Brittney Cooper is an Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies. She received her Ph.D. in American Studies from the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts at Emory University in 2009. She also has an M.A. from Emory (2007) and bachelors degrees in English and Political Science from Howard University (2002). Professor Cooper is currently completing her first book Race Women: Gender and the Making of a Black Public Intellectual Tradition, 1892-Present. Her work focuses extensively in the area of Black women’s intellectual history, Black feminist thought, and race and gender politics in hip hop and popular culture. She has two forthcoming articles about hip hop feminism in Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society and African American Review. Professor Cooper has also published book chapters on Black women’s history in fraternal orders and the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident. She is co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective blog, which was named a top feminist blog by New York Magazine in 2011 and a top race blog by TheRoot.com in 2012. She writes for the CFC as “crunktastic.”

Oleta Garrett Fitzgerald is Director of the Children’s Defense Fund’s Southern Regional Office (CDF-SRO), and also serves as the Regional Administrator for the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative for Economic & Social Justice (SRBWI).

In the past, she has worked for the Atlanta-based Southeastern Public Education Program of the American Friends Service Committee and been a project director for the Southern Regional Council. She joined the Clinton for President Campaign in 1992 and was appointed White House Liaison and Executive Assistant to then Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy by President Bill Clinton in January 1993. Shortly thereafter, she was named the Department’s Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, where she worked with local, state and tribal governments; coordinated the Administration’s long-term recovery of midwestern states affected by The Great Flood of 1993; and was a member of USDA’s executive review panel selecting rural Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities.

Ms. Fitzgerald serves as a board member for the Mississippi Head Start Association, the Mississippi Children’s Museum, the advisory committee for the Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University, and is a member of the State Children’s Welfare Coalition and the Global Women’s Action Network for Children. She also received honorary membership to Pi Alpha Alpha, the National Honor Society for Public Affairs & Administration from Mississippi State University in 1999. Ms. Fitzgerald holds a B.A. in sociology from Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi.

Ms. 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. Ms. Goss Graves is among the co-founders of the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund. Prior to becoming President, Ms. Goss Graves served as the Center’s Senior Vice President for Program, where she led the organization’s broad program agenda to advance progress and eliminate barriers in employment, education, health and reproductive rights and lift women and families out of poverty. Prior to that, as the Center’s Vice President for Education and Employment, she led the Center’s anti-discrimination initiatives, including work to promote equal pay, combat harassment and sexual assault at work and at school, and advance equal access to education programs, with a particular focus on outcomes for women and girls of color.

Ms. Goss Graves received her B.A. from UCLA in 1998 and her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2001. She began her career as a litigator at the law firm of Mayer Brown LLP after clerking for the Honorable Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She currently serves as an advisor on the American Law Institute Project on Sexual and Gender-Based Misconduct on Campus and was on the EEOC Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace and a Ford Foundation Public Voices Fellow. 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.

Thea Lee is the president of the Economic Policy Institute. Lee came to EPI from the AFL-CIO, where she served as deputy chief of staff. She has spent her career advocating on behalf of working families in national policy debates on issues such as wage inequality, workers’ rights, and fair trade. She is co-author of The Field Guide to the Global Economy, published by The New Press, and has authored numerous publications on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the impact of international trade on U.S. wage inequality, and the domestic steel and textile industries.

Lee has been a voice for workers in testimony before congressional committees and in television and radio appearances. She has also served on the State Department Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy, the Export-Import Bank Advisory Committee, and the Board of Directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research, among others. She currently serves on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, to which she was appointed by Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, as well as the boards of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center, the Center for International Policy, the Coalition for Human Needs, and the Progressive Talent Pipeline advisory council. She is also a member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Trade Commission on Affirming American Leadership.

Tram joined New Virginia Majority in 2008. Following the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, she helped fight for federal funding for a health treatment program to address the unmet physical and mental needs of rescue and recovery workers at Ground Zero. In 2005,

Tram traveled to the Gulf Coast to organize the 30,000+ Vietnamese immigrants whose lives were devastated by Hurricane Katrina. For over 2 years, she directed a recovery program that assisted over 3,000 families by providing cultural and language-appropriate services, and she advocated for the sustainable redevelopment of immigrant communities and businesses in New Orleans, LA; Biloxi, MS; and Bayou La Batre, AL. Tram is an alumna of Barnard College, Columbia University and was a 2010 Lead the Way Fellow at the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Aisha Nyandoro is the Founding Chief Executive Officer of Springboard To Opportunities. She uses a “radically resident-driven” approach to end generational poverty. She’s both deeply practical, strategic and very impatient; launching the very first of its kind guaranteed income program for single Black mothers in the history of the United States – The Magnolia Mother’s.

Prior to serving with Springboard, Aisha served as a Program Officer with the Foundation for the Mid-South. During her tenure, she strengthened the Foundation’s community development portfolio by executing a plan focused on five specific strategies aimed at transforming communities.

She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Tennessee State University, a M.A. in Community Psychology and Urban Affairs and a Ph.D. in Ecological Community Psychology from Michigan State University. Aisha’s commitment to community and passion for social change is demonstrated through her varied volunteer work including Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the various boards of directors and advisory councils to which she lends her expertise and service. Aisha has received multiple honors, including recognition as a fellow of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network and Ascend at the Aspen Institute. She is a TEDx speaker and her work has been featured in both print and news media outlets.

Ana Oliveira is President and CEO of The New York Women’s Foundation. Since 2006, Ana has steered the increase of The Foundation’s grantmaking from $1.7M to $9M today. In 31 years, The Foundation has distributed over $66 million to over 350 organizations.

Ana serves as co-chair of The NYC Council Speaker’s Young Women’s Initiative and a Commissioner for the NYC Commission on Human Rights. She sits on the Independent Commission to Study Criminal Justice Reform in NYC and is on the board of Philanthropy New York.

Ana has held key roles as a CEO of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, VP of Programs at Osborne Association, and Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center Substance Abuse Clinic.

Ana attained her M.A. in Medical Anthropology and a PhD. (hon) from the New School for Social Research. She was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and resides in Manhattan.

Stephanie Valencia is a national leader at the nexus of politics, technology and leadership development. She recently served as Political Director at InvestingIn.Us, a political venture capital fund focused on disruptive platforms and initiatives to enhance civic participation, and earlier ran Strategic Partnerships and Outreach at Google.

Stephanie is among a small group of advisers who served President Barack Obama in senior roles through his presidential campaign and both terms in office. She served as an aide to the president at the White House Office of Public Engagement; as Deputy Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker; and as Deputy Latino Vote Director on the 2008 campaign.

Prior to joining the campaign, Stephanie served in leadership roles for a number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including as Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO), Press Secretary to Congressman John Larson (D-CT), Member Services for the House Democratic Caucus Chair, Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), and Press Secretary to Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D-CA).

Building a leadership bench is a core passion for Stephanie. In addition to mentoring many young Latinos and Latinas, she is a co-founder of The Latino Talent Initiative, The Latina Collective, and Latinos44, the alumni association representing the hundreds of Hispanic appointees from the Obama Administration. Stephanie also serves on the boards of Civic Nation, Center for Community Change Action, and The Latino Victory Project.

A progressive scholar, organizer and media personality, Dorian Warren has worked to advance racial, economic and social justice for more than two decades. Like the organizations he leads, Warren is driven by the innate conviction that only social movements – led by the communities most affected by economic, gender and social injustice – can change their communities and public policies for the better.

At this historical and challenging moment, Dorian is uniquely positioned to lead the work of Community Change – organizing and mobilizing powerful, multi-racial alliances around social justice at a time when inequality, political apathy and exclusion are on the rise.

Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, Dorian learned firsthand the power of unions to unleash economic opportunities. His great-grandparents were sharecroppers, his grandparents were janitors and his mother was a teacher in Chicago’s public schools for more than 40 years.

Guided by his intuitive understanding of inequality, Dorian has devoted his life to building the power and capacity of low-income people. As an alum of progressive organizations and universities, Dorian is an unparalleled force in progressive politics in America.

Molly Dickens is co-founder and Executive Director of &Mother, a nonprofit organization dedicated to breaking the barriers that limit a woman’s choice to pursue and thrive in both career and motherhood.

Molly received her B.A. from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Biology from Tufts University. She conducted postdoctoral research focused on stress and female reproductive physiology at the University of Liege in Belgium and at the University of California at Berkeley. After jumping off the academic track, Molly joined a maternal health startup as a founding team member.

Merging her expertise as a stress physiologist, her passion for improving maternal health, and her current work focusing on the structures and systems that fail working mothers, Molly is currently interested in the connections between women’s mental and physical health and caregiver support in the working world.

Michelle Holder is President and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth as well as Associate Professor of Economics at John Jay College, City University of New York. Prior to joining the John Jay College faculty, she worked as an applied economist for a decade in both the nonprofit and government sectors. Her research focuses on the Black community and women of color in the American labor market, and her economic policy reports have been covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Amsterdam News, El Diario, and Dollars & Sense magazine. Michelle has also appeared on, or been quoted in, media outlets such as CNN, Washington Post, NPR, The New Yorker, Black News Channel (BNC), PBS, MSNBC, Al Jazeera-English, Marketplace, and Vox.com.

Her second book, Afro-Latinos in the U.S. Economy, coauthored with Alan Aja, was released May 2021 by Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield.

Michelle received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from The New School for Social Research, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Fordham University.