Cheryl Dorsey (New York, NY): An accomplished social entrepreneur with expertise in health care, labor issues, and public policy, Cheryl Dorsey was named President of Echoing Green in May 2002. She is the first Echoing Green Fellow to lead this global nonprofit, which has awarded more than $27 million in start-up capital to over 450 social entrepreneurs worldwide since 1987. In 1992, while training to be a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, she received an Echoing Green Fellowship. With it, she launched the Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit that provides basic health care and outreach services to at-risk residents of inner-city Boston neighborhoods. As a public policy innovator, Cheryl served as a White House Fellow from 1997-1998, acting as Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, advising the Clinton Administration on health care and other issues. She was later named Special Assistant to the Director of the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Labor Department, where she helped develop family-friendly workplace policies and spearheaded the labor secretary’s pay equity initiative. Cheryl Dorsey recently served as a team member of the Innovation and Civil Society subgroup of the Obama Presidential Transition's Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform Policy Working Group.

Sandra Finley (Chicago, IL) is President, CEO, and Board Chair of the League of Black Women, the premiere leadership organization for black women nationally. The League of Black Women has been commended for providing strategic resources to help Black women advance for their leadership ambitions, and is noted for its holistic approach and emphasis on sustainable, joyful living. A graduate of Loyola University, Sandra is active in her community. She is a member of the Union League of Chicago’s Committee on Race and a past board member of the Illinois Health Maintenance Organization Guaranty Association. Finley presented at the EU Commission global summit on Women Stabilizing an Insecure World in Brussels, Belgium. Her firm, Sandra Finley Company, specializes in strategic diversity consulting.

Somjen Frazer (New York, NY): Somjen Frazer is a senior policy analyst at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute and also owns a consulting company that helps nonprofits conduct research and evaluation projects.  She is the author of numerous research articles and reports on public health, gender and sexuality studies, criminal justice and other topics. She used her Rhodes Scholarship to conduct a participatory evaluation of the implementation of laws against homophobic and transphobic hate crimes as well as completing a master’s in sociology at Oxford University. She was also a John Kenneth Galbraith Scholar in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a Cornell Presidential Research Scholar.  As an activist researcher, she works to connect social science to social change and is particularly interested in community-based projects.

Jaclyn Friedman (Cambridge, MA): Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, performer, and activist, and the editor of the hit new book Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.  Friedman is also an award-winning writer and performer whose work has been published in outlets including Bitch, AlterNet, and PW.org. She is Program Director of the Center for New Words, and is co-founder of WAM!, CNW's conference on Women, Action, & the Media. Friedman is a charter member of CounterQuo, a national leadership coalition challenging the way we respond to sexual violence.

Barbara Glickstein (New York, NY): Barbara Glickstein is a public health nurse executive, health policy expert and broadcast journalist.   For more than 25 years, she has produced and hosted “Healthstyles,” an award-winning, weekly program on public radio in New York City.  Glickstein views her radio program as a public health practice, providing ongoing coverage of issues that make a difference in our everyday lives. In addition to her own show, Glickstein is a contributing health reporter on Martha Stewart’s radio show, “Living Today.” Glickstein co-founded and served as Director of the Continuum Center for Health and Healing at Beth Israel Medical Center in NYC, the largest academic integrative health care center in the United States. Her work has been honored many times, including awards from the American Academy of Nursing and the New York City Public Health Association, and the Association of Healing Health Care Projects Leland R. Kaiser Founder’s Award. She is on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Nursing and co-author of “The Role of Media in Influencing Policy: Getting the Message Across in Policy and Politics in Nursing and Health Care.” Ms. Glickstein is also on the Board of Project Kesher, a women’s advocacy organization working in 160 communities across Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Israel and the United States. Her activism focuses primarily in the areas of health care advocacy, gender inequality, religious and ethnic intolerance, trafficking in women and women’s health.

Jehmu Greene (Austin, TX): Jehmu Greene is a national political consultant and commentator. Her passion for politics and communications has earned her a regular slot on local and national media outlets and programs.
 In 2008, she co-founded WomenCount.org - an "MoveOn.org" for women. She is the former president of Rock the Vote. Under her leadership, Rock the Vote registered 1.4 million new voters and its membership grew from 1500 to 1 million. Jehmu previously served as Project Vote's national director and the Democratic National Committee's  (DNC) director of women's outreach and southern political director. She is a member of the Citizen's Debate Commission and serves on the Board of Directors of the American Prospect magazine and Green Media Toolshed. Jehmu was recognized as one of Essence magazine's 40 Women Under 40 Shaping The World. She's also been the recipient of many awards including the National Conference for Community and Justice's  Community Service Award, the American Association of University Women's Women of Distinction Award the and National Council for Research on Women's Women Making a Difference Award.

