Annabel Shu ’26 Selected to Receive Northeastern’s Outstanding Professional Doctorate Student Award in Community Impact

04.09.2026 — Annabel Shu ’26 has been selected to receive Northeastern University’s Outstanding Professional Doctorate Student Award in Community Impact for 2026, which recognizes a student who has shown remarkable dedication to creating positive change within the university community and beyond. She will be honored and recognized for her “community-centered legal advocacy and commitment to participatory governance,” through work that “bridges community engagement, technology policy and legal advocacy to advance equitable outcomes” at the 2026 Academic Honors Convocation on April 16.

As senior research assistant on the Smart Human Rights Cities Project, a collaboration of Northeastern Law’s NuLawLab, Northeastern’s College of Social Science and Humanities and the City of Boston, Shu contributed to research on AI governance and human rights frameworks for centering community in public policy while navigating the trade-offs of a new technology frontier. She is the co-author of a related article, “Human rights and the smarter city.”

At the invitation of Professor Sharmila Murthy, she also co-led student efforts to file public comments on federal environmental regulations with the Environmental Protection Agency, organizing fellow students under the auspices of the law school’s Center for Public Interest Advocacy and Collaboration to participate in administrative processes.

“I feel honored and grateful to receive this award,” said Shu, who works with Asian American youth in Malden, Mass. as a community organizer, and serves a legal and policy extern for the Greater Boston Community Land Trust Network. “My Northeastern Law education has highlighted the ways in which legal professionals can have downstream effects and impacts in a wide variety of areas, including the environment, immigration enforcement and academic freedom. Professor Sharmila Murthy made it easy to organize a comment party and a space to discuss different strategies for action against environmental deregulation by the Trump administration, which was particularly meaningful for me.”

Shu’s co-ops included the Initiative for Energy Justice, the Corporate Accountability Lab and the consumer protection division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office.

About Northeastern University School of Law

The nation’s leader in experiential legal education since 1968, Northeastern University School of Law offers the longest-running, most extensive experience-based legal education program in the country. Northeastern guarantees its students unparalleled practical legal work experiences through its signature Cooperative Legal Education Program. More than 1,000 employers worldwide in a wide range of legal, government, nonprofit and business organizations participate in the program. With a focus on social justice and innovation, Northeastern University School of Law blends theory and practice, providing students with a unique set of skills and experiences to successfully practice law.

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