Sarah Colby ’90

Sarah was born Feb. 14, 1968, in Princeton, N.J. She died of cancer Sept. 28, 2023, in Walnut Creek, Calif.

After graduating from Princeton, Sarah joined the Princeton in Asia program and lived in Bangkok for a year, where she taught English and learned to speak Thai. When she returned to the United States, Sarah worked as a journalist, first in New Castle, Pa., and later in Hayward, Calif.

After graduating at the top of her UC San Francisco law class (then Hastings College of Law) in 1997, Sarah clerked for Distirct Judge Charles A. Legge before serving as a Skadden fellow at Legal Aid at Work. She dedicated her professional life to legal services and civil-rights enforcement. In 2021, shortly before her cancer diagnosis, she was thrilled to join the Southern Poverty Law Center to continue her civil-rights advocacy.

While traveling in Brazil, Sarah met Fernando “Fer” Massa. They married in July 2007, and Lucas was born in 2008. The bi-continental, bilingual family lived in California and Buenos Aires.

In addition to Fer and Lucas, Sarah is survived by her mother, Illene; brother Paul; and an array of devoted friends from each phase of her life. Her father, Paul “Nick” Colby ’50, predeceased her.