Speaker Biographies

Rahab Abdulhadi is Director of the Center for Arab American Studies and an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Prior to that, she was Assistant Professor of Sociology and Faculty Fellow at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University. Originally from Nablus, Palestine, she is a sociologist of culture, politics, and social movements. Dr. Adbulhadi is a former consultant and journalist for the United Nations, has been involved in the General Union of Palestinian Women, and has served on the National Board of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Organizations in North America. She received a Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale in 2000 and is the recipient of numerous grants and teaching awards. Her writing explores linkages between gender, nation, and exile in the Palestinian transnational context, and her scholarly interests encompass gender and sexuality studies, postcolonial studies, Middle Eastern and African studies, forced migration and refugee studies, and transnationalism and transnational feminism. In 2004-2005, she was the Fulbright New Century Scholar in the Toward Equality: The Global Empowerment of Women program.

Mimi Abramovitz is a Professor at Hunter School of Social Work and is also on the faculty of the Ph.D. Program in Social Welfare at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Dr. Abramovitz has written extensively about the issues of women, work, poverty, and social welfare policy. Her writings include: Under Attack and Fighting Back: Women and Welfare in the United States, Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present, and The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy. Dr. Abramovitz is the co-founder the Task Force on Welfare Reform of the New York City chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), the Hunter College Center for the Study of Family Policy, the Social Welfare Action Alliance, The Journal of Progressive Human Services, and the Welfare Rights Initiative at Hunter College. She is a member of the editorial boards of Affilia: The Journal of Women & Social Work, The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, and The Journal of Poverty. Dr. Abramovitz is committed to promoting effective and responsive social services and public policy that leads to social and economic security for all.

Lila Abu-Lughod is a Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia University. She has published widely on women, gender, and culture in the Middle East, particularly Egypt. Among her books are Veiled Sentiments, Writing Women's Worlds, and Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East. Her most recent book is Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt. Dr. Abu-Lughod is currently exploring the politics and circuits of transnational feminist intervention, the meanings of "rights," and the entailments of feminism's secularism. Among many other awards and grants, she is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, and a Social Science Research Center award. She was also a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies. She earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Harvard University.

Mahnaz Afkhami is Founder and President of Women’s Learning Partnership, Executive Director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies, and former Minister of State for Women’s Affairs in Iran. She serves on advisory boards for a number of national and international organizations, including the International League for Human Rights, the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, World Movement for Democracy, and the Global Fund for Women. Ms. Afkhami created the concept and mobilized support for the establishment of the Asian and Pacific Centre for Women and Development (APCWD) and the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW). She has written and lectured extensively on women’s human rights, women in leadership, and women, civil society, and democracy. Among her publications are Women and the Law in Iran, Women in Exile, Faith & Freedom: Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World, Claiming Our Rights: A Manual for Women’s Human Rights Education in Muslim Societies, Muslim Women and the Politics of Participation, Safe and Secure: Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls in Muslim Societies, Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women, and Toward a Compassionate Society.

Lois K. Backon is Vice President of Families and Work Institute (FWI), a nonprofit center for research that provides data to inform decision-making on the changing workforce, changing family, and changing community. She is responsible for managing projects in the work life, community and youth program areas; developing strategies to increase and expand unrestricted revenue sources; and overseeing the personnel operations of the organization. She is also responsible for FWI’s signature fundraising event, the Work Life Legacy Award. Ms. Backon is the Co-Project Director for FWI's When Work Works initiative. She has co-directed many projects, including FWI’s Lessons from the 100 Best. Ms. Backon also directed FWI’s highly successful 9/11 As History and Salute to Educators initiatives. Ms. Backon serves on the Educational Advisory Board of The Children's Aid Society, the Board of Directors for the Westport/Weston YMCA, and the Westport/Weston Positive Youth Development Steering Committee. She is also a member of the Association of Work Life Professionals. Before joining the staff of FWI, Ms. Backon worked for IBM in Washington D.C. as the Account Marketing Executive for the White House Territory.

Susan Bailey is the Executive Director of The Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College. She is also Professor of Women’s Studies and Education there. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College and M.A. and Ph.D. in Social Science Educational Research from the University of Michigan. She held a postdoctoral fellowship in public health at Johns Hopkins University, which supported her work on sex education and nutrition issues in Colombia. Before joining the Wellesley Center for Research on Women in 1986, she directed the Resource Center on Educational Equity at the Council of Chief State School Officers in Washington D.C. and the Policy Research Office on Women’s Education at Harvard and Radcliffe. She is past President of the Board of the National Council for Research on Women and has written and lectured extensively on issues of gender equity in education. Her current work focuses on gender equitable education in the context of the global struggle for human rights and democratic governments.

Linda Basch is the President of the National Council for Research on Women. She has examined migration, race, ethnicity, and gender as an anthropologist, conducting field research in the Caribbean, Africa, Iran, and the United States.  She has written and co-authored a number of books and articles on these issues, including Nations Unbound and Transnational Projects.  Before joining the Council, Basch worked at the United Nations for a decade as a social affairs officer and research director. Building on this work, at the Council she has spearheaded research funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, examining the impacts of globalization on women’s and girls’ human security worldwide. Basch was also Director of Academic Programs at New York University, Dean of Arts and Sciences at Manhattan College, and Academic Vice President at Wagner College, managing a number of programs focused on institutional change. She serves on a number of Boards and Advisory Boards, including the National Initiative for Women in Higher Education, Ms. Magazine, U.S. Women Connect, and the Anthropology Section of the New York Academy of Sciences.  Basch holds a PhD in Anthropology from New York University, where she is a Research Scholar in Anthropology. She is also a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Jennifer Baumgardner is a former editor at Ms. (1993-97), and has written for Harper’s, The Nation, Jane, Glamour, Marie Claire, Bust, Bitch, and Elle, as well as NPR’s “All Things Considered.” She is the author, with Amy Richards, of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future and Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism (both FSG). The two have lectured at more than 180 colleges and high schools and are the owners of Soapbox, Inc., a feminist speakers’ bureau. Ms. Baumgardner works with Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Third Wave Foundation, and was a board member and fundraiser for the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF). Through an organization called Haven, she hosts women who come to New York from other states to get later-term abortions, and is on the advisory board of both Exhale, an after-abortion talk line, and Our Truths/Nuestros Verdades, a zine about abortion. She created the “I Had an Abortion” campaign to encourage women (and men) to “come out” about their procedures; the project includes a film (“Speak Out: I Had an Abortion”), t-shirts, and resource cards.

Gwendolyn Beetham is a Research Associate at the National Council for Research on Women in New York City. At the Council, she has researched and written for several projects, including Taxes Are a Women’s Issue: Reframing the Debate; World’s Women 2005 (both forthcoming); and MISSING: Information About Women’s Lives (2004), a report documenting the government’s failure to address issues that are of concern to women. Ms. Beetham continues to research and write for the Council’s online MisInformation Blog, which provides updates on the MISSING story. She was also a contributing author for The Women's Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism (forthcoming) and is part of the New York regional branch of the National Council of Women’s Organization’s Younger Women’s Task Force, where she is involved in the formative stages of organization. Before moving to New York, Ms. Beetham completed an M.A. in Gender, with a concentration on gender and international development and social policy, from the London School of Economics and Political Science. While there, she volunteered for a community project organizing local women volunteers at Women’s Design Service and was a member of NextGENDERation, a European network of younger feminist researchers and activists. Ms. Beetham received her B.A. in English from Kenyon College in 2000.

Dr. Ella L.J. Edmondson Bell is an Associate Professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College as well as an author, managerial consultant, nationally recognized researcher, and advocate on women’s work place issues. She co-authored Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity. Dr. Bell has shared her expertise and knowledge on discriminatory barriers in the workplace, strategic leadership, managing inclusion and work–life balance with corporate leaders across the country. She worked with PepsiCo, Salomon Smith Barney, Mellon Private Asset Management, New England Telephone Company, The U.S. Department of Labor, Ford Motor Company, and United Way of America. In addition, Dr. Bell has held groundbreaking faculty appointments in several of the top business schools in the country, including Yale’s School of Organization and Management, Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., and the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth. She attended Mills College of Education, where she received a B.S. degree in early childhood education and behavioral sciences. She earned two Masters Degrees from Teacher’s College, Columbia University, and a doctorate in Organizational Behavior from Case Western Reserve University.

Diana Bilimoria is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Department of Organizational Behavior, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Bilimoria served as the Editor of the Journal of Management Education. She is a Co-Principal Investigator on a 5-year, $3.5 million award from the National Science Foundation to advance women faculty in the sciences and engineering at Case. Her research focuses on gender diversity in governance and leadership, particularly the dynamics surrounding women board directors, leaders, entrepreneurs, and scientists. She has published in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Career Development International, Corporate Governance, Human Relations, Group and Organization Management, Journal of Management Education, and Women in Management Review, and in edited volumes such as Women in Management: Current Research Issues, Women on Corporate Boards of Directors, and Advances in Strategic Management.

Patti Binder joined the YWCA-NYC in January, 2004, and oversees all Center for Girls programming.  The Center for Girls provides direct services for girls, training and education for those who work with and care about girls, and advocacy.  The two signature direct service programs for girls are Girls GIVE BACK and Girls Talk! NYC.  Girls Talk! NYC engages a diverse group of motivated 18 – 24 year old young women as workshop facilitators for middle school NYC girls.  Ms. Binder has a background working with girls using a positive youth development approach as well as strong skills in volunteer management, training, and group facilitation.  She received the Orange County Youth Bureau Volunteer Award for Advancing Youth Development in 2003.   She has an interest in the connection between race, gender and class issues, graduated from Allegheny College with a self-designed major entitled "Marginal Perspectives and Social Change," and will receive an M.P.A. from the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College.   She will be travelling to Tanzania this summer to deepen the ties between Girls Talk! NYC and Girls Talk! Tanzania.

