MEET KENDALL
Kendall Ciesemier is a writer and advocate whose reporting for The New York Times Opinion section led to the Trump and Biden administrations reforming the organ transplant distribution system. As a reporter and producer at Mic, her interview with Alice Marie Johnson—who was serving life without parole for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense—inspired Kim Kardashian to successfully lobby President Trump for clemency, propelling the story into international headlines and spurring the first piece of bipartisan criminal justice legislation in 25 years.
She served as Senior Executive Producer of Multimedia at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she hosted the At Liberty podcast, covering major Supreme Court decisions including the overturn of affirmative action and nationwide access to legal abortion.
Kendall's advocacy work began at age 11, when she founded Kids Caring 4 Kids, a nonprofit that engaged over 15,000 young people to raise $1 million for essential services reaching more than 10,000 people across four African countries. At 14, she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show with President Bill Clinton. She was named Glamour Magazine's 2014 College Woman of the Year and has been recognized as a Google Zeitgeist Young Mind, one of Youth Service America's "Top 25 Most Powerful and Influential Young People," and a Chicagoan of the Year by Chicago Magazine.
Kendall holds a Master’s in Religion and Public Life from Harvard Divinity School, where she studied the theology and spirituality of fear. She is the co-founder of Genuine Media, a forthcoming media company about belief (launching 2026), inspired by her academic work and long-standing commitment to bridging divides through storytelling.
She is the creator and host of United Bodies, a podcast on the lived experience of health, published in partnership with Ms. Magazine. Her writing has also appeared in CNN and Elite Daily. She is a graduate of Georgetown University.