Murphy Alumna Recognized for Outstanding Public Service
Murphy Institute alumna Mary Berg ‘20 has been honored for her work in public service and community support. She won the 2025 Student Leadership Award presented by the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association.
A co-recipient of the 2020 Charles H. Murphy Prize in Political Economy, Mary is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. While in law school, she served as the president of UW Law’s Queer Law Student Association (QLaw). In this role, Mary worked to host a Name and Gender Marker Change Clinic with the UW Center for Patient Partnership’s LGBTQ+ Health Justice Program. During the clinic, about 20 law students served 30 community members seeking name and gender marker changes for themselves or for their kids.
Mary was also the primary organizer of QLaw’s educational programming, which included a panel discussing the impacts of recent federal policy changes on LGBTQ+ youth, a scholarship talk about states weaponizing the family regulation system against Black LGBTQ+ families, a panel discussing the future of DEI work in Wisconsin, and a Wisconsin LGBTQ+ law practitioner panel. These events featured clinicians, academics, practitioners, legislators, and community advocates, and the events cumulatively reached about 400 audience members.
We congratulate Mary on the award and recognition of her commitment to public service and her ongoing efforts to improve the lives of community members.