Elizabeth Blanchard, is the Program Coordinator for the YWCA-NYC’s Girls GIVE BACK Program, an original after-school program for middle school girls.  The Girls GIVE BACK Program currently operates in P.S./I.S. 298, the Dr. Betty Shabazz School in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Girls GIVE BACK engages 75 girls in grades 4 through 8 in a multi-year program that promotes their self-development and community action.  Ms. Blanchard was recently recognized for her service in the Brownsville neighborhood by Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Gamma Kappa Alpha Chapter. Ms. Blanchard’s prior work includes non-profit fundraising and volunteer management, as well as experience in architectural and law firm settings. She received her Masters in Social Work from Columbia University School of Social Work, and her undergraduate degree in political science and women’s and gender studies from Amherst College.  Ms. Blanchard is also the co-founder of a Girls Community Action Network (Girls CAN), a new Brooklyn-based nonprofit providing peer-led after-school programs to high-school aged young women through Brooklyn College Community Partnerships’ after-school programs.

Dr. Carol J. Boyd is the Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan, and a Professor of Nursing and Women’s Studies. She received her M.S.N. and Ph.D. from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and is a nationally recognized scholar in the study of women and substance abuse. Her earlier work was on illicit drug use and interpersonal relationships, but her more recent research focuses on HIV prevention programs among substance abusers, substance abuse treatment evaluation, and risky behaviors among adolescents and college students.  Her current studies are of prescription drug abuse; these NIH-funded studies use web-based approaches for collecting data from middle school, high school, and college student populations. Dr. Boyd is a member of NIDA’s Community Epidemiology Work Group (CEWG) and publishes extensively in interdisciplinary journals, most recently articles on the abuse of asthma inhalers and prescription pain medication among adolescents. 

Sarah Brewer is an Associate Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University. She received her B.A. from Eckerd College and her Ph.D. from American University. Her research interests focus on gender and political vocation generally, and women campaign consultants, specifically. Dr. Brewer’s publications include, “Gender-Bias in Elections for County Office in the South: Additions to the Gender Role Hypothesis” in Social Science Quarterly (co-authored with David Lublin) and “Women Political Consultants: Who Are They, Where Are They?” in Campaigns & Elections. She is also the co-editor of the book The Gendering of American Politics: Perspectives from the Literature, with Karen O’Connor and Michael Philip Fisher, forthcoming this summer from Pearson Longman. She is the Program Director of the Women & Politics Institute’s NEW Leadership D.C. program and is the Academic Advisor and a faculty member for the Institute’s Graduate Certificate in Women, Policy and Political Leadership program.

Victoria A. Budson is the Executive Director of the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Ms. Budson is the founding Executive of the Council of Women World Leaders, a group of current and former presidents and prime ministers. From 1999-2004, she served as a Kennedy School Ombudsperson. Ms. Budson has worked extensively in Massachusetts politics, both as an activist and an elected official on state and local levels. In addition, Ms. Budson is an active political consultant. In 2002, she served as an advisor for the United Nations’ University for Peace Masters degree program in International Peace Studies. Most recently, Ms. Budson presented at the UN Beijing and Beyond International Women’s Conference. She is a frequent commentator and speaker for local and regional news publications, television, radio and academic institutions. A graduate of the John F. Kennedy School of Government Public Administration Program, Ms. Budson received the Lucius N. Littauer Fellow award for her distinction in academics and her potential for continued leadership excellence. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with Departmental Honors from Wellesley College with a joint degree in Sociology and Women’s Studies.

Charlotte Bunch is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership. She has been an activist, organizer, and author in women’s and human rights movements for over three decades. Before her work at the Global Center, Ms. Bunch was a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and a founder of D.C. Women’s Liberation and of Quest: A Feminist Quarterly. She is the author of Passionate Politics: Feminist Theory in Action and co-author of Demanding Accountability: The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Women’s Human Rights. Her contributions have been recognized by numerous awards, including her induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1996 and her selection by President Clinton as a recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt award for Human Rights in 1999. In 2000, she was the recipient of the Women Who Make a Difference Award from the National Council for Research on Women, and in 2002, she was honored as one of the “21 Leaders for the 21 st Century” by Women’s E-News. She is a Distinguished Professor in the Women and Gender Studies department at Rutgers University.

Elizabeth A. Castelli is an Associate Professor of Religion at Barnard College. Most recently she authored  Martyrdom and Memory: Early Christian Culture-Making and co-edited, with Janet R. Jakobsen,  Interventions: Activists and Academics Respond to Violence . Dr. Castelli also edits the journal, Postscripts: Sacred Texts and Contemporary Worlds. She is co-director of Barnard’s Centennial Scholars Program and serves on the steering committee of the Consultation on Violence and Representations of Violence among Jews and Christians within the Society of Biblical Literature. In 2002, she received the Gladys Brooks Award for Excellence in Teaching. Among other grants and fellowships, she earned a research fellowship at the Annenberg Research Institute (now the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania); a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Historical Analysis at Rutgers University; a research fellowship from the Henry Luce III Fund for Distinguished Scholarship; collaborative research grants (on behalf of the Bible and Culture Collective) from the American Academy of Religion; and an NEH Summer Seminar Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. Dr. Castelli graduated with honors from Brown University, where she earned her A.B. in English and American Literature. She earned her Ph.D. in Religion from the Claremont Graduate School.

Lakshmi Chaudhry is a Senior Editor at AlterNet. Previously a staff writer at Wired News, she has written for various publications including Mother Jones, The Village Voice, Bitch, and Ms. Magazine. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from Mount Holyoke College and has a master's degree in International Relations from Syracuse University. She is co-author of AlterNet's book, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq and, more recently, Start Making Sense: Turning the Lessons of Elections 2004 into Winning Progressive Politics.

PeiYao Chen is a research analyst at Girls Incorporated National Resource Center. With a background in Developmental Psychology and Women Studies, Dr. Chen has conducted research focusing on girls’ and women’s empowerment and grassroots organizing in low-income, minority communities. At Girls Inc., she is responsible for developing a national evaluation system that uses both quantitative and participatory action research to support Girls Inc. affiliates in their evaluation of Girls Inc. programs and programming. She is also involved in developing and implementing leadership programs for girls in different age groups. Prior to joining Girls Inc., she worked as a Scholar for the Ms. Foundation for Women - Healthy Girls/Healthy Women Collaborative and as a research associate for the Global Fund for Women - Girls’ Reflection and Evaluation Project. She holds a B.S. from National Taiwan University and received her doctorate in psychology from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2003.

Patricia T. Clough is a Professor of Sociology, the Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society, and the Coordinator of the Women Studies Program at The Graduate Center of CUNY.  Her work has involved the founding of Community, Leadership and Education After Reentry (CLEAR), a research group of formerly incarcerated women and men addressing issues of education, policy, and reentry. She also directs the Conviction Seminar and co-directs the Facing Global Capitalism, Finding Human Security: A Gender Critique seminar. She is the author of Feminist Thought: Desire, Power and Academic Discourse (Blackwell Publishing, 1994).

Rhonda Copelon is a Professor of Law at the CUNY Law School and directs students in the International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic (IWHR). Since 1992, with partners in the global women’s human rights movement, she has worked on negotiations of World Conference documents, NGO reports before human rights treaty bodies, amicus briefs in international, regional and national courts, and, with the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, negotiations of the International Criminal Court. She supervises U.S. federal and regional human rights litigation involving immigrant domestic workers, economic and social rights, and amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court. Since 1971, she has worked with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, where she litigated major constitutional and human rights cases, arguing several before the U.S. Supreme Court. Notable articles she has published include “Recognizing the Egregious in the Everyday: Domestic Violence as Torture” and “Surfacing Gender: Re-engraving Women in Humanitarian Law.”

Paisley Currah is the Executive Director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He is also a cofounder of the Transgender Law & Policy Institute. He co-edited, with Richard M. Juang and Shannon Minter, Transgender Rights: History, Politics, and Law (forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press in 2006). Recent articles include “Gender Pluralisms Under the Transgender Umbrella,” “The Transgender Rights Imaginary,” “The Other 'Sex' in Lawrence v. Texas,” and “Unprincipled Exclusions: The Struggle for Legislative and Judicial Protections for Transgendered People.” Mr. Currah is currently working on a research project examining how gender is narrated to the courts in transgender rights cases.

Ileen A. DeVault is Associate Professor of Labor History in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in Ithaca, where she teaches courses in labor and women's history.  She received her B.A. in Women’s Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, her M.A. in History from the University of Pittsburgh, and her Ph.D. in History from Yale University, after which she spent a year as an Associate Editor of The Samuel Gompers Papers. Dr. DeVault is the author of Sons and Daughters of Labor: Class and Clerical Work in Turn-of-the Century Pittsburgh (1990) and United Apart: Gender and the Rise of Craft Unionism (2004), both published by Cornell University Press.  She has also published articles and reviews in a number of journals, as well as chapters in several edited collections. She held a fellowship at the New York Public Library’s Center for Scholars and Writers, and is currently working on a new project on the history of “Families at Work.”

Carolyn Dinshaw is founding Director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University, where she is also a Professor of English. She also founded (with David M. Halperin) GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, published by Duke University Press. Dr. Dinshaw also wrote The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing; Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre-and Post Modern; Chaucer's Sexual Poetic; and Chaucer and the Text: Two Views of the Author. Trained as a medievalist, she wrote the first full-length feminist book on Chaucer and is currently at work on a study of time and mysticism in the Middle Ages. She is on the Advisory Board of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, 2nd Edition; the Editorial Board of the Journal of Homosexuality; and the Advisory Board of the Reader's Guide to Gay and Lesbian Studies. Dr. Dinshaw earned her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College and her Ph.D. in English Literature from Princeton University.

