Janet Dewart Bell, Board Chair of the Women's Media Center, is a social justice advocate, activist, executive coach, and motivational speaker, with a doctorate in Leadership and Change from Antioch University. She is the author of Lighting the Fires of Freedom: African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement. She has been a key strategist and senior executive at a number of national organizations including PolicyLink, the National Urban League, and National Public Radio (NPR). She was the Director of Communications at the National Urban League, where she redesigned, edited, and marketed the League’s signature annual publication, The State of Black America. Media includes: The ED Show, NPR.

Erica Gonzalez is the Director of #Power4PuertoRico, a national coalition of organizations working to clear federal hurdles in the way of the Island’s ability to become more self-sufficient. She is a lifelong advocate for social justice and Latino issues. With expertise in news media, government communications and digital engagement, Erica is a leader in strategic and transformational work. At the New York City Council, she led the development and implementation of the Council’s first-ever digital inclusion and innovation plan. Media includes: USA Today, Spectrum News, Poder Magazine, CNN, Fox.

Recent WMC IDAR/E article: Defending Sonia.

Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever, is an Award-Winning Author, International Speaker, Political Commentator, and Race & Gender Empowerment Expert. As a prolific writer, Dr. Avis is the author or co-author of numerous publications, including her award-winning book, How Exceptional Black Women Lead along with The State of Black Women in the U.S. 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019; Beyond Broke: Why Closing the Racial Wealth Gap is a Priority for National Economic Security; Massive Resistance: A Way Forward for Black America in the Wake of Trump and You Mad? Black Women, Work, and the Normalcy of Disrespect, among many others. Media includes: The Washington Post, the Atlantic, Essence Magazine, Ebony Magazine, CNN, Fox News, PBS, C-Span, TV One, BET, BBC, NPR.

Kimberly Peeler-Allen has been working at the intersection of race, gender and politics for over 20 years. She is currently a Visiting Practitioner at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University where she serves as an advisor on CAWP’s ongoing research and election analysis, and guest lectures in various graduate and undergraduate courses. Inspired by the words of the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” Peeler-Allen is driven to shift the paradigm for the civic voice of Black women. Over the course of her career Kimberly has advised elected officials, candidates and organizations on fundraising, political strategy and coalition building to ensure that there are more diverse voices around decision making tables whether they are in elected bodies or civil society. In 2011, she co-founded Higher Heights, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to building Black women’s collective political power from the voting booth to elected office. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, CBC, PBS, NPR.

April Reign practiced law for nearly twenty years, honing her talent for public speaking, persuasive writing and effecting policy change, but it wasn’t until she walked away from her legal practice that she found her true passion— to accelerate opportunities around content and development in front of and behind the camera for people of color. Reign is part of the founding cohort for She Will Rise, a grassroots campaign to support the nomination and confirmation of the first Black Woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. Media includes: The Huffington Post, The Guardian Forbes, Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC.

A social scientist by training, Vanessa Tyson currently teaches in the Department of Politics at Scripps College in Claremont, CA. Her courses include Black Americans and the Political System; Women and Public Policy; Introduction to Public Policy; Research Design; and Environmental Policy in the US. Dr. Tyson’s book, Twists of Fate: Multiracial Coalitions and Minority Representation in the US House of Representatives (Oxford University Press, 2016), explores structural inequality in policy formulation in the United States, and how members of Congress have formed multiracial coalitions as a strategy to provide for their diverse constituencies. Media includes: US News and World Report, The Sacramento Bee, The Huffington Post, NPR.

Fatima Goss Graves, is the President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center. Goss Graves has served in numerous roles at the National Women’s Law Center for more than a decade and has a distinguished track record working across a broad set of issues central to women’s lives—including income security, health and reproductive rights, education access, and workplace justice. She is widely recognized for her effectiveness in the complex public policy arena at both the state and federal levels, regularly testifies before Congress and federal agencies, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and other public education forums. Goss Graves appears often in print and on air as a legal expert on issues core to women’s lives, including in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, AP, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, MSNBC, PBS and NPR.

