has practiced law for over a decade in Israel, where he served as a criminal prosecutor. Most recently, he spent three years as Chief Financial Coordinator of Israel’s Cyber-Crime Department. In this role, he oversaw the country’s cryptocurrency and digital asset anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) cases, led the seizure of over $25 million in illicit cryptocurrency proceeds, and served as lead prosecutor in Israel’s first cryptocurrency trial. Dagan was a speaker at the 8th Global UN Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies, organized in 2024 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Certified as a Blockchain Expert, Dagan currently serves as a Research Assistant to Mr. Timothy Massad, former CFTC Chairman and Director of the Digital Assets Policy Project at Harvard Kennedy School, where he researches stablecoin AML compliance and the GENIUS Act.
HLSBFI 2025–2026
Kristin Boggiano | Partner, DLA Piper
Kristin Boggiano is a seasoned legal and business executive with extensive experience in financial markets, digital assets, blockchain technology and artificial intelligence. Over her distinguished career, she has successfully built innovative financial products and trading platforms, including digital asset, non-fungible token, decentralized, quantitative, and derivative based platforms. She has an extensive structured credit and private fund background. She also has a track record of navigating complex regulatory landscapes, having worked closely with policymakers and regulatory bodies across the globe, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and international authorities. A recognized industry leader, Kristin has served on numerous boards, founded influential organizations such as the Digital Asset Regulatory Legal Alliance (DARLA) and Women in Financial Markets, and authored over 40 articles on regulatory and technological advancements. With a background in law, business, and finance, Kristin provides clients with innovative, compliant solutions that align with evolving market demands.