Ana Duarte McCarthy is Director of Global Workforce Diversity for Citigroup, where she is responsible for the development and integration of diversity strategy. She began her career in higher education, serving as an Advisor at Passaic Community College. In 1986 she assumed the role of Director of Higher Education Opportunity Programs at the New School for Social Research, where she was later appointed Assistant Dean in 1992. Ms. Duarte McCarthy left the New School and higher education in 1994 and joined Kidder, Peabody, Inc. as Assistant Vice President of Compliance and Diversity Programs, where she focused on developing the firm’s diversity strategy. She is a member of the National Society of Hispanic M.B.A.s, and was Chair of the Corporate Advisory Board from 1998-2000. She also serves on the Corporate Advisory Board of the National Council for Research on Women, and is a past member of the National Black MBA Association Strategic Partners Corporate Advisory Board. Ms. Duarte McCarthy was honored as Citigroup's Hispanic Corporate Achiever in 2001, and was also named to Hispanic Business magazine's 2001 Corporate Elite list. She received her B.A. from Lafayette College and her M.A. in Education from Columbia University.

Dina Dublon is a Director of Microsoft and of Accenture, and is a trustee of Carnegie Mellon University. She is a board member of the Global Fund for Women, the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women & Children, and WorldLinks. Until October 2004, she was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for JPMorgan Chase, where she was responsible for the company's global financial management and reporting, strategy and acquisitions, corporate treasury, investor relations, tax, and related technology and operations. Ms. Dublon was on the Fortune list of the 50 most powerful women in business for the last several years and has been honored by many organizations as a “Woman Who Makes A Difference”. She is an active advocate for issues ranging from professional women’s concerns to issues facing refugee women. Ms. Dublon holds a Bachelors degree in Economics and Mathematics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a Masters degree from the business school at Carnegie Mellon University. Past experiences include working at the Harvard Business School and at Bank Hapoalim.

Hester Eisenstein is a Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Queens College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York. A native of New York City, she taught at Yale, Barnard, and the State University of New York at Buffalo, and was an affirmative action “femocrat” in Sydney, Australia, before coming to CUNY in 1996. Her books include Contemporary Feminist Thought and Inside Agitators: Australian Femocrats and the State. She teaches courses in women and work, sociology of gender, transnational feminism, and gender and globalization, and serves as vice-chair of the Queens College chapter of the Professional Staff Congress, the faculty/staff union for CUNY. Her most recent article, “A Dangerous Liaison? Feminism and Corporate Globalization,” will be published in Science and Society. Ms. Eisenstein holds a Ph.D. from Yale University in History, and a B.A. from Radcliffe/Harvard in History.

Sara Engelhardt is President of the Foundation Center, the nation’s leading authority on philanthropy. She joined the staff as Executive Vice President in 1987, having served on the Center’s Board of Trustees since 1984. For over 20 years, Ms. Engelhardt was on the staff of Carnegie Corporation of New York. During the final 12 years of her tenure there (1975-87), she served as secretary of the corporation and managed the foundation's grants. In addition, she was program officer in the areas of philanthropy and nonprofit organizations and of women in higher education and public life. Ms. Engelhardt serves on the boards of the National Council for Research on Women and the Education & Research Foundation of the Metro New York Better Business Bureau. A 1965 graduate of Wellesley College, Ms. Engelhardt holds a master's degree in Administration of Higher Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Earline Fisher has worked as an artist and designer for 30 years. She has exhibits all over Harlem in schools, churches, and banks, and has been a designer and patternmaker in the clothing and textiles industry. Ms. Fisher also taught art in Harlem for nine years, ran an Artist survival organization called Artist Talks, and created the Renaissance Reborn Program, which prepares artists for art careers by teaching them to create portfolios for commercial and craft art businesses. After graduating as a carpenter from the Non-Traditional Employment for Women (NEW) program in 1996, Ms. Fisher began to teach her fellow carpenters about workplace equality at the District Council of Carpenters Technical College. She is currently continuing her work for women in labor with the Institute for Women and Work/School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell and is a member of the prestigious Art Students League on 57 th Street in New York City.

Michelle Fine is a Distinguished Professor of Social Psychology, Women’s Studies and Urban Education at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She has taught at CUNY since 1991. Prior to her time at CUNY, Ms. Fine taught as the Goldie Anna Chair of Human Development at the University of Pennsylvania from 1981 to 1991. She was trained as an experimental social psychologist, under the wings of Morton Deutsch. Her work combines Kurt Lewin’s intergenerational commitments to action and the feminist theories of Clara Mayo. Ms. Fine’s research focuses on questions of social injustice: how systems perpetuate injustice and how resistance foments; how critical consciousness grows among those historically oppressed; when elites awaken to a sense of their unjust privilege, and how our methods can reveal/facilitate critical engagement and action. Theorized at the intersection of feminist, critical race, and social psychological thought, her work with youth in prisons and schools blends qualitative and quantitative participatory methods, and is designed toward policy, theory and community organizing. In recognition of her work, she was awarded the 2005 Morton Deutsch Award from Teachers College, Columbia University. Throughout her career she has both published and collaborated on numerous articles, books, research projects, and video documentary productions.

Marlene Gerber Fried is a Professor of Philosophy at Hampshire College, where she is also the Director of the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program -- a program for reproductive rights education and activism. She is a long-time reproductive rights activist, was the founding president and continues to serve on the board of the National Network of Abortion Funds, and is on the board of the Abortion Access Project. She has worked on abortion access internationally on the board of the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights and through the Johannesburg Initiative, an international abortion access and advocacy project. She has spoken and written extensively on abortion rights and access and edited From Abortion Rights to Reproductive Freedom: Transforming A Movement. She is co-author with Jael Silliman, Loretta Ross, and Elena Gutiérrez of Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice.

Stewart Friedman has been on the faculty of The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, since 1984. He is the Founder and Director of the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project and the Founder of the Wharton Leadership Program. Considered an expert in work/life issues, Dr. Friedman has published numerous books and articles including: Work and Life: The End of the Zero-sum Game and The Happy Workaholic: A Role Model for Employees. His book Work and Family -- Allies or Enemies? was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the field's best. In addition, he has consulted a variety of organizations and executives; served as an advisor on multiple boards; and speaks and conducts workshops in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Friedman recently completed a two-year assignment as a senior executive at Ford Motor, where he launched the Leadership Development Center, running a 50-person, $25 MM operation in which over 2,500 managers per year participated. He brought his concept of “total leadership” to Ford Motor, creating measurable change in both increased business results and enriching lives. The recipient of numerous teaching awards, he appears regularly in business media, and was chosen by Working Mother as one America’s 25 most influential men in having made things better for working parents. Dr. Friedman holds a B.A. from SUNY Binghamton, an M.A in Psychology, and a Ph.D in Organization Psychology from the University of Michigan.

Irasema Garza currently serves as AFSCME’s Director of the Women’s Rights Department; she was appointed to this position in February of 2003. Throughout her career as an attorney and public servant, Ms. Garza has championed the interests of women and disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups, and has promoted their economic advancement by advocating for increased access to education and employment opportunities. Ms. Garza was nominated by President Clinton to serve as the Director of the Women's Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor. After being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Ms. Garza was sworn in as the fourteenth director of the Bureau. She served in this capacity from 1999-2001. Prior to her appointment to the Women's Bureau, Ms. Garza served as the first Secretary of the U.S. National Administrative Office (USNAO) under the Clinton Administration from 1994-1999. Prior to her political appointments, Ms. Garza was an attorney and public servant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she was a strong labor activist and a member of AFSCME Local 2733. She is a member of numerous Women and Latino organizations and was named by Hispanic Magazine in 1998 as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the country. Ms. Garza received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science at the University of Michigan in 1979 and her Juris Doctorate at the University of Michigan Law School in 1983.

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now! She is co-author of the national best-seller The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, written with her brother David Goodman. The book was chosen by independent bookstores as the #1 political title of the 2004 election season. The book was also chosen as one of the top 50 nonfiction books of 2004 by the editors of Publishers Weekly, and the paperback edition has ranked #12 on the New York Times best-seller list. Goodman’s reporting on East Timor and Nigeria has won numerous awards, including the George Polk Award, the Golden Reel for Best National Documentary from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award, the Armstrong Award, and the Radio/Television News Directors Award. She has also received awards from the Associated Press, United Press International, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Project Censored. Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 330 stations in North America. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., Democracy Now! is broadcast on radio, television, and the internet.

Lois Gray is the Jean McKelvey-Alice Grant Professor of Labor-Management Relations Emeritus at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations where she served Associate Dean from 1975 to 1988. She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University in 1965. Her published works deal with women and minorities in the labor force, women in leadership, and labor-management relations. Cornell's Institute for Women and Work was inaugurated under her leadership. In 1998, she received the Cook award for her contributions to women at Cornell. The first woman to chair the New York State Apprenticeship and Training Council, she served for twenty-five years by appointment of three governors.

Jehmu Greene is President of Rock the Vote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to building political power for young people. Serving as the organization’s spokesperson, she has appeared in numerous broadcasts and news publications nationwide. She has been recognized as one of Essence Magazine’s 40 Women Under 40 Shaping the World, and received NCCJ’s Community Service Award, and NCRW’s Women Making a Difference Award. She serves on the Board of Directors of the American Prospect Magazine and Demos, and is an Advisory Board Member of the Partnership for Public Service; Vote for America; Vote, Run, Lead; and Freedom’s Answer. She was a co-founder of the 2030 Center, an economic and public policy organization for young adults, and previously served on the Executive Committee of the Youth Vote Coalition, and the Advisory Board of Campus Green Vote. Prior to joining Rock the Vote, she was the Director of Women’s Outreach and Southern Political Director at the DNC. Her campaign experience includes Clinton/Gore ’96, Harvey Gantt for U.S. Senate, Lloyd Doggett for Congress, Jim Mattox for U.S. Senate, and Ann Richards for Governor. Ms. Greene attended the University of Texas at Austin. As the daughter of Liberian exiles, she has had first-hand knowledge of the realities of war and social disorder. By witnessing her family’s ordeal in Liberia, she has gained a true sense of the importance of democracy.

