Ginger Aldrich, a Billings, Montana native, is a 2010 graduate of the master of arts in philosophy program, where she was named a Bertha Morton scholar, the highest honor bestowed upon graduate students at the University of Montana.  She wrote her master’s thesis on approaches to economic, social, and cultural human rights in the new millennium.  Concurrently, she earned her juris doctor, cum laude; and she was named a Pat Williams Public Policy Fellow with the Montana Innocence Project by the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center.  During her graduate studies, she also studied human rights and Islamic jurisprudence in Egypt and Tanzania, and she was named a New Leaders Council Fellow.  

Prior to attending the University of Montana, she graduated magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College with a B.A. in international relations, a minor in philosophy, and a concentration in Africana studies.  During her undergraduate career, she studied in Cape Town, South Africa and spent a semester with Sea Education Association, performing oceanographic experiments in the Caribbean on the schooner, S/V Westward. After her graduation, she worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin, West Africa on sustainable efforts to combat malaria, HIV/AIDS, and malnutrition. Upon her return to the United States, she assisted with federal emergency relief to Hurricane Katrina/Rita survivors in the only domestic emergency response deployment of Peace Corps volunteers.

Aldrich has also worked for the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Department of State, the Montana Department of Justice, and the ACLU of Montana.  She is now a licensed attorney in Montana and the District of Columbia, where she is a member of the American Bar Association and the Maritime Law Association of the United States. In 2011, she accepted a temporary deployment with the Foreign Service as a Field Program Officer for the US Agency for International Development in Afghanistan.  During her year-long assignment in Zabul Province, she worked to increase the capacity of provincial governance and rule of law officials.  In 2012, she returned to Montana to serve as an attorney for the Montana State Legislature in Helena, MT.