Trustee
Garvin G. Ambrose P’37 was promoted by State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke in December 2024 to serve as Chief of Staff at the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. Prior to this role, Ambrose served as an Assistant State’s Attorney in Cook County from 2005 to 2013, as Chief of Staff to Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez from 2014 to 2016, and as Chief of the Bureau of Administrative Services for State’s Attorney Kim Foxx from 2016-2024.
Ambrose was previously appointed by Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy to be the State Victim Advocate in Connecticut and served from March 2013 to July 2014. In that role he advocated for, was instrumental in the creation of, and served as Chairman of Connecticut’s first Victims’ Rights Enforcement Advisory Commission (VREAC).
Ambrose is a member of the 100 Black Men of Chicago youth mentoring organization, an Advisory Board member of the Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center and a member of the Board of Trustees of Kids Above All. He was a 2016 Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow, and a member of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs 2019 class of Emerging Leaders. Ambrose served as a member of former Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke’s Judicial Selection Committee from June 2019 until October 2022, is a member of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Commission on Character & Fitness since January 2021, and in September 2024 was appointed by Governor J.B. Pritzker to serve as a Commissioner on the Illinois Guardianship and Advocacy Commission.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Southeast Missouri State University in 2001 and his Juris Doctorate from Thomas M. Cooley Law School in 2005. He is married to Toya R. Ambrose, and they both serve as licensed foster and adoptive parents since 2019.