Beverly Guy-Sheftall is the founding Director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center and the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies at Spelman College. She is an adjunct professor at Emory University’s Institute for Women’s Studies, where she teaches graduate courses in their doctoral program. She published the first anthology on Black women’s literature, Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of Black Women in Literature, which she co-edited with Roseann P. Bell and Bettye Parker Smith. Her most recent publication is an anthology she co-edited with Rudolph P. Byrd, entitled Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality. In 1983 she became founding editor of Sage: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women. Dr. Guy-Sheftall is the recipient of a National Kellogg Fellowship, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, and Spelman’s Presidential Faculty Award for outstanding scholarship. She is a member of the Board of Trustees at Dillard University. Beyond the academy, Dr. Guy-Sheftall has been involved in a number of advocacy organizations including the National Black Women’s Health Project, the National Council for Research on Women, and the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, on whose boards she serves. Dr. Guy-Sheftall received her B.A. in English with a minor in Secondary Education from Spelman College and her M.A in English from Atlanta University.

Pamela M. Hall is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies and the Chair of the Department of Women’s Studies at Emory University. She is also a member of the faculty of Emory’s Graduate Division of Religion.She has been part of the Emory faculty for 19 years. Professor Hall received the Emory Williams Award for Distinguished Teaching in the Humanities from Emory University in 1992, and was awarded the Massee-Martin/ NEH Distinguished Teaching Chair for the term of 1998-2002. She has served on the Advisory Board of Emory’s Center for Ethics and Emory College’s Center for Teaching and Curriculum’s Board of Advisors. Dr. Hall’s primary academic interests are in ethics, moral psychology, and feminist thought. She published Narrative and the Natural Law: An Interpretation of Thomistic Ethics (University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), and is currently writing a book on tragedy and virtue ethics. Her teaching interests include ethics, the history of feminist thought, pedagogy, and interdisciplinary courses in narrative and autobiography. She has also served on the national Committee on the Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People in the Profession of the American Philosophical Association.

Carol Hardy-Fanta is Director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts-Boston’s John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies. She received her Ph.D. in Public Policy from Brandeis University, an M.S.W. from Smith College, and a B.A. from Occidental College. Dr. Hardy-Fanta is the author of two books: Latina Politics, Latino Politics: Gender, Culture, and Political Participation in Boston (Temple University Press, 1993) and Latino Politics in Massachusetts: Struggles, Strategies, and Prospects (Routledge Press, 2002). She is a nationally recognized scholar on Latina/o politics and has published widely on the intersection of gender, race, and ethnicity in politics and public policy. Her policy experience includes welfare reform, substance abuse, criminal justice, community organization, reproductive rights, mental health, HIV/AIDS programs, and bilingual education. Dr. Hardy-Fanta also serves as Director of the Graduate Certificate Program for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the McCormack Graduate School and is co-editor of the Journal of Women, Politics, & Policy.

Mary S. Hartman is the Director of the Institute for Women’s Leadership on the Douglass Campus of Rutgers University, where she is also a tenured Professor of European history and women’s history. As Director of the Institute for Women’s Leadership, Hartman has overseen the creation of the Leadership Scholars Certificate Program for Undergraduates, edited the Institute’s Signature Publication Talking Leadership: Conversations with Powerful Women, and written a book-length manuscript The Household and Making of History: A Subversive View of the Western Past. Prior to her directorship at the Institute, she created one of the nation’s first Women’s Studies programs in the early seventies at Douglas College and served as dean of the college from 1982-1994. She was also appointed by both Governors Kean and Florio to serve on the New Jersey State Advisory Commission on the Status of Women. Hartman is a board member of the National Council for Research on Women.

Anissa Helie is a feminist historian by training and an activist by choice. She has been involved in the Women Living Under Muslim Laws international solidarity network (WLUML) since its inception in 1984, and has consulted with different women's organizations in various countries, including the Center for Women's Global Leadership (USA) and the Muslim Women Research and Action Group ( India). She also acted as Executive Director of the WLUML International Coordination Office in London between 2000 and 2005. She remains on the WLUML International Program Implementation Council and currently serves on the board of Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights, Urgent Action Fund for Women's Human Rights, and ReproductiveHealth Matters.

Silvia Henriquez is the second Executive Director of National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in International Affairs and a Master’s in Women’s Studiesboth from the George Washington University. Since completing her education, Ms. Henriquez has worked in various reproductive rights organizations. She was the National Campus Coordinator of the Feminist Majority, the Outreach Director at the National Abortion Federation, and most recently, a Policy Analyst with the Latino Issues Forum. During her first year as Executive Director, Ms. Henriquez increased NLIRH’s national visibility through the March for Women’s Lives and the National Latina Summit, developed a community mobilizing program, launched NLIRH’s national policy agenda, and secured a funding base for the organization. Silvia currently sits on the Board of Directors of both the Reproductive Health Technologies Project and the Alan Guttmacher Institute. Her publications include co-authoring Our Health Our Rights: Reproductive Justice for Latinas in California and authoring Forging New Partnerships, Improving Access to Reproductive Health Care for Latina Immigrants.

Astrid Henry is an Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies and English at Saint Mary’s College in northern Indiana, where she also serves as the Coordinator of the Women’s Studies Program. She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and she received an M.A. from the New School for Social Research and a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of Not My Mother’s Sister: Generational Conflict and Third-Wave Feminism (2004), and her articles on third-wave feminism and generational relationships within U.S. feminism appear in Different Wavelengths (2005), Reading Sex and the City (2003), Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century (2003), and Mothers and Daughters: Connection, Empowerment and Transformation (2000). She teaches courses on feminist theory, sexuality studies, critical race studies, and third-wave feminism.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett is the founding President of the Center for Work-Life Policy, a non-profit organization which seeks to develop policies that enhance work-life balance. She is also the Director of the Gender and Public Policy Program at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. The first woman to head up the Economic Policy Council – a “think tank” of 125 business and labor leaders – Dr. Hewlett is well known for her expertise on gender and workplace issues. Her books include When the Bough Breaks (winner of a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Prize), Creating A Life (named by Business Week as one of the top ten books of 2002), and The War Against Parents (co-authored with Cornel West). Most recently, she is the co-author of “Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success” in the March 2005 Harvard Business Review. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Financial Times, and the Harvard Business Review. She has taught at Cambridge, Princeton and Columbia Universities, and held fellowships at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London and the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at Harvard. In recent years Hewlett has become the go-to person on issues of gender. She has appeared on 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, Newsnight with Aaron Brown, NBC Nightly News, Oprah, The View, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation – and has been lampooned on Saturday Night Live. A Kennedy Scholar and graduate of Cambridge University, Hewlett earned her Ph.D. (in economics) at London University.

Janet L. Holmgren has served as President of Mills College in Oakland, California since July of 1991. Prior to assuming her role at Mills, she was Vice Provost of Princeton University. Dr. Holmgren earned her B.A. in English summa cum laude from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. She received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Princeton University in 1971 and 1974. Dr. Holmgren is a nationally recognized speaker on women in higher education and the contributions of women's colleges to women's education. Some of her recent speeches include: “Women's Power in Today's Society,” “The Revolving Door: How to Stop Going Around and Start Going Up,” “Men and Women in the Classroom: Is There a Difference?,” “President as an Academic Leader,” and “Achieving Gender Equality in the Nineties: What Needs to Happen.” Dr. Holmgren is on the governing boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Chair), the National Council for Research on Women (Chair), the Women's College Coalition (Executive Board), the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (Executive Committee), the Urban School of San Francisco, the California Academy of Science (Advisory Council), and the International Museum of Women.

Carol Jenkins is a well-known T.V. personality in the New York area for her work as a news anchor, talk show host, reporter, and producer. She has her own production company, Carol Jenkins & Company, producing both entertainment and documentary programs. She has received numerous awards for her work, including an Emmy, UPI, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. She is deeply committed to issues relating to children and women and she sits on the board of several major organizations, including the Ms. Foundation for Women; SHARE, a self-help organization for women with breast and ovarian cancer; and The Feminist Press, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to restore to print the works of women writers. She is also on the Board of Trustees of the College of New Rochelle, a women’s college that offers innovative courses. She received her B.A. from Boston University and her M.A. from New York University.

Judith Kaye became the first woman to occupy the top judicial office of New York State in 1983, when Governor Mario M. Cuomo appointed her Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals. Chief Judge Kaye is Co-Chair of the Commission on the American Jury of the American Bar Association, founding member and Honorary Chair of Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert (JALBCA), and serves as Trustee of the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation. She is the author of numerous publications, particularly articles dealing with the legal process, state constitutional law, women in the law, professional ethics, and problem-solving courts. She is the recipient of various awards, including the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession’s Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, the National Center for State Courts’ William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence, and the Gold Medal of the New York State Bar Association and the Fordham-Stein Prize. Chief Justice Kaye is a 1958 graduate of Barnard College and received her LL.B. cum laude from New York University School of Law in 1962.

Allison Kimmich is the Executive Director of the National Women's Studies Association, where she develops and executes comprehensive fundraising plans to expand organization revenue. She previously served as the director of pre-college programs at Barnard College, where she developed a Young Women’s Leadership Institute and taught feminist theory in the undergraduate women’s studies program.  She has also worked as the assistant director of the Women Involved in Living and Learning (WILL), an academic and co-curricular program at the University of Richmond.  She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Women’s Studies from Emory University.  Her publications include essays on feminist pedagogy and women’s autobiography. She was the recipient of the Service Learning Faculty Associates Grant from the University of Richmond in 1999.

