Tarah Demant is the Director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Identity Program at Amnesty International USA. She leads the organization’s work on women’s rights, LGBTI rights, the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and sexual and reproductive rights. She brings over eighteen years of experience in global gender issues and has advocated for human rights at the United Nations, the White House, State Department, Department of Defense, USAID, Capitol Hill, and with many foreign governments. She chairs the 184 organization Coalition to End Violence Against Women Globally. Media includes: The New York Times, Al Jazeera, Time, USA Today, The Nation, CNN, BBC, PRI.

Akila Radhakrishnan is the President of the Global Justice Center. She directs GJC’s strategies and efforts to establish legal precedents protecting human rights and ensuring gender equality. In 2010, she helped to conceptualize GJC’s August 12th Campaign to ensure access to abortion services for girls and women raped in war as a matter of right and has since led legal and advocacy efforts on the project. Media includes: The New York Times, Time Magazine, The Nation, Al Jazeera, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy.

Erika Guevara-Rosas is a feminist lawyer and human rights activist, who currently serves as the Americas Director at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. She is responsible for leading the organization’s human rights work across the region. Guevara-Rosas has more than twenty years of international experience in the fields of human rights and social justice philanthropy. Extensive media experience.

Cheryl Thomas is the founding Director of Global Rights for Women. Since 1993, Cheryl has worked with partners around the world to promote women’s human rights and achieve effective legal reform to end violence against women. She has participated in the drafting of new laws on violence against women and girls in over 25 countries and trained legal professionals to enforce such laws in dozens of countries. Media includes: Newsweek, Huffington Post, Star Tribune.

Lina AbiRafeh, PhD is global women's rights activist and Executive Director of the Arab Institute for Women at the Lebanese American University, established in 1973 as the first women’s institute in the Arab region – and one of the first globally. The Institute advances women’s rights and gender equality at the intersection of academia and activism. AbiRafeh is an accomplished feminist leader with over 20 years’ international experience in women’s rights and gender equality – particularly focused on ending violence against women in humanitarian emergencies. Media includes: Al Jazeera, France 24, The Conversation, CNN.

Consolee Nishimwe is an author, a motivational speaker and a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda when she was fourteen years old. She suffered physical and emotional torture during her three months in hiding and miraculously survived with her mother and younger sister. Today, Consolee is a committed speaker on the genocide, a defender of women rights and an advocate for other genocide survivors. Media includes: The Huffington Post, Al Jazeera America, Voice of America, UN Africa Renewal Magazine, The Atlantic, Time Magazine.

Sara (Meg) Davis is a leading expert on global health and human rights, with a specific expertise on digital health and human rights. She is a special advisor at the Global Health Centre, Graduate Institute, Geneva, and teaches courses on sexual violence in conflicts and emergencies for humanitarian program managers at the Geneva Centre for Humanitarian Studies. Media includes: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reuters, Bloomberg, BBC, NPR.

Karyn Gershon is the Executive Director of Project Kesher, an organization that supports a network of 200 women's groups and 90 interfaith coalitions in Belarus, Georgia, Russia and Ukraine working to build civil society, advance the status of women and promote tolerance. Originally conceived as a vehicle to help rebuild Jewish life in the region, today Project Kesher supports initiatives that bring together people, non-profits and government institutions to address such issues as religious tolerance, bullying, domestic violence, trafficking in women and women's health. Media includes: The Chicago Tribune, Sh’ma Magazine.

Yasmeen Hassan is the Global Executive Director of Equality Now, an international human rights organization focused on women and girls’ rights. She is a native of Pakistan and has been involved in women’s rights since very early in her career, authoring the first study of domestic violence in Pakistan, which ultimately became the country’s submission to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Media includes: The New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, The Guardian.

Emily Mendenhall is a medical anthropologist who writes about how social trauma, poverty, and social exclusion become embodied in chronic mental and physical illness. She is a Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor in the Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA) Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Media includes: Vice News, The Atlantic.

Noorjahan Akbar is an outspoken women right's advocate and author from Afghanistan. She has worked with several Afghan and global organizations focusing on women’s empowerment and ending gender-based violence and led nation-wide campaigns and protests in defense of human rights. She runs Free Women Writers, a collective of activists and writers in Afghanistan and the diaspora advocating for gender equality and social justice, and is the Communications Manager for the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. Media includes: Al Jazeera, The New York Times, Forbes.

Cristina M. Finch is the head of the gender and security division at DCAF – Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance. Previously, she headed the Tolerance and Non-Discrimination Department at the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and served as the policy director for women’s human rights at Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) and as an adjunct law professor at George Mason University School of Law. At AIUSA, Ms. Finch focused on women’s and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) human rights; economic, social and cultural rights; and multilateral issues. Media includes: Associated Press, Al Jazeera, Reuters, The Guardian, Fox News.

