Brian Preleski currently serves as the State’s Attorney for the Judicial District of New Britain. He was born in New Britain, Conn., and raised in Bristol, Conn., where he attended public school and his father worked as a Bristol police officer.
Mr. Preleski earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Connecticut in 1987. As an undergraduate, he was an Honors Scholar, graduated Magna Cum Laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He subsequently graduated with High Honors from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1991, where he was awarded the American Jurisprudence Book Award for Excellence in Torts.

Mr. Preleski became a member of the Connecticut Bar in 1991 and began practicing as a litigation associate with a large law firm in Hartford. He was initially appointed a Deputy Assistant State’s Attorney by the Criminal Justice Commission in 1993 for G.A. No. 17 (Bristol). When the New Britain Judicial District was created in 1998, Brian transferred to New Britain and began prosecuting major felony cases. In 2011, he was appointed State’s Attorney for the Judicial District of New Britain.

As the New Britain State’s Attorney, Mr. Preleski is the chief law enforcement officer for the Judicial District of New Britain, which includes the cities of New Britain, Bristol, and eight surrounding communities. The State’s Attorney is responsible for the supervision of the prosecutors’ offices at the Part A Judicial District Superior Court in New Britain, the G.A. No. 15 (New Britain), G.A. No. 17 (Bristol) courts, and the Superior Court for Juvenile Matters and Housing Sessions at New Britain.

As a prosecutor for more than twenty years, Mr. Preleski has been involved in several notable cases. He successfully prosecuted Connecticut’s first cold case murder, tried the case establishing the constitutionality of sobriety checkpoints under Connecticut law, and has tried more than fifty major felony cases to verdict. In 2013, Mr. Preleski was selected by the National District Attorneys Association to serve as an official observer to the war crimes trial of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has been published widely, both in professional publications and as a contributor to the Hartford Courant’s Opinion pages.
In addition to serving as a prosecutor, Mr. Preleski has been a member of the faculty of the University of St. Joseph since 2005, where he annually teaches a graduate seminar on legal issues in Homeland security.

Mr. Preleski met his wife, Kim, when they both lived on the University of Connecticut campus in Webster House. Kim is a 1988 UConn graduate and works as a physical therapist at the UConn Health Center in Farmington. They have two children, Chris and Sarah.

 

Marissa Piccolo, from Trumbull, CT, is a political science and economics major with a minor in history. She is also a SHARE Awardee with Dr. Prakash Kashwan (Political Science), researching the role of NGOs  in international environmental governance and policy. In addition, she is a staff writer for the Daily Campus, an Ex-officio Senator representing the Honors Council in USG, and President of the UConn College Democrats.

Project: “Redefining the Role of Public High Schools and Community Mental Health: An Exploration of Mental Health Care Access in the PBIS Framework”
Faculty mentor: Dr. Jennifer Freeman (Department of Educational Psychology)

 

Brian Liang, from Bethany, CT, is a pre-med molecular and cell biology major who has been a regular volunteer at Yale New Haven Hospital.  In high school, he participated in numerous research projects.  Among many accolades for his work, he won first place for his poster presentation at the CT Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, held at UConn in 2013.  In addition, before college he was consistently a top-16 ranked swimmer in the state of Connecticut.

Project: “Analysis of the anti-adhesion mechanism in ovarian cancer cells”
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Xiuling Lu (Department of Pharmaceutical Science)

 

Sarah Mosure, from Cromwell, CT, is a pre-med biological sciences major.  In addition to her work in the Sun Lab, which she began in September 2013, she is a member of the UConn’s Division I Varsity Women’s Rowing Team and an active member of Arm 2 Arm, an organization which provides medical care to Haiti.

 Project: “The Effect of Adipose Secretions on Fertility and Ovulation”
 Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jianjun Sun (Department of Physiology and Neurobiology)

 

Patrick Adams, from Wethersfield, CT, is an economics major (with an intended double major in mathematics).  He is also the recipient of a SHARE Award with Dr. Talia Bar (Economics), examining patent application systems.  In addition, Pat is an accomplished jazz musician.

Project: “Iterated Two-Sided Matching”
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Victoria Knoblauch (Department of Economics)

 

John Ovian, from Madison, CT, is a chemistry major and research assistant in the Leadbeater Lab, interested in new synthetic (“green”) chemistry. A singer and vocal instructor in high school, he is also Director of Extreme Measures, a co-ed a cappella group at UConn.

Project: “Oxoammonium Salts as a Tool to Access New Chemicals from Biorenewable Feedstocks”
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Nicholas Leadbeater (Department of Chemistry)

 

Joseph DeSisto, from Orono, ME, has already been identified as one of the leading myriapod experts in New England, having studied “creepy- crawly things” throughout his youth and having worked as field assistant for researchers at the University of Maine. He is currently developing an identification guide to centipedes of New England.

Project: “The Centipedes of Great Smokey Mountains National Park”
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Jane O’Donnell, Scientific Collection Manager (Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology)

 

Isabel Nip, from West Hartford, CT, is a pre-med biological sciences major who began conducting research at UConn in the summer of 2012 through the UConn Mentor Connection for Talented Youth program. She is also an accomplished pianist and a volunteer at UConn’s John Dempsey Hospital  and for the Hartford Rescue Mission.

Project: “Exploring the Role of the Cytoskeleton in Neurodegenerative Diseases”
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Kenneth Campellone (Department of Molecular and Cell Biology)

 

Adam Kuegler, from Watertown, CT, is a political science major with an interest in law and politics, having served on state and national campaigns.  A runner and 2013 Valedictorian of his high school, he was selected as the Republican-American Top Male Scholar Athlete of 2012.

Project: “The Heart of the Democratic Struggle: The Voter ID Debate”
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Thomas Hayes (Department of Political Science)

 

Andrew Harnedy, from Guilford, CT, is majoring in classics and ancient Mediterranean studies.  In addition to his passion for classics and history, he is a performer and author of The Second Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, a historical novel.

Project: “Whose Victory? A Debate for the Ages”
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Daniel Caner (Department of History)