Frances Kissling has been president of Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) since 1982. CFFC advances reproductive health, women’s rights, and the strengthening of civil society through research, education, and policy analysis. Under Ms. Kissling’s leadership, CFFC has become an internationally recognized non-governmental organization and a leading force for change in the Catholic church. Widely regarded as one of the most thoughtful and eloquent voices on a range of critical issues in religion, reproductive health, women’s rights, and population policy, Ms. Kissling puts forward a moral perspective on the right to choose abortion that includes a passionate commitment to the moral agency of women and a deep respect for life. Kissling has briefed parliamentarians and development professionals on reproductive health and rights, religion, and public policy in a number of countries including Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Poland and the United States. She was a prominent participant in the United Nations Conferences on Population and Development and on Women. In 2003, she led an interfaith delegation to China to better understand the role of the United Nations Population Fund in promoting quality of reproductive health care.

Charles Knight is co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives at the Commonwealth Institute in Cambridge, Masschusetts. He also serves on the board of directors of the Conservation Services Group, an energy conservation services company with over one hundred employees, and is a partner with the Women's Theological Center in Boston. In his work at the Project on Defense Alternatives he has authored or co-authored numerous publications. These have been published by the Commonwealth Institute and have also appeared in such publications as Defense News, American Sentinel, Boston Review, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Social Policy, Boston Globe, International Security, and Dissent. Mr Knight also edits the Defense Strategy Review Webpage. He has made numerous presentations on peace and security issues at governmental and non-governmental institutions, and, during the 1994-1996 period, had the honor to consult on stability-oriented security options for southern Africa with the African National Congress and South African Ministry of Defense. Formerly, Mr Knight was the publisher of Working Papers magazine. He has also been a fellow at the Institute for Peace and International Security, an administrator at the Pequod Counseling Center, and a research associate at the Cambridge Institute, all of which are located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Tamar Kraft-Stolar is Director of the Women in Prison Project at the Correctional Association (CA) of New York.  Created in 1991, the Project is dedicated to examining and addressing the effects of New York’s criminal justice policies on women and their families. Ms. Kraft-Stolar has become a leading advocate in her field and is often quoted in the popular press.  Before becoming Director, she was the CA’s Public Policy Project Associate and the lead Coordinator of the Drop the Rock Campaign to Repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws.  She attended Cornell University, where she was involved in activism and earned the Anne-MacIntyre Litchfield Prize. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in History and Africana Studies.   

Celinda Lake is President of Lake Snell Perry Mermin & Associates, Inc., and is one of the nation's foremost experts on electing women candidates and framing issues to women voters. She is renowned for her groundbreaking research on single women voters in conjunction with Women's Voices Women Vote and has helped elect numerous female candidates, including Barbara Mikulski, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Patricia Madrid, the first Hispanic woman Attorney General in New Mexico, and the historic victory of Carol Moseley-Braun, who was the first African-American woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate. She also works for Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the House minority. An experienced moderator, Lake has conducted focus group research throughout the United States on a large variety of topics including union labor, environmental and immigration issues, and speaking to women on the economy. She is also credited with identifying key voter groups, including Reagan seniors, NASCAR dads, waitress moms, the marriage gap, and generation D.

Nan Langowitz is the Director of the Center for Women's Leadership and an Associate Professor of Management at Babson College. She is the co-founder of the Center for Women’s Leadership, the first comprehensive center dedicated to advancing women in business and entrepreneurship. Her research and teaching is focused on the entrepreneurial leadership of women as well as the challenges and opportunities for women in business organizations. Dr. Langowitz is the author of numerous journal articles, research monographs, and cases and has been quoted in various leading media outlets. She has twenty years of experience in executive development design and delivery, having worked as a consultant, researcher, and educator with organizations ranging from complex global corporations to new start-up ventures. As the faculty director for Opting In: Women’s Leadership at Points of Transition, offered through Babson Executive Education, and Babson’s Women’s Leadership MBA Mentor Program, Dr. Langowitz brings her expertise on women’s leadership and managing change to both organizations and individuals. Dr. Langowitz earned her doctorate at Harvard Business School, and holds an M.B.A. from New York University and a B.A. from Cornell University. In 2002, she was awarded the prestigious Abigail Adams Award by the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus.

Laura Liswood co-founded the Council of Women World Leaders with President Vigdís Finnbogadóttir of Iceland in 1996. She is the Secretary General of the Council, composed of women presidents, prime ministers, and heads of government. She is now a Senior Advisor in Global Leadership and Diversity for Goldman Sachs. Ms. Liswood co-founded The White House Project (1997), and its aim is to change the cultural message in the United States about women as leaders. From 1992-1996, as director of the Women’s Leadership Project, Ms. Liswood interviewed 15 current and former women presidents and prime ministers, chronicled in her book and video documentary, Women World Leaders. She is also the author of Serving Them Right. Ms. Liswood is a member of the International Women’s Forum, Leadership America, and commissioner of the City of Seattle Women’s Commission. In 2000, the Secretary of Defense appointed her to a three-year term in the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS). She has received the Westinghouse Award of Excellence for her contribution to women and minorities in the workplace. Ms. Liswood holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, a B.A. from California State University, San Diego, and a J.D. from the University of California, Davis, School of Law.

Catherine Lutz is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and The Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, where she teaches courses on war and militarization, United States and Pacific societies, and race and gender. She is the author of several books, most recently Homefront: A Military City and the American Twentieth Century (Beacon, 2001), a historical case study on the effects of Fort Bragg Army base on Fayetteville, N.C. Her other books include Reading National Geographic (with Jane Collins, Chicago, 1993), and Unnatural Emotions ( Chicago, 1988), based on her field research in Micronesia. She has a forthcoming volume, If This Is Democracy…Public Interests and Private Politics in a Neoliberal Age (New York University Press, 2005), and is conducting research on the impact of US foreign military bases and the global anti-US bases movement. She is currently President of the American Ethnological Society, and recipient of the Leeds Prize, the Victor Turner Prize, and the Sterling Award.  Dr. Lutz has conducted some of her research in collaboration with activist organizations, including the American Friends Service Committee, indigenous rights groups, and domestic violence organizations.

Janet E. Malley is Deputy Director and Assistant Research Scientist at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan.  She also directs the evaluation component for the University of Michigan’s NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant and serves as an evaluator for numerous Institute projects.  Her research interests are in the area of adult development with a special focus on women’s lives, looking especially at how the process of development may be mediated by individual life experiences as well as more broadly based work and family roles. Recent publications include “Recruiting Women Faculty in Science and Engineering: Preliminary Evaluation of One Intervention Model” in the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering (with Abby Stewart and Danielle LaVaque-Manty) and Women of “The Greatest Generation” in Narrative Analysis: Studying the Development of Iindividuals in Society (with Abby Stewart). 

Emily Martin is a candidate for a Master’s Degree in Women’s Studies at George Washington University. Her Master’s thesis highlights best practice models for political collaboration for women state legislators through qualitative interviews with women legislators from Maryland and Washington state. She currently works at the American Political Science Association. Ms. Martin served as a business research consultant for Martha Burk’s recent book, Cult of Power. She currently serves as a Project Editor for the Pioneer Feminist Project, researching the historical biographies of early second wave feminists. Her other research interests include women in politics, domestic and international women’s movements, feminist studies, and international development. She helped organize the 2004 March for Women’s Lives at the National Mall. She received a double B.A. in Political Science and Sociology from Gonzaga University in 2001. Ms. Martin plans on pursuing a Ph.D. in the field of political science.

Irma McClaurin is Program Officer for Education and Scholarship at the Ford Foundation. She is on leave as an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida. Previously, she served as Mott Distinguished Professor and Chair of Africana Women’s Studies at Bennett College, where she laid the foundation for the development of a degree granting Africana Women’s Program. She is a cultural anthropologist with extensive experience as a university administrator. Her latest book, entitled Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis and Poetics, was selected by Choice Magazine as an outstanding academic title. She is also a published poet with three books of poetry. Her career has effectively combined scholarship with action on behalf of strengthening opportunities for African Americans, women, and other minorities in higher education. She joined the Ford Foundation in January 2005 as the Program Officer to work on issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and identity in higher education. Dr. McClaurin earned degrees from Grinnell College and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she completed her M.F.A. in English and a doctorate in Anthropology. She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation Minority Predoctoral Fellowship.

Terri McCullough is Chief of Staff to Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Democratic Leader, as well as an Advisor to the Leader on women’s issues.  As Chief of Staff, she is responsible for overseeing the legislative agenda for California’s 8 th Congressional District in San Francisco. She has served in a variety of roles for Rep. Pelosi in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., including legislative and appropriations assistant focusing on women’s, children’s, and education issues. Her interest in issues affecting women and families has also led to work as a legislative representative for NARAL Pro-Choice America; Communications Director for the New York City education nonprofit Public Education Needs Civic Involvement in Learning (PENCIL); and Assistant Director of The Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, a nonprofit organization supporting the creation of art and theater provoking dialogue about social issues, founded by actress Anna Deavere Smith and headquartered at New York University. Ms. McCullough is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Tara McKelvey is Senior Editor of The American Prospect and a contributing editor of Marie Claire magazine. Her recent articles for The American Prospect include pieces focused on women prisoners held at Abu Ghraib (February 2005), international sex trafficking (November 2004), and Native Americans and human rights (October 2004). Her recent articles for Marie Claire include interviews with Madeleine Albright (October 2003), a profile of Turkish lawyer and human rights activist Eren Keskin (September 2003), and Women of the World awards feature (December 2004). Previous job posts include being the Senior Editor at Marie Claire magazine from 2001-2002, Assistant Editor at USA Today from 2000-2001, and a freelance writer for The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Slate, and Marie Claire, among other publications. Ms. McKelvey has been awarded numerous accolades, including a fellowship with the Poynter Institute and a National Women's Political Caucus award in 2003. In 2004 Marie Claire’s stories on domestic violence, which included two pieces Ms. McKelvey wrote, received The Liz Claiborne Award for Outstanding Reporting on Violence Against Women. She is a former member of the National Book Critics Circle. She received her B.A. from Georgetown University and attended graduate school at the University of Maryland.