Renee Knake Jefferson is a law professor and an award-winning author who regularly speaks about issues related to legal ethics, gender equality, and the judicial system, especially the United States Supreme Court. She is the author of three casebooks and more than 20 law review articles. Professor Jefferson's most recent book, Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court, has been called “an excellent contribution...and essential for anyone who values diversity” by the Library Journal and praised in numerous reviews. Her research is frequently featured in a range of news outlets including the ABA Journal, American Lawyer, Associated Press, Bloomberg Law, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, CNN, Houston Chronicle, Law360, Ms. Magazine, National Law Journal, The New York Times, Politico, Slate, and The Wall Street Journal.

Patricia J. Williams writes the monthly “Diary of a Mad Law Professor” for the Nation magazine. Her wry, witty columns cover broad issues of social justice, including the rhetoric of the war on terror, race, ethnicity, gender, all aspects of civil rights law, bioethics and eugenics, forensic uses of DNA, and comparative issues of class and culture in the US, France, and Britain. Williams is also the author of The Alchemy of Race and Rights and four other books. Patricia J. Williams is University Professor of Law and Philosophy, and director of Law, Technology and Ethics at Northeastern University.. She has served on the faculties of the University of Wisconsin School of Law, City University of New York Law School, and Golden Gate University School of Law and as the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia Law School among others. Media includes: USA Today, Harvard Law Review, Tikkun, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, Ms. Magazine, BBC, NPR.

Chandra Childers is a Study Director at the Institute for Women's Policy Research. She is an expert on social stratification and social and economic inequality by race and sex. Childers examines issues related to women and girls of color and job quality. Some of Chandra's publications include the Status of Black Women in the United States, Status of Women in the South, and Black and Hispanic Women Lag in Recovering from the Recession. Media includes: The Nation, The Atlantic, Voice of America, Refinery29, Al Jazeera.

Imani Perry is a Professor in the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar who studies race and African American culture using the tools provided by various disciplines including: law, literary and cultural studies, music, and the social sciences. She is the author of seven books, the latest released in January 2022 South to America is a narrative journey through the South, arguing that it is the nation’s heartland for better and worse. Perry has published numerous articles in the areas of law, cultural studies, and African American studies. Media includes: The New York Times, The Huffington Post, CNN.

In her role as Director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, Jennifer Dalven oversees and directs the ACLU’s litigation, state advocacy, and communications work on issues affecting access to reproductive health services. That work runs the gamut from legal challenges to laws that would ban abortions and shut down women’s health centers to initiatives to stop state legislatures from passing further restrictions on access to reproductive health care to communications strategies to move public opinion and galvanize supporters. Dalven argued Planned Parenthood v. Ayotte, a challenge to New Hampshire’s parental notice for abortion law, before the United States Supreme Court. Media includes: Los Angeles Times, Teen Vogue, Reuters, Huffington Post, CNN, NBC.

Leah Wright Rigueur is an author, historian, speaker, and Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is an expert in race and politics, US political and social history, African American politics and history, and riots and American backlash, and holds a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University. Leah is the author of The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power (2015), a book that offers a much-needed critical examination of the tense relationship that exists between African Americans and the GOP. Media includes: The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, CNN.

Treva B. Lindsey is a Black feminist cultural critic, historian, and commentator. She is the author of the Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2017: Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington D.C. She is also a professor at The Ohio State University. Her work covers topics ranging from violence against women to fashion at the Met Gala. Many of her pieces focus on representations and experiences of Black women, although her work on race, gender, sexuality, culture and politics encompasses the far-reaching and often untold effects of current events and pop culture moments. Media includes: Al Jazeera, Complex, Vox, The Root, Huffington Post, PopSugar, Teen Vogue, The Grio, Cosmopolitan, BET.

