Director

Soraya Chemaly writes about gender, sexual violence, free speech and the role that gender plays in media, politics, religion and education. Her work appears in TIME, The Guardian, Salon and Role Reboot among other media. She is the Director of the Women's Media Center Speech Project and organizer of the Safety and Free Speech Coalition, both of which are involved in curbing online abuse, media and tech diversity, and expanding women's freedom of expression. Media includes: The Huffington Post, Fem2.0, Alternet, The Feminist Wire, The Guardian

Freelance Writer, Audio Storyteller

Stacia L. Brown, one of the authors of Writing Rape, is the founder of Beyond Baby Mamas (http://beyondbabymamas.com), a blog and online support community for single parents of color. She has been published at The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Salon, The New Republic, Fusion, Buzzfeed, Poets & Writers, and various other publications. Stacia has appeared on The Today Show, NPR, PBS NewsHour, News Nation with Tamron Hall, and HuffPost Live to discuss pop culture, race, and parenting. Stacia has served as an adjunct instructor of composition and creative writing at Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids Community College, Kuyper College, and Community College of Baltimore County. Media includes: NBC News, MSNBC, Huffington Post, NPR

General Counsel and Senior Advisor for Education

Neena K. Chaudhryis Senior Counsel and Director of Equal Opportunities in Athletics at the National Women's Law Center, where she has focused on gender equity in education and health/reproductive rights issues affecting women and girls. She has served as counsel on several cases, including Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (in which the Supreme Court established that schools have an obligation under Title IX to address student-to-student sexual harassment) and Simpson v. University of Colorado (case involving allegations of University’s inaction in the face of sexual harassment/assault of female students by football players/recruits), as well as other cases involving gender equity in high school and college athletic programs. Media includes: Fortune, Fox31, Texas Tribune, KTSB, WTOP.

Co-Creator

Hannah Brancato is Co-Founder and Co-Director of FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture. FORCE is a creative activist collaboration to upset the dominant culture of rape and promote a culture of consent. Hannah Brancato and Rebecca Nagle formed FORCE in 2010 to create a more public, difficult and honest conversation, demanding that we face the realities of sexual violence in the US. To promote this needed conversation, FORCE creates art actions to generate media attention and get millions of people talking. Media includes: Huffington Post, Bitch Media, Jezebel, New York Magazine, New York Daily News

Date Rape and Sexual Assault Awareness Advocate

For many years JoAnn Buttaro has been a keynote speaker on the subject of rape and sexual assault with experience speaking to groups ranging from victims advocate trainings, Take Back the Night events on college and university campuses on the East and West coasts and a University of Pennsylvania’s Victimology course each semester for the past 3 years. JoAnn is an advocate of date rape and sexual assault victims who can’t speak for themselves. Media includes: ABC News 20/20 Investigation Discovery Channel documentary, Out of the Box

Education Manager, Department of Emergency Medicine

Angela Esquivel, a survivor of sexual assault, has committed herself to leveraging traumatic experiences into powerful catalysts for change. For the past 5 years, Angela has taught a sex-positive, consent-based course in Human Sexuality to undergraduates at GW, work she was inspired to do after serving as a rape crisis counselor for the District of Columbia Rape Crisis Center. After completing their intensive 65-hour training program, she completed over 300 hours of volunteer service hours answering calls on the hotline and meeting survivors at the hospital who were receiving forensic medical examinations. Since working with DCRCC, Angela co-founded her own non-profit organization, the As One Project, and currently serves as its Executive Director. The As One Project is the first national non-profit to provide resources and support exclusively for friends and family members of survivors of sexual violence. Media includes: Huffington Post, United States Senate, GW Hatchet

Founder and Executive Director

The work of Jaclyn Friedman has redefined the concept of “healthy sexuality” and popularized the “yes means yes” standard of sexual consent that is quickly becoming law on many US campuses. As an undergraduate, Jaclyn thought she was too smart to become a victim of sexual assault – until another student proved her wrong. Since then, she has become a tireless anti-rape activist, changing the conversation by insisting that authentic sexual liberation is a necessary condition to end the systemic sexualization and violation of women. Her groundbreaking work has led Lyn Mikel Brown (Co-founder of the anti-sexualization girls' coalition SPARK and Professor of Education and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Colby College) to call her “this generation’s version of Dr. Ruth.” Media includes: CNN, Washington Post, Democracy Now!, The Nation, Q, BBC, Huffington Post, Salon

State Representative

Jillian Gilchrest is Senior Policy Analyst at the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, Connecticut’s leading force for women’s equality. She is a feminist millennial with more than a decade of political advocacy experience. Jillian has worked as Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut and Policy & Communications Director for Connecticut’s Sexual Assault Coalition. She is vocal in the anti-sexual violence movement, working closely with lawmakers to champion affirmative consent legislation and standards to address and prevent Connecticut’s rape kit backlog. She also works on public policy related to pay equity, domestic violence restraining orders, “revenge porn”, crisis pregnancy centers, and childcare. Jillian is recognized as “a woman to watch” by the Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund. Media includes: The Huffington Post, WNPR, Hartford Courant, FoxCT

CXO/Cofounder

Latoya Peterson is the author of the essay , "The Not Rape Epidemic" which was published in the anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (Seal Press, 2008). A certified media junkie, Latoya Peterson provides a hip-hop feminist and anti-racist view on pop culture with a special focus on video games, anime, American comics, manga, magazines, film, television, and music. She regularly speaks on topics of race, gender, and social media at conferences like Women, Action and the Media and South by Southwest Interactive. Media includes: Newsweek, The Boston Globe, CNN

Founder and Editor

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, 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. Media includes: CNN, Today Show, Colbert Report, The Nation, The Guardian.

Freelance Journalist, Activist

Wagatwe Wanjuki is a writer and activist who first got her start blogging and organizing for social change as a co-organizer of the movement at Tufts University for an improved sexual assault policy. As a survivor-turned-activist, she uses her experience to help the most disempowered to use the power of new media to raise the voices of the most marginalized. Knowing the importance of Title IX and empowering students, she served as a contributor and media consultant with the Know Your IX campaign to educate students about their Title IX rights and is a co-organizer of the student-lead group ED ACT NOW, which wrote a petition to the Department of Education that has collected over 170,000 signatures in support of better Title IX enforcement. Media includes: The Daily Show, Katie, ESSENCE, The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Equal Justice Works Fellow

Dana Bolger is a columnist at Feministing.com and a founding co-director of Know Your IX (http://knowyourIX.org), a national survivor- and youth-led organization to end sexual and gender-based violence in school. Know Your IX fills the gap between the law on the books and survivors on the ground: the organization brings Title IX to students, educating them about their rights and empowering them to take action for safety, justice, and equity on campus; and brings students' voices, experiences, and concerns to the policymakers writing the next chapter in Title IX's history. As co-director, Bolger leads efforts to strengthen federal Title IX enforcement, chiefly by curating an extensive legal education website (http://knowyourIX.org) that empowers students to learn their rights and insist that their schools respect them; and by organizing educational meetings with federal officials, key stakeholders, and coalition members. Media includes: NPR, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Boston Globe