Palang Kasmi is editor on the women, gender and health desk at the Nigeria Standard/Sunday Standard Newspapers, Jos. She covers development stories, ranging from human rights, women, health, gender, environment, politics, education, social and cultural issues, with an experience spanning for 18 years. Media includes: Jos, Inspire Magazine, PRTVC Radio.

Patricia T. Morris is an internationally known leader in women’s empowerment and development, and a gender-mainstreaming expert with a career spanning more than 20 years. Her work has taken her to Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Morris currently works as the Director, Gender and Inclusive Development at EnCompass LLC, and as an adjunct professor at American University. Media includes: Christian Science Monitor, Essence Magazine, Voice of America, NPR.

Karen Musalo, Professor and Chair in International Law, University of California, Hastings College of the Law, is the founding director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and the Refugee and Human Rights. She represented Rody Alvarado (Matter of R-A-), whose case exemplified the struggle for the right to asylum for women fleeing domestic violence, and was amicus in Matter of A-R-C-G-, a precedent decision which held that a viable claim to asylum could be based on domestic violence. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, ABC.

Nisha Varia is advocacy director in Human Rights Watch's women's rights division, which she joined in 2003. She leads Human Rights Watch’s training on interviewing survivors of trauma, including sexual violence. Varia has also conducted extensive research, published several reports, and carried out advocacy campaigns on migrant domestic workers’ rights across Asia and the Middle East, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. She teaches a graduate course on human rights research and advocacy at the New School. Media includes: Al Jazeera, The New York Times, The Economist, BBC, CNN.

Laurie Adams is the Chief Executive Officer of Women for Women International (WfWI), a leading global organization that works with women survivors of war in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Sudan offering support, tools, and access to life-changing skills to move women and communities from crisis and poverty to stability and economic self-sufficiency. Media includes: The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Global Dispatches.

Bree Akesson is an Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Global Adversity and Wellbeing at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. She is also a faculty affiliate with the CPC Learning Network and a clinical treatment facilitator at the Global Psychiatric Epidemiology Group at New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Akesson has worked in a variety of international settings in Africa (Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda), Asia (Afghanistan, Chechnya, Indonesia), Middle East (Israel, Lebanon, Palestine), Europe (Hungary, Sweden), and North America (Canada, United States). She has worked as a consultant for for the International Rescue Committee, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development, USAID, UNICEF, and Save the Children. She is currently the principal investigator for two research projects with families displaced by the war in Syria. Media includes: Toronto Star, Daily News Egypt, CKUT Radio.

Viviana Waisman is the President, CEO and founder of Women's Link Worldwide, an international non-profit organization that uses the power of the law to promote social change that advances the human rights of women and girls, especially those facing multiple inequalities. Waisman is an expert in women’s rights and international human rights law. She has led the litigation strategy in numerous emblematic human rights cases before national, regional and international bodies. Media includes: Huffington Post, Reuters, The New York Times.

Jacqueline Murekatete is an internationally recognized genocide survivor and human rights activist. Born in Rwanda, Jacqueline was nine years old when she lost her parents, all six siblings and most of her extended family to the 1994 genocide. Murekatete has delivered hundreds of genocide-prevention and human rights presentations at schools, NGO events and faith-based communities across the U.S and in Germany, Israel, Ireland, Bosnia, and Belgium. Media includes: The New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Jerusalem Post, Al Jazeera America, CNN, PBS, NBC, ABC.

Felice Gaer is Director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Human Rights. She is also vice chair and an independent expert member of the UN Committee against Torture, which monitors compliance of 163 states with the Convention against Torture. Media includes: The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Reuters, ABC, CBS, Fox.

Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro was President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women for nine years. The Global Fund for Women is a public foundation which seeds, strengthens, links and supports the capacity building of women’s rights organizations in every part of the world. The Global Fund for Women’s grants help expand the choices available to women and ensure that women’s voices are heard at local, national and international levels. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, BBC, CNN.

Dr. Laura Hinson currently serves as a Social and Behavioral Scientist at ICRW, where she works to identify and reduce barriers to sexual and reproductive health for men, women, adolescents and other marginalized populations. She currently directs two large research and evaluations projects related to child marriage and family planning in Africa and Asia. Extensive media experience.

Muadi Mukenge is an expert on women’s health and rights, political transition, and economic development in Africa. Mukenge is currently the Chief of Development and External Relations at IPAS, previously she was the Project Director of African Health Professions Regional Collaborative at Emory University. Prior to that, she was the Regional Director for Sub-Saharan Africa at The Global Fund for Women, an international network of women and men who advocate for and defend women's human rights by making grants to support women's groups around the world. Media includes: NPR.

Dr. Sine Plambech (PhD) is an anthropologist working on irregular migration, trafficking, sex work, and the European migration crisis. She is a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies Department of Migration, Finance & Aid and Adjunct Professor at Barnard College – Department of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Columbia University. Plembach has fifteen years of experience, including field work experience, among sex workers, sex worker migrants, victims of human trafficking, smuggled migrants, marriage migrants. Media includes: Le Monde, Deutche Welle, CNN.