Christina Greer is an Associate Professor of Political Science and American Studies at Fordham University (Lincoln Center Campus). She was the 2018 Fellow for the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University Silver School of Social Work. Her primary research and teaching interests are racial and ethnic politics, American urban centers, presidential politics, and campaigns and elections. Greer's book Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream (Oxford University Press, 2013 ) investigates the increasingly ethnically diverse Black populations in the US from Africa and the Caribbean. She is currently writing her second manuscript and conducting research on the history of all African Americans who have run for the executive office in the U.S. Media includes: The New York Times, MSNBC, NY1, NPR.

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. Media includes: The New York Times, The Economist, The New Yorker, NPR, CNN, CBS.

Dr. Lessie Branch is a Racial Policy Scholar and a Fulbright Specialist in Race, Ethnicity and Religion in Politics, Director of The Think Tank at The Thinkubator, Director of Programs Community Relations at Citizens Committee for New York City and a Scholar with Scholars Strategy Network, and teaches in the Executive Leadership doctoral program with Saint John Fisher College. Her scholarship and practice examine the gulf between Black optimism about group progress and the actual data on continuing disparities, questions of social knowledge, social beliefs and relative group position through the transformative application of rhetorical criticism to interrogate narratives that structure social practices in ways that privilege some and marginalize others. She is the author of Optimism At All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America. Media includes: The New York Times, The Bronx Times, TEDx.

Melanie L. Campbell, President and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, is an expert and passionate advocate on issues impacting African Americans, women, immigrants and youth and the intersection of how politics, public policy, race, gender, class and age impacts quality life for all Americans. Campbell has a strong knowledge base in Black voter participation, civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, election reform, Katrina-Rita Gulf Coast recovery and rebuilding, Census Count, youth leadership development, non-profit management and cross-cultural coalition building. Media includes: The Washington Post, Black Enterprise, The New York Times, Philadelphia Tribune, CNN, NPR.

Anne Voigts specializes in appellate litigation before all levels of state and federal appeals courts. As a partner in King & Spalding's Appellate, Constitutional and Administrative Law practice, Anne represents clients in appellate litigation in a wide variety of criminal and civil matters. She also frequently advises trial teams on legal issues and motion practice, before, during and after trial, and counsels clients on rapidly changing, complex legal issues. Previously, Anne was a litigation associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, where she focused on litigation in the U.S. and California Supreme Courts, as well as federal and state appellate and trial courts. Extensive media experience.

Affectionately known as "Dr. Goddess," Kimberly C. Ellis, Ph.D. is a Scholar of American and Africana Studies, an award-winning Performing Artist, Activist and Entrepreneur as well as a playwright, world traveler and international thought leader on culture, gender and social technology. A popular speaker and presenter, Dr. Goddess was named one of the top "People of Color Impacting the Social Web," one of the "Top Ten Creative Women in Social Media" and one of the "Most Influential Black Women on Twitter." She is presently Director of Community, Arts and Culture for The Buccin/Pollin Group. Media includes: Ebony, Salon, Black Enterprise, Huffington Post, NPR.

C. Nicole Mason, PhD is the President and CEO of the Institute for Women's Policy Research. For the last 15 years, Nicole’s work has focused on issues related economic security and poverty; women’s issues and entitlement reforms; policy formation and political participation among women, communities of color and youth; and racial equity. She has also appeared as guest speaker at the Congressional Black Caucus, the Center for American Progress, the Essence Musical Festival Empowerment Series in New Orleans and on college campuses across the country. Media includes: The Huffington Post, Essence Magazine, POLITICO, RealClear Politics, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, CNN, MSNBC, NPR.

Scholar, teacher, author, administrator and race relations expert Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum was the ninth president of Spelman College. Dr. Tatum is a clinical psychologist whose areas of research include Black families in white communities, racial identity in teens, and the role of race in the classroom. In her critically acclaimed 1997 book, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and Other Conversations about Race, she applies her expertise on race to argue that straight talk about racial identity is essential to the nation. Using real life examples and the latest research, she not only dispels race as taboo, but gives readers a new lens for understanding the emergence of racial identity as a developmental process experienced by everyone. For over 20 years, Dr. Tatum taught her signature course on the psychology of racism. She now serves as the Westside Future Fund Board Chair. Media includes: The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN.