Fatima Goss Graves, who has served in numerous roles at NWLC for more than a decade, has spent her career fighting to advance opportunities for women and girls. She 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 fairness.

Noreen Farrell is the Executive Director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), one of the nation’s leading women’s rights organization, where she has led landmark litigation and policy reform efforts to improve the lives of women and girls at work and school. Noreen has written extensively on women’s economic issues, including discrimination based on pregnancy, pay, and caregiver status. 

Taina Bien-Aimé is the Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.  CATW is the first and oldest international non-governmental organization dedicated to ending trafficking in women and girls and related forms of commercial sexual exploitation as practices of gender-based violence.

Seema Agnani is the Executive Director of the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD) – a coalition of more than 100 community-based organizations in 19 states and the Pacific Islands.  Collectively the coalition improves the lives of over two-million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who live in poverty by providing voice, tools, and shared knowledge to drive change. 

Radhika Balakrishnan, executive director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership, and Professor, Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, has a Ph.D. in Economics from Rutgers University. Previously, she was Professor of Economics and International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College.

Zama Coursen-Neff is the executive director of the children's rights division of Human Rights Watch, where she leads the organization’s work on children’s rights. Coursen-Neff’s expertise covers a range of issues affecting children, including access to education, police violence, refugee protection, the worst forms of child labor, and discrimination against women and girls. 

Amani Al-Khatahtbeh is the founder and editor-in-chief of MuslimGirl.com, the #1 Muslim women’s blog in the United States.  She’s also the author of “Muslim Girl:  A Coming of Age.” She is a frequent speaker at conferences and events addressing issues pertaining to women, Islam, and the Arab world. 

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

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 currently runs Free Women Writers, a collective of activists and writers in Afghanistan and the diaspora advocating for gender equality and social justice.

As the co-founder and co-director of Healing to Action, Karla Altmayer, Esq. advances a multidisciplinary, community-driven model to transform individuals, neighborhoods, and broader communities, to break the silence of gender-based violence. Karla’s expertise is rooted in her work representing farmworkers in rural Illinois. Upon receiving an Equal Justice Works fellowship in 2012, Karla launched a new project at LAF Chicago to represent farmworker women who experienced workplace sexual violence. 

A recognized leader in both the feminist and disability movements, Bonnie Brayton has been the National Executive Director of the DisAbled Women’s Network (DAWN) Canada since May 2007. In this role, she has proven herself as a formidable advocate for women with disabilities here in Canada and internationally. During her tenure with DAWN Canada, Ms. Brayton has worked diligently to highlight key issues that impact the lives of women with disabilities in regards to health equity, housing, employment and violence. 

Lourdes Guadalupe Martinez is an immigrant originally from Mexico City, a home that she left at the age of 13 to move to Texas with her family.  Today, she is the Political Director of Mujeres Unidas y Activas, or MUA, a grassroots organization of Latina immigrant women in the San Francisco Bay Area with a double mission of promoting personal transformation and building community power for social and economic justice. MUA’s focus issue areas are Immigrant Rights; Domestic Worker Rights; and Violence Against Women. 

Named one of the 100 Women Leaders in STEM by STEMconnector,Tricia Berry leads efforts to connect those working to advance gender equity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. As Collaborative Lead of the Texas Girls Collaborative Project, she leads the dissemination of STEM resources and research-based best practices to engage girls in STEM across Texas in coordination with the National Girls Collaborative Project. 

Kelly Dittmar is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University–Camden and Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. She is the author ofNavigating Gendered Terrain: Stereotypes and Strategy in Political Campaigns (Temple University Press, 2015), as well as multiple book chapters on gender and American politics. 

Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro is President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, 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.

Melissa Hillebrenner is Director of Girl Up— an innovative campaign of the United Nations Foundation that works to build and maintain a constituency dedicated to improving the lives of the world’s hardest-to-reach girls. The campaign mobilizes the general public to raise funds and awareness for United Nations programs that serve adolescent girls growing up in developing countries.