Tamera Gugelmeyer (New York, NY): Tamera Gugelmeyer is an international feminist activist, writer, and Executive Director of The Sisterhood is Global Institute (SIGI), where she works with expert women’s human rights activists from around the world to leverage the pioneering organization’s 25-year-old history and align it with the political and social justice activism opportunities of Web 2.0 and beyond. Gugelmeyer has been instrumental in revitalizing the fundraising, new media, and marketing and communications strategies of several national women's organizations and has focused on corporate marketing and communications at Cisco Systems, strategic fundraising at Southern Methodist University, and targeted marketing and communications campaigns at the Dallas Women’s Foundation.  Gugelmeyer serves on the boards of Feminist.com and Women and Hollywood, in addition to serving as an advisor to LoveYourBody.org.  She is currently at work on a book about young women, sex and technology. 

Sujatha Jesudason (Oakland, CA): Sujatha Jesudason, PhD, is the Executive Director and founder of Generations Ahead, a social justice organization that brings diverse communities together to promote policies on genetic technologies that protect human rights. Jesudason has worked at Asian Community for Reproductive Justice, Marin Abused Women’s Shelter, Narika, and 9to5 National Association of Working Women. She currently serves as the Board Chair of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum and brings to her work a background in immigration, racial justice, domestic violence prevention, particularly in the South Asian community, and reproductive rights in communities of color. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley in sociology.

Nina Morrison (New York, NY): Nina Morrison is an attorney specializing in criminal justice and human rights issues.  Since 2002, she has been on staff at the Innocence Project in New York, representing prisoners from around the nation who are seeking post-conviction DNA testing to prove their innocence.  During that time, she has represented over a dozen prisoners who have been exonerated by DNA evidence and freed from the nation’s prisons or death rows and has worked on several United States Supreme Court cases involving criminal justice and constitutional issues. Prior to joining the Innocence Project, Nina was a civil rights attorney in private practice, handling a broad range of free speech, employment discrimination, and police misconduct cases.  Nina is a graduate of New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Kern Public Interest Scholar, and Yale University.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz (Milwaukee, WI): As the Founding Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera, a low-wage and immigrant workers center, Christine Neumann-Ortiz is recognized as a leading national voice for immigration reform. Neumann-Ortiz organized the largest political march in Wisconsin history, with over 80,000 people supporting her campaign for humane immigrant policies, and she also coordinates national actions around immigration. Neumann-Ortiz serves on the board of a national coalition of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), which represents over 300 advocacy groups. She has received numerous awards, including the 2007 Thomas G. Cannon Equal Justice Award from the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee and the 2006 Public Service Award from the National Association of Social Workers. She serves on several state and national level boards. Ms. Neumann-Ortiz has been featured in national interviews on NPR, CNN and other outlets. She also writes a regular column in the Voces de la Frontera newspaper, as well as hosting a weekly TV segment on morning television in Milwaukee.

Dara Richardson-Heron (New York, NY): Dara Richardson-Heron is the CEO of the Greater New York City Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, an organization which serves as the largest source of nonprofit funds in the world dedicated to the fight against breast cancer.  Dr. Richardson-Heron has more than 17 years of health care leadership and management experience in the corporate and nonprofit sectors, serving as the Chief Medical Officer of United Cerebral Palsy of NYC and National Chief Medical Officer for United Cerebral Palsy Association.  During her 11 year tenure at Consolidated Edison Company of NY, Inc. she served as the Special Assistant to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,  Executive Medical Director and Director of Human Resources. The recipient of many awards, she has been honored with the YMCA Academy of Women Achievers Award, YMCA Black Achiever in Industry Award and was named one of the “25 Influential Black Women in Business” by The Network Journal.  Dr. Richardson-Heron received a Doctorate in Medicine from New York University School of Medicine and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Biology from Barnard College of Columbia University.

Anita Sharma (Washington, DC): Anita Sharma is the North American coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Campaign, where she supports achieving the Millennium Development Goals to end global poverty. Sharma was the executive director of ENOUGH, an initiative of the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group to abolish genocide and mass atrocities. She served as governance advisor in Indonesia with the Office of the UN Recovery Coordinator and has held international posts in Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, and Kuwait with the International Organization for Migration (IOM).Sharma directed the Conflict Prevention Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and has also worked with the Role of American Military Power Project, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has a Bachelor’s degree with honors from Syracuse University and a Master’s from Columbia University.