Rosemari Mealy is a freelance radio journalist, essayist, published poet, and the author of Fidel and Malcolm X-Memories of a Meeting and Lift These Shadows from our Eyes. Ms Mealy is an activist in international human rights and political prisoner movements. She has been honored for her community involvement and was the recipient of the prestigious Claudia Jones Fellow in the African New World Studies Program at Florida International University ( Miami), where she taught Critical Race Theory Analysis. At present she is working on the completion of a manuscript detailing a significant 1954 Florida murder trial where a black woman was sentenced to die in the Florida electric chair. She has lived and worked in Cuba, where she collaborated on several projects in support of U.S. political prisoners with Assata Shakur. Her current efforts are focused on contributing to the organizing campaigns to win the freedom and a new trial for death row journalist and author Mumia-Abu Jamal. Ms. Mealy is a founding member of the National Alliance of Third World Journalists and a member of the Advisory Board of the Malcolm X Museum.

Ruth Milkman directs the Institute of Industrial Relations and teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles.  From 2001 to 2004 she was Director of the University of California's statewide Institute for Labor and Employment.  She writes frequently on labor issues.  Her most recent book, co-edited with Kim Voss, is Rebuilding Labor: Organizing and Organizers in The New Union Movement (Cornell, 2004).  She is currently at work on two projects: a book on immigrants, work, and unionism in Los Angeles, and research on the impact of California’s new paid family leave program. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.  Her book, Gender at Work, was awarded the Joan Kelly Prize from the American Historical Association. Dr. Milkman has a B.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Francine Moccio, holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate Faculty, New School for Social Research in Cultural Anthropology and Political Economy.  She is currently the Director of the Institute for Women and Work at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Prior to Cornell, Ms. Moccio was Professor and Director of the Working Women’s Studies Program at the State University of New York. Before her career in academia, Ms. Moccio was an organizer and elected representative of the Teamsters’ Local 810, a clerical workers’ local in New York City. She worked extensively with unions on researching and advocating for issues such as pay equity, family and medical leave in collective bargaining, preventing sexual and gender harassment, organizing women workers, women in union leadership, and women in nontraditional craft jobs, among others. She conducted training for legislators on issues such as preventing sexual harassment and sex discrimination, workplace gender equity, women’s public policy, and union issues. Currently, she is a Task Force Member of the National Women’s Coalition for Labor Reform. Dr. Moccio founded the Research and Advocacy Program at the YWCA, establishing a “think tank” and recruitment mechanism for organizing women workers into unions. She has a forthcoming book on craft unions and women electricians, entitled Live Wire: Women In the Electrical Construction Industry.

Sandra Morgen combines her position as Director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society with a position as a Professor in the Anthropology department at the University of Oregon. She directs the CSWS Women in the Northwest Research Initiative, which for the past five years has focused on an in-depth study of welfare restructuring in Oregon. Her most recent books include Into Our Own Hands: The Women’s Health Movement in the U.S., 1969-1990 (2002) and Work, Welfare and Politics: Confronting Poverty in the Wake of Welfare Reform, co-edited with Frances Fox Piven, Joan Acker, and Margaret Hallock (2002). Ms. Morgen is the recipient of numerous awards including the Eileen Basker Prize, awarded by the Society for Medical Anthropology in 2004, and the Women Who Make a Difference Award, presented by the National Council for Research on Women (NCRW), also in 2004. In 2003, she was recognized by the Society for Anthropology in North America for her outstanding contributions to the field of anthropology in the United States. From 2002-2004, she was the co-recipient of the Savage Endowment for International Relations and Peace. Dr. Morgen also chairs the NCRW Economic Security Advisory Committee and is co-author, with Mimi Abramovitz, of a forthcoming report on women and tax policy from NCRW.

Heather Johnston Nicholson joined Girls Incorporated, the national youth program, research and advocacy organization that inspires all girls tobe strong, smart and bold SM in 1982. Dr. Nicholson now directs the research and evaluation work of Girls Incorporated. Dr. Nicholson writes and speaks on gender equity, informal education and the healthy development of girls and young women ages 6 to 18. Her published work covers issues of math, science, and technology; health and wellness; sports, teen sexuality, and pregnancy; violence and juvenile justice, single-sex education; and leadership – all with a multicultural focus on girls. She consults widely on measuring program outcomes, through both rigorous impact research and everyday accountability for program quality. Dr. Nicholson is a Board member and former Board chair of the National Council for Research on Women. She holds a B.A. with honors from Chatham College, an M.A. from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, all in political science.

Catherine Nolan represents the 37th Assembly District in Queens County. She was first elected to the Assembly in 1984. Among Ms. Nolan's initial achievements was the extension of the state's wildcard provisions that foster parity between federal and state-chartered banks. She also authored a new law to extend the retention period for ATM surveillance tapes in an effort to curb ATM fraud. Ms. Nolan is the Assembly's representative to the MTA Capital Program Review Board, where she successfully signed the third MTA Capital Plan, driving millions of dollars to mass transit. Assemblywoman Nolan previously chaired the Real Property Taxation Committee, where she was successful in passing important legislation to save taxpayer dollars by consolidating assessing units and a bill allowing the United Nations Development Corporation to expand its New York City-based operation for UNICEF. From 1987 -1994, she chaired the Subcommittee on Mass Transit, where she was successful in passing laws increasing the public's participation in MTA decisions, extending the arbitration provisions for MTA's labor unions, and requiring fire safety training for Triborough Bridge and Tunnel employees. She was honored by the Coalition of MTA Employee Unions and cited by the NYS Environmental Planning Lobby as a rising star for her efforts on behalf of public transit.

Sara Nordstrom has been the coordinator of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign at the Center for Women's Global Leadership since May 2003. Her experience with the 16 Days campaign began in 2002, when she conducted support work with various organizations for the campaign in Ghana and also researched the Ghanaian anti-violence movement as a Rutgers Undergraduate Research Fellow during that time. As an undergraduate at Rutgers, Ms. Nordstrom coordinated a coalition of student organizations planning events for the 2003 16 Days Campaign. Ms. Nordstrom's additional activism as an undergraduate on campus included editing and writing for a progressive student magazine, planning an annual feminist conference, creating independent publications on various feminist issues with the Undergraduate Women's Studies Association, Radigals, and volunteering with a local police department as a member of the Domestic Violence Response Team. She was an undergraduate scholar in the Institute for Women's Leadership, a two-year multi-disciplinary program that prepares students to be informed, innovative, and socially responsible leaders. Ms. Nordstrom graduated from Rutgers University in May 2004 with a B.A. in Women's and Gender Studies and Cultural Anthropology.

Thoraya Ahmed Obaid is the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the world’s largest multilateral source of population assistance. Ms. Obaid was appointed head of UNFPA in January 2001, with the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the UN. From 1998-2001, Ms. Obaid was Director of UNFPA. Before joining UNFPA, from 1975 to 1998, Ms. Obaid held various positions at the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). In 1975, she established the first women’s development program in Western Asia. The program helped build partnerships on women’s issues between the UN and regional NGOs. Throughout her career, Dr. Obaid has emphasized the importance of development that emerges from the context of each society, taking into consideration the cultural values and religious beliefs that shape people and affect their actions. As UNFPA Executive Director, she has placed a special focus on culture and religion in the Fund’s development work, thereby linking universal values of human rights to values of human worth promoted by all religions and found in all cultures. Ms. Obaid has received numerous awards in recognition of her work in public service. She has a doctorate degree in English Literature and Cultural Anthropology from Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

Kimberly Otis is the President and CEO of Women & Philanthropy, a membership and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. She is the past Executive Director of the Rauch Foundation, and she was the founding Executive Director of The Sister Fund, formerly The Hunt Alternatives Fund, during a nine-year tenure. From 2001-2002, Ms. Otis was the Chair of the Board of Directors of the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers (NYRAG). She has also served on the Boards of the National Women's Hall of Fame and of the Women's Funding Network. Currently, she serves as Co-Chair of the Affinity Groups Steering Committee of the Council on Foundations, and on the Honorary Council of the Washington Area Women’s Foundation. Prior to working in philanthropy, Ms. Otis held positions in fundraising, research, and management with several non-profit and social justice organizations. She holds a Master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, a Bachelor's degree with honors and distinction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a certificate in Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management from the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University. She is a 2002 recipient of the Changing the Face of Philanthropy Award from the Women’s Funding Network.

Rupal Oza is an Assistant Professor in the Women’s Studies program at Hunter College, CUNY. Her research focuses on South Asia and the United States, and includes topics such as feminist geographical theory, globalization and gender, gender and nationalism, globalization and labor migration, and religious nationalism. She is completing a book on globalization and gender in India entitled The Sexualized Politics of Globalization in India and co-editing a book along with Rabab Abdulhadi with the working title Palestine and India: History, Struggle, Politics and Solidarities. Her current projects include organizing South Asian construction workers in New York City, and tracking the rise of Hindu right-wing movements in India and in the U.S. She has received numerous grants and awards, most recently the PSC-CUNY Research Award (2005-2006) and the Gender Equity Project Associate (2004-2005). Ms. Oza holds a M.A in Geography from Temple University and a Ph.D. in Geography from Rutgers University.

