Zonta Foothills
Katharina Booth Award
In Partnership with the Boulder County District Attorney
Domestic Violence Acute Response Team (DVART)
Zonta Foothills Club and Foundation are proud to introduce the 2026 recipient of our first Katharina Booth Award, Mina Shekarchi.
Mina is a J.D. candidate entering her second year at the University of Texas School of Law. She joins the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office as a 2026 Fellow with Fair and Just Prosecution, and she is honored to be the inaugural recipient of the Katharina Booth Award. Her approach to public safety and criminal justice reform is grounded in systemic analysis, survivor-centered practice, equity, and institutional accountability.
Before law school, Mina worked for City Council Member Alison Alter in Austin, Texas, where she contributed to a city-wide effort to reform Austin’s sexual assault response system. In that capacity, she convened survivors, advocates, and law enforcement leaders; helped support the implementation of an external review of the Austin Police Department’s sexual assault protocols; and contributed to policy initiatives aimed at closing gaps in reporting, investigation, and survivor services. Her work for Council Member Alter also supported city initiatives approaching gun violence as a public health issue, and the office helped open Texas’s first trauma recovery center.
Mina has also worked as a journalist and researcher, examining systemic gaps in firearm surrender enforcement in domestic violence protective order cases and documenting patterns of coordination failures across jurisdictions. In addition, she has consulted for nonprofits and political campaigns in Texas. Since beginning law school, Mina has continued her commitment to building more effective and compassionate systems of justice. She works directly with incarcerated individuals through Texas Law’s Pro Bono Parole Project.
Mina holds a B.A. in Plan II Honors and Sustainability Studies with a minor in Persian from UT Austin. In her free time, she is an aerialist. She and her husband spent most of 2025 living out of a van in New Zealand.
Her work is driven by an unwavering belief that systemic violence is not inevitable, but solvable.
What is the Katharina Booth Award?
Zonta Foothills Club and Foundation are proud to award The Katharina Booth Award, in partnership with the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office - Domestic Violence Acute Response Team (DVART). We have named this award after a champion for survivors of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and violent crime. Katharina is a long-time Boulder prosecutor who left a lasting legacy on the work of DVART. She explains that advocating “on behalf of crime survivors was the most meaningful and significant role I had as a prosecutor. The ability to help survivors navigate through some of the darkest and most challenging times of their lives and make even a small difference in their healing was incredibly rewarding.”
Prosecutors are often the only people to speak for and support these victims in their quest for justice; with this sense of purpose that the Zonta Foothills Katharina Booth Award will support future prosecutors completing a summer clerkship.
The Zonta Foothills Foundation will award a $5,000 stipend to support a rising second- or third-year law student working in a summer clerkship at the Boulder District Attorney’s office. These clerkships are unpaid, making the opportunity impossible for some students to apply. Our award will encourage and support future prosecutors who hope to specialize in the areas of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and/or child abuse.
Katharina Booth
A voice and champion for children, survivors of sexual assault, intimate partner abuse, and violent crime victims.
Katharina Booth began her prosecution career as a Law Clerk with the Boulder District Attorney’s Office, and she clerked in both the Boulder and Denver DA offices until graduating from law school and accepting a Judicial Clerkship at the Colorado Court of Appeals. She enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity to return to the Boulder DA’s office as a Deputy District Attorney, where she remained a career prosecutor until her retirement. Katarina specialized in crimes against women and children, specifically sexual assault, domestic violence, and homicide.
While in County Court, Katharina served in the dedicated role of prosecuting all recidivist Domestic Violence offenders, focusing on survivors in high-risk relationships. At the District Court, she sought out a position in the felony Sexual Assault unit, where she served for several years before becoming Chief Deputy District Attorney. Thereafter, she became the longest tenured Chief Deputy for the then combined felony Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Unit, where she was passionate about advocating for adult and child survivors. While Chief of the Sexual Assault Unit, she witnessed the hardship imposed on sexual assault victims traveling long distances to obtain a SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) exam, so she successfully led a campaign to establish a hospital-based SANE program in Boulder County.
Katharina similarly worked collaboratively with numerous Boulder County community-based survivor agencies to help support the needs of sexual assault and domestic violence adult and child victims. Katharina remained the Chief of the Sexual Assault Unit until she was promoted to become the first woman in the history of the Boulder DA’s Office to serve as First Assistant District Attorney, a position she held until her retirement.
Award Applicants:
are rising second or third-year law students at the time of the application
have been accepted to and will complete the summer clerkship with the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office (20th Judicial District)
submit a 500-word essay explaining their interest in a prosecution career, with a focus on domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and/or child abuse.