Karen Fragala Smith (New York, NY): Karen Fragala Smith is the Associate Editor in the Foreign Department of Newsweek, where she has worked for over a decade, interviewing notable figures including Benazir Bhutto, Madeleine Albright, Mikhail Gorbachev and Vaclav Havel. Smith is currently working on her first nonfiction book, “Welcome to Your World: A Friendly Guide to Global Affairs” to be published in late 2009. Smith has lectured at Tsinghua University in Beijing China on The History and Meaning of Hip-Hop Music, The Roots and Rites of the American Dream and The Significance of the Chinese Olympics. Smith holds a Master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, and is fluent in English and Spanish.

Vanessa Vadim (Atlanta, GA): Vanessa Vadim is an environmental activist, and a syndicated columnist with the Mother Nature Network (MNN.com). Her widely reprinted column, “Ask Vanessa,” tackles everything from environmental impact of food production to head lice to disposing of pharmaceuticals to the energy grid and relative merits of a Carbon Tax. She also does weekly environmental radio spots in her hometown of Atlanta, reaching over 800,000 listeners. She is an engaging speaker, and regularly called upon to address issues ranging from biofuels to the economic potentials of a Green New Deal. Her company, V2 Synergy, provides environmental consulting, and designs edible landscapes and sustainable gardens. In addition, Vadim is an artist and award-winning filmmaker, and currently serves as a Producer-in-Residence at Georgia State University. She graduated with honors from Brown University, and attended the MA program in English and Creative Writing at NYU, as well as NYU's MFA program in Film and Television. Vadim left NYU to co-found MayDay Media, a not-for-profit documentary production company.

Jessica Valenti (New York, NY): Jessica Valenti is the founder and editor of the popular blog and online community, Feministing.com, and the author of three books: Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters, He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut…and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, and The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women.  She is also a co-editor of the anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.  Valenti’s writing has appeared in The Nation, The Guardian (UK), Ms. magazine, Salon.com and Bitch magazine.  She received her Masters degree in Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University, where she is now a part-time lecturer.  Valenti speaks at universities and organizations across the country on feminism, blogging, and politics.

Courtney Young (New York, NY): Courtney Young is the Director of Development for Chica Luna Productions, promoting socially conscious media by, about and for people of color, as well as a blogger at thethirtymilewoman.wordpress.com. Previously, Young served as a research fellow at UCLA’s Summer Humanities Institute. Young’s fiction and pop culture criticism has been published in the Stanford University Black Arts Quarterly, 971 and the Encyclopedia of Hip-Hop Literature. She is currently completing two books, the first an edited collection of essays about the ways in which colorism in pop culture and media effects the lives of Black and South East Asian women in the United States. The second book is a collection of essays about Black women and political citizenship and participation.  Young received her Master’s Degree from NYU and her Bachelor’s Degree from Spelman College.

Tracy Van Slyke (Chicago, IL): Tracy Van Slyke is the Program Director of The Media Consortium, a network of the nation’s leading, independent progressive media outlets. Van Slyke’s first book, Beyond the Echo Chamber: How a Networked Progressive Media Can Reshape American Politics will be published in Fall 2009. Van Slyke is the former publisher of In These Times magazine, and in 2005 and 2006, she co-authored several landmark articles on strengthening the progressive media landscape. Previously, Van Slyke served as the Communications Director for the National Training and Information Center and covered national politics in Knight Ridder’s Washington, D.C. bureau. Van Slyke holds a double BA in Journalism and Mass Communications and Literature, Science and the Arts from the University of Iowa.

For more information or to schedule an interview with any of the Progressive Women's Voices participants, please contact:

Tristin Aaron (212) 563-0680 or tristin@womensmediacenter.com

Rebekah Spicuglia, (212) 563-0680 or rebekah@womensmediacenter.com

The Women’s Media Center (WMC) is proud of the 33 participants of Progressive Women’s Voices for 2008. Progressive Women’s Voices is a media training and spokesperson program from the Women’s Media Center to connect media professionals with smart, media-savvy women experts in a variety of fields. Funded primarily by a generous grant from the NoVo Foundation and with additional support from the UN Foundation and other supporters, Progressive Women's Voices provides each of the participants with intensive media training and ongoing support to promote their perspective and message into the national dialogue.

For more information or to schedule an interview with any of the Progressive Women's Voices participants, please contact

Tristin Aaron, (212) 563-0680 or tristin@womensmediacenter.com

Glennda Testone, (212) 563-0680 or glennda@womensmediacenter.com