Jo Parrish is the Vice President of Institutional Advancement at the Society for Women’s Health Research. She oversees all aspects of a multi-faceted communications program that includes public education, public and media relations, marketing, website, and publications. Ms. Parrish joined the Society for Women’s Health Research in 1999. She has over 20 years of experience in organizations, associations, education, and cultural arts, with special expertise in strategic and process planning in start-up or new program operations. Ms. Parrish was most recently director of development at the National Organization on Disability (NOD), where, among other accomplishments, she led a successful capital campaign to add a statue depicting President Franklin Roosevelt in a wheelchair to the FDR Memorial. A life-long advocate for gender equity on a variety of issues, Ms. Parrish was a consultant to women business entrepreneurs in Central Europe after the fall of communism. She was selected to represent the American Association of University Women at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995. Ms. Parrish has a B.A. in Mathematics and English from California State University, an M.A. in English from UCLA, certification in International Business from Cambridge University in England, and an M.B.A. from Rutgers University.

Rosalind Petchesky is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She was a recipient of both the Fulbright Scholarship and the MacArthur Fellowship. Recently she published Global Prescriptions: Gendering Health and Human Rights (2003) and “Rights of the Body and Perversions of War:  Sexual Rights and Wrongs Ten Years Past Beijing,” forthcoming in the International Social Science Journal.  Dr. Petchesky has long been active in women's movements for reproductive and sexual rights and social justice. She is the founder and international coordinator for International Reproductive Rights Research Action Group (IRRRAG), a board member of WEDO (Women's Environment & Development Organization) and the international journal, Reproductive Health Matters, and a member of the steering committee of the International Working Group on Sexuality and Social Policy. Dr. Petchesky graduated summa cum laude from Smith College and earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.

Joshua Price is a professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he teaches Introduction to Interdisciplinary Social Science, and Women and Violence. His current research interests include foundations of the social sciences, v iolence against women, and multicultural theory. Dr. Price is currently collaborating with the Broome/Tioga County ( New York) NAACP in a participatory research project to document health care abuses of prisoners at the local jail. For ten years, he was a member of the Escuela Popular Norteña, a center for popular education that works against intersecting oppressions. Among other publications, he wrote “The Inseparability of Race, Class and Gender,” “Critical Race Theory’s Dream Narratives—A Method for an Anti-Racist Social Science?” and “Problems of Translation in Post-Colonial Thinking.” Joshua Price graduated from Carleton College with a B.A. in Sociology and Anthropology and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Maya Raghu is a staff attorney at Legal Momentum (the new name of NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund), where she works on a variety of women’s rights issues. She has principal responsibilities for Legal Momentum’s Employment and Housing Rights for Survivors of Abuse project, which provides direct representation to survivors of domestic violence and expert consultation and trainings to attorneys and advocates on employment and housing issues around the country, as well as engages in legislative advocacy. Ms. Raghu is also involved in Legal Momentum’s effort to incorporate international human rights principles in domestic law, and recently co-authored an amicus brief regarding application of international human rights law to a domestic violence case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to joining Legal Momentum, Ms. Raghu was a litigation associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York City for four years. She also served as a law clerk to Judge Vanessa Gilmore of the District Court for the Southern District of Texas. She received her B.A. from Trinity University and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Rayna Rapp teaches anthropology at New York University and works on new reproductive technologies, the social impact of genome research, and kinship and disabilities. A founder of Women's Studies programs and journals, she has edited books including: Toward an Anthropology of Women; Promissory Notes: Women in the Transition to Socialism; Articulating Hidden Histories; and Conceiving the New World Order: the Global Politics of Reproduction. Her Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: the Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America (Routledge, 1999) was deeply influenced by longstanding participation in the women’s health movement. More recently, she has been active in an international research group tracking the impact of new medical technologies and two bioethics projects concerned with the re-inscription of race as a medical category through genomic research. Along with Faye Ginsburg, she is beginning a research project on the cultural epidemic in Learning Disabilities in the United States.

Betsy Reed is a senior editor at The Nation, the country's largest left-liberal political weekly. At The Nation, she edits articles on women's and gay issues, labor, education, law, social movements, domestic politics, international affairs, and special investigations. Articles she has edited have won numerous awards including the National Magazine Award, the ABA Silver Gavel Award for coverage of legal issues, the Jane Croly Award for coverage of women's issues, and the GLAAD award for coverage of gay politics. She was co-editor of the book Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community and Lesbian & Gay Life and editor of Nothing Sacred: Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror. She graduated from Harvard in 1990 with a degree in history and literature. Before joining The Nation in 1998, she worked as an editor at the progressive economics magazine Dollars & Sense; the literary and political journal Boston Review; and the magazines American Benefactor and Civilization.

Amy Richards is the co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation, a national organization for young feminist activists. Through this leadership, Ms. Richards became a spokesperson and leading voice for young feminist issues. She was publicly distinguished as a leader in 1995 when Who Cares magazine chose her as one of 25 Young Visionaries. She has gone on to win accolades from Ms. magazine, which profiled her in “21 for the 21st: Leaders for the Next Century”; Women’s Enews, which in 2003 named her one of their “Leaders for the 21st Century”; and the American Association of University Women, which chose her as a 2004 Woman of Distinction. She has also consulted to Scenarios USA on the distribution of their teen educational videos, to Gloria Steinem on her writing and political commitments, and to the Columbia School of Public Health on the long-term negative health consequences of welfare reform. Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future , Ms. Richards’ first book, which she co-authored with Jennifer Baumgardner, was published in October 2000. They just completed their second book, Grassroots: A Field Guide for Feminist Activism , and together they also created Soapbox Inc: Speakers Who Speak Out , a lecture agency for “speakers who speak out.”

Deborah Rosenfelt is a Professor of Women's Studies and the Director of the Curriculum Transformation Project at the University of Maryland.  She previously was Director of Women's Studies at San Francisco State University, and Professor of English and a founder of the Women's Studies program at California State University, Long Beach. Her work includes Encompassing Gender: Integrating International Studies and Women's Studies (co-editor), Tillie Olsen's Tell Me a Riddle (a casebook and critical anthology), Teaching Women's Literature from a Regional Perspective (co-editor), Feminist Press editions of Myra Page's Daughter of the Hills  and Michael Wilson's Salt of the Earth, two volumes of the Female Studies series, and numerous essays on  contemporary women's literature and on women's studies and women's issues in higher education. Most recently, she served as a Fulbright Senior Consultant in Ukraine, and has directed a series of Ford Foundation grants facilitating dialogue and joint projects among women's studies scholars at eight institutions around the world.

Joan Ross-Frankson is the Communications Director at the Women’s Environment and Development Agency (WEDO), a global advocacy organization working in the United Nations processes to increase the power of women as decision-makers for the achievement of economic and social justice. Ms. Ross-Frankson is a journalist and communication specialist with more than 30 years of experience in the development field. She has worked extensively with women’s networks, non-governmental organizations, and multi-lateral institutions at national, regional and international levels, in both the global North and South. Her focus has primarily been on building advocacy skills at the community level and re-packaging research and policy documents into visual and accessible tools for use in both political education and action. She has written and edited numerous newsletters, training manuals, and educational guides for the purposes of networking, skill building, and advocacy; published papers and articles in various anthologies, journals and magazines; and lectured on media, gender, and development in the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Judith Saidel is Executive Director of the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society and Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where she teaches courses on Nonprofit Management and Policy. She also serves as the director of the graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management and Leadership there. For the last several years she has been the principal investigator of Governance Futures: New Perspectives on Nonprofit Governance, Discovery Phase, a project under the leadership of BoardSource, based in Washington D.C., in collaboration with the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Harvard University. She directs the multi-year Appointed Policy Makers in State Government project. Dr. Saidel has recently been elected to the position of Vice President of the National Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). She just completed a six-year term as Book Review Editor of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and is a member of the Advisory Editorial board of Nonprofit Management and Leadership.

Kimberlee Salmond is a Research and Evaluation Analyst with the Girl Scout Research Institute, Girl Scouts of the USA. She is responsible for original studies and research reviews on topics relating to girls’ safety, health, and development. Her publications include: Weighing In: Helping Girls Be Healthy Today, Healthy Tomorrow (2004) and Feeling Safe: What Girls Say (2003). Ms. Salmond conducts outcomes evaluations of national Girl Scout programs such as the Financial Literacy and Department of Justice initiatives. Previously she has worked with the Families and Work Institute, Legislative Commission on the Economic Status of Women in Minnesota, and National Council for Research on Women. She has a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Kalamazoo College in Michigan.

Judy Schoenberg is a Senior Researcher at the Girl Scout Research Institute, Girl Scouts of the USA, where she conducts original national research studies on issues focused on the healthy development of girls 6-17. Ms. Schoenberg also tracks youth trends and writes research reviews on topics of interest to educators, policymakers, and practitioners. Recent publications she authored include:  Weighing In: Helping Girls Be Healthy Today, Healthy Tomorrow (2004); Feeling Safe: What Girls Say (2003); Paths to Positive Youth Development (2003); and The Ten Emerging Truths: New Directions for Girls 11-17 (2002). She is an official spokesperson for GSUSA and frequently speaks at conferences and other events.  Ms. Schoenberg holds a Bachelor of Arts from Haverford College in comparative literature and a Masters in Education in human development and psychology from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, where her work focused on adolescent development and gender differences research.  

Debra L. Schultz is the author of Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement (New York University Press). She is Director of Programs for the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundations) Network Women’s Program, which promotes the advancement of women’s human rights as an integral part of building open societies. At OSI, she works to build regional women’s networks, including gender studies networks in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, and to develop new frameworks for women’s human rights activism, including the Romani women’s rights movement (the subject of her current research). With teaching interests ranging from women’s history to cross-cultural studies, she has taught courses on multicultural U.S. women’s history at the New School University and the history of Black-Jewish relations at Rutgers University. Her work as a feminist oral historian focuses on documenting women’s cross-racial alliances for social change. She has also served as the Assistant Director of the National Council for Research on Women, where she worked from 1987-1993.

Cynthia Secor is President of Higher Education Resource Services (HERS) Mid-America at the University of Denver. She directs the Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education Administration at Bryn Mawr College, where she has worked with over two thousand women in the Institute’s 29 years of operation. She also directs HERS New England at Wellesley College and its Management Institute for Women in Higher Education. In 1997, Dr. Secor received the first Lifetime Achievement Award given by the National Association for Women in Education. In 2002, she received the Donna Shavlik Award from the American Council on Education Office of Women in Higher Education as well as the Myra Sadker Award from the Women’s Caucus of the American Association for Higher Education. Over the course of her career Dr. Secor has published articles on prose fiction, literary criticism, and women in higher education administration, and she is the co-editor of Women in Higher Education Administration (1984). A graduate of Bryn Mawr College, she holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Cornell University in English Literature.

Sarah Sewall is Program Director at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, where she facilitates a dialogue between the military and human rights communities about the use of force. She also teaches at Harvard’s JFK School of Government. She is currently writing a book about civilians in war and editing a volume of historical, legal, and ethical perspectives on U.S. military power. Ms. Sewall served as the first Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance during the Clinton Administration. She was also Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell for six years. While at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she edited, with Carl Kaysen, The United States and the International Criminal Court: National Security and International Law (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). Ms. Sewall graduated from Harvard College and received her M.A in International Relations from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. She is member of the Strategy, Forces, and Operations Technical Advisory Committee of the Center for Naval Analyses.

Jael Silliman is a Program Officer for Reproductive Rights in the Human Rights unit at the Ford Foundation. Previously, she was a tenured Associate Professor in the Women’s Studies Department at the University of Iowa . Before her stint in academia, she was a Program Officer at the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, where she developed the foundation's Population and Reproductive Rights program in the United States and abroad. She is the author of numerous books and articles. Her most recent co-authored book is Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice. She is also the author of Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames: Women’s Narratives from A Diaspora of Hope, and co-editor of Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on Population, Environment and Policing the National Body: Race, Gender and Criminalization. She has spoken widely both in the United States and internationally on issues of transnational feminist movements, population and reproductive rights, women of color organizing, and environmental justice concerns. She is the recipient of the Iowa City Human Rights Commission International Human Rights Award, and she is an Open Society Fellow.

Eleanor Smeal is President of the Feminist Majority/Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) and the former President of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Dr. Smeal has been at the forefront of the struggle for women’s equality for over 30 years, during which time she has led numerous drives for legislative advances, developed strategies for major Supreme Court cases, and organized major mass feminist events, including the most recent March for Women’s Lives on April 25, 2004. In December 2001, Ms. Smeal, Gloria Steinem, and Ms. magazine joined forces and FMF became the sole publisher of Ms., the voice of the feminist movement. Ms. Smeal envisions that the magazine will help popularize feminist thought and research and make visible on the newsstands and to a mass audience the academic work and theory of Women’s Studies, as well as the many centers for research on women. Ms. Smeal is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Duke University and holds an M.A. from the University of Florida. She received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Duke University in 1991 and an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Florida in 2003.

Andrea Smith (Cherokee) is a co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and the Boarding School Healing Project. INCITE! is a national organization that identifies the state as the central organizer of violence perpetuated through colonialism, police brutality, immigration policies, and reproductive control, and supports local grassroots efforts by sponsoring activist institutes and National Planning Committees that focus on non-violent resolutions.It was founded as a result of the marginalization of colored women within women’s movements. Dr. Smith is the author of Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide (South End Press, 2005). She is currently an Assistant Professor of Women's Studies and American Culture (Native American studies) at the University of Michigan. Dr. Smith holds a B.A. from Harvard University in Comparative Study of Religion, a Masters of Divinity from the Union Theological Institute, and a Ph.D. from the University of California in Santa Cruz in History of Consciousness.

Cecilia Snyder is the Executive Editor of several online news services for journalists, including www.PLANetWIRE.org, www.PUSHJournal.org, and www.SavingWomensLives.org. She has worked for 13 years in the international development field using electronic media as an advocacy tool and focusing on education and outreach through new technologies. Ms. Snyder designed Web sites while working at Bread for the World Institute, the Panos Institute, the Centre for Development and Population Activities, and the Population Council. Electronic listservs, RSS feeds, and targeted email bulletins have been part of an overall information collection and dissemination strategy to open channels of communication to a wider global audience and provide access to information and fresh ideas for solutions to development issues. Ms. Snyder has also designed several print publications and scientific posters for hard copy and electronic distribution. These products reflect an informatics perspective which values effective dissemination of data. She received her M.A. from Georgetown University in 2002 and is co-chair of the Education for Development Working Group of the Society for International Development.

Alison Stein led the founding of the Younger Women’s Task Force (YWTF) during her tenure as Program Assistant at the National Council of Women’s Organizations. YWTF is a nationwide, grassroots movement dedicated to organizing younger women in their twenties and thirties to take action on issues that matter most to them. By and for younger women, YWTF works both within and beyond the women's movement, engaging all who are invested in advancing the rights of women. YWTF has been featured in a variety of publications including The New Yorker, Congressional Quarterly, and the Village Voice. In the summer of 2000, Ms. Stein worked in the press office during Hillary Clinton's Senatorial Campaign. From 2003-2004 she was the development fellow at the Institute for Women's Policy Research. In Ghana, Ms. Stein founded Girl Talk, a discussion group for adolescent girls and local midwives on issues of reproductive health. She returned to Ghana in 2003 as a researcher for the Ghana Health and Education Initiative.  Ms. Stein has also conducted research in Tanzania on the impact of NGO’s on local women. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003 with degrees in English and African Studies.

Sally J. Stevens is the Executive Director of the Southwest Institute for Research on Women (SIROW) in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona. Dr. Stevens has conducted large-scale process and outcome research projects in the area of health disparities, medical illnesses, substance abuse, HIV and other infectious diseases, trauma, and mental health issues. Dr. Stevens’ research has focused on special populations including women and their children and adolescents. Much of her work has focused on Mexican-origin Hispanics and American Indians living in southwestern United States and the examination of cultural and gender issues that are specifically applicable to these racial-ethnic groups. Past research has utilized experimental random design, participatory action research, and feminist methods to answer questions under investigation. Research efforts have resulted in long-term studies that have over a 90% compliance rate among participants that are typically difficult to engage and follow. Dr. Stevens has published numerous journal articles and has edited several special journal issues and books.

Abigail Stewart is Agnes Inglis Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan and Director of the UM ADVANCE project, supported by the NSF ADVANCE program on Institutional Transformation. She is former Director of the Women’s Studies Program (1989-95) and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (1995-2002), and former Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Michigan (2002-04). She worked at Boston University from 1975-1987 and was the founding Director of the Henry A. Murray Research Center of Radcliffe College. Her contributions have been recognized by a Henry Russel Lectureship, a Henry Murray Award, and the Carolyn Wood Sherif Award from the American Psychological Association. She has published over 100 scholarly articles and several books, focusing on the psychology of women’s lives, personality, and adaptation to personal and social changes. Her current research includes comparative analyses of longitudinal studies of educated women’s lives and personalities; a collaborative study of race, gender, and generation in the graduates of a Midwest high school; and research and interventions on gender, science, and technology with middle-school-age girls, undergraduate students, and faculty. She holds degrees from Wesleyan University (B.A.), London School of Economics (M.Sc.), and Harvard University (Ph.D.).

Tracy Sturdivant is the National Campaign Director at The White House Project (WHP). She directs WHP’s Vote, Run, Lead initiative. Before joining WHP, Ms. Sturdivant managed the signature outreach programs of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. Previously, she was the Senior Legislative and Outreach Associate and the National Field Organizer at Public Campaign, a non-profit, non-partisan organization working for comprehensive campaign finance reform. An experienced organizer, trainer, and strategic advisor for grassroots organizations, Ms. Sturdivant also serves on the boards of Democracy Matters and Democracy Action Project. Ms Sturdivant was student body president while studying at Eastern Michigan University.

Susan Sturm is the George M. Jaffin Professor of Law and Social Responsibility at Columbia Law School, where her principal areas of teaching and research include employment discrimination, workplace regulation, race and gender, public law remedies, and civil procedure. Her current work focuses on rethinking employment discrimination regulation, addressing complex forms of bias, and examining sites for successful multiracial problem solving. She is a founding member of Columbia University’s Presidential Advisory Committee on Diversity Initiatives. Her recent publications include Who’s Qualified? The Future of Affirmative Action (with Lani Guinier)(Beacon Press, 2001); Equality and the Forms of Justice (2004); “Learning from Conflict: Reflections on Teaching About Race and Gender” (Journal of Legal Education 2003); “Lawyers and the Practice of Workplace Equity” (Wisconsin Law Review 2002); Second Generation Employment Discrimination: A Structural Approach (Columbia 2001); “Equality and Inequality” (International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, 2001); and Race, Gender and the Law in the Twenty-First Century Workplace (1998). She has a forthcoming article entitled “Gender, Science and the Academy: Building an Institutional Change Regime.” She also has developed a website with Lani Guinier, www.racetalks.org, on building multiracial learning communities.

Ida Susser ,a Professor in both the CUNY Graduate Center’s Ph.D. Program in Anthropology and at Hunter College, has conducted research  in New York City, Puerto Rico, and southern Africa.  Her work explores the interconnections of global economic shifts and cultural strategies with respect to changing cities, poverty, gender, and health. Her publications include: Wounded Cities (co-editor), Medical Anthropology in the World System (co-author), Cultural Diversity in the United States (co-editor), AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean ( co-editor), and Norman Street: Poverty and Politics in an Urban Neighborhood. She was awarded the prize for Distinguished Achievement in the Critical Study of North America by the Society for the Anthropology of North America and is President-elect of the American Ethno