Journalist, Attorney

Jill Filipovic, the author of our report, is a journalist based in Nairobi and New York City. Formerly a columnist for the Guardian and Cosmopolitan.com's senior political writer, she is also an attorney. Her work on law, politics, gender and foreign affairs has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, TIME Magazine, Al Jazeera America, the Nation, Foreign Policy, GOOD Magazine, Marie Claire, and others. She was an editor at NYU Law's Journal of Law and Social Change, and a contributor to the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism and the anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, named one of the best books of the year by Publisher's Weekly. Media includes: MSNBC, Al Jazeera, The Nation, Yale Daily

Writer/Journalist

Helen Zia, a WMC Board member, is writer, journalist and former Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine. Her award-winning articles, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including Ms., New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, Essence, The Advocate, and OUT. Helen Zia is an Expert Fellow with University of Southern California's Justice and Journalism program of the Annenberg School of Journalism. Media includes: Huffington Post, NBC, San Francisco Sentinel, CCTV

Director

Soraya Chemaly, a WMC Board member, is a feminist writer, media critic and activist whose work focuses on women’s rights and the role of gender in politics, religion and popular culture. She is a regular contributor to Salon, The Huffington Post, RHRealityCheck, Fem2.0, Role Reboot, The Feminist Wire and other online media. Her writing also appears in The Guardian, Ms. Magazine and CNN. She is a frequent radio and online commentator with Al-Jazeera, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, Voice of Russia and has appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

Former Co-President

Described as "guiding the battles of the women's rights movement" by the New York Times, Marcia Greenberger is the founder and Co-President of the National Women's Law Center. The creation of the Center forty years ago established her as the first full-time women's rights legal advocate in Washington, D.C. A recognized expert on women and the law, particularly in the areas of education and employment, health and reproductive rights, and family economic security, Ms. Greenberger has been a leader in securing the passage of major legislation, counsel in landmark litigation establishing new legal protections for women, and the author of numerous published articles. Media experience: CNN, C-SPAN, The Guardian, Huffington Post, RH Reality Check, USA Today, the Daily Beast

Reproductive Justice Activist & Writer

Renee Bracey Sherman is an award-winning reproductive justice activist and the author of Saying Abortion Aloud: Research and Recommendations for Public Abortion Storytellers and Organizations. She is a writer with Echoing Ida, a project of Forward Together that amplifies the voices of Black women around critical social justice issues. Media includes: BBC, The Guardian, EBONY, Salon, Fusion, TIME, and The Atlantic.

Co-Founder

Cecile Richards is a nationally respected leader in the field of women’s health and reproductive rights. As president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Ms. Richards leads a national organization that has worked for nearly 100 years to build a healthier and safer world for women and teens. Media includes: The Rachel Maddow Show, Andrea Mitchell Reports, Melissa Harris-Perry, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Glamour

Fellow - Gender, Extremism, and Engagement

IIlyse Hogue, President of NARAL, is a nationally-recognized social change practitioner and expert in online engagement with a passion for progressive work. Ilyse is a frequent guest on network and cable news shows including MSNBC, PBS, CNN and Fox News as an expert on the political and policy landscape for reproductive freedom. She writes regular commentary for CNN.com and The Nation, and has had dozens of opinion pieces published in local and national outlets including Politico

Executive Director

Kierra Johnson, Executive Director of URGE, heads the leading pro-choice organization working to mobilize and provide support for the diverse, upcoming generation of leaders. Through her leadership, she promotes the organization’s values of shared power and authority; youth-controlled agendas; collaboration and partnership; constituent-specific strategies; learning; and diversity and inclusion. With many years of experience in the field, Kierra is a leader in the reproductive justice and progressive movements. Media includes: The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Nation, RH Reality Check, US News and World Report

Journalism Department Chair; Associate Professor

Dr. Cristina Azocar is the chair of the Journalism Department and an associate professor of journalism at San Francisco State University. Prior to becoming chair she directed the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism for more than 10 years. Dr. Azocar is interested in implementing programs and conducting research centered on journalism education in order to achieve greater diversity in the nation’s newsrooms. Azocar coined the term the 4 R’s of the journalism pipeline to define the focus journalism education: Recruitment, Retention, Revitalization and Research. Media includes: Tribal Tribune, USA Today, San Jose Mercury News