Women's Health Leadership Network

The Women’s Health Leadership Network is a diverse and dynamic group of 15 women from around the country who represent a new generation of leaders in the reproductive health, rights, and justice movements.  Founded in May 2005 by the Center for American Progress, the Network is part of the Center’s efforts to cultivate and promote emerging progressive voices and visions.  The Center relies on the Network members to inform the work of our Women’s Health and Rights Program and to reach new audiences and constituencies. Support for the Women's Health Leadership Network has been provided by the Alki Fund of the Tides Foundation.

Jill E. Adams, Esq. is the Executive Director of Law Students for Reproductive Justice, a non-profit organization that educates, organizes, and supports law students to ensure that a new generation of advocates will be prepared to protect and expand reproductive rights as basic civil and human rights. She has been serving the organization since 2004 in a variety of roles, including legal intern, conference speaker, intern trainer, and Board President. As ED, Jill is responsible for coordinating and executing all programming, marketing, development, outreach, staff, and volunteer recruitment, as well as extensive public speaking and writing.

She is committed to empowering law students, building coalition with other social justice groups, and fostering LSRJ’s long-term sustainability. She graduated with honors from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 2000 and from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 2006. Jill is author of “Unlocking Liberty: Is California’s Habeas Law the Key to Freeing Unjustly Imprisoned Battered Women?” 19 Berkeley Women’s L.J. 217 (2004), reprinted in Nancy Lemon, Domestic Violence Law, (2d ed. 2005).
For more information, visit: http://lsrj.org/.

Aspen Baker is the Founder and Executive Director of Exhale. Under her leadership, Exhale has grown from a completely volunteer-led, grassroots project to the well-respected, national organization it is today. After her own abortion in 1999, Aspen was unable to find a service to talk about her feelings that didn't have a political or moral agenda. This personal experience inspired her to search out allies and eventually led to the birth of Exhale.

Aspen is currently an Advisory Board Member for Our Truths/Nuestras Verdades, a bilingual grassroots 'zine' that provides women who have had abortions with the opportunity to express themselves, and Rights!Camera!Action!, a traveling film festival that celebrates stories of reproductive health and freedom. She was a 2004 fellow with the Women's Policy Institute, and in 2003 she was named one of the nation's "top 30 activists under 30" by Choice USA. Prior to becoming the Executive Director of Exhale, Aspen worked in fundraising and direct services for a variety of nonprofit organizations in the Bay Area in the fields of women's health and human rights. Aspen grew up in San Clemente, California, and is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
For more information, visit: http://www.4exhale.org/.

Shana Griffin is a radical black feminist, the mother of a 14-year-old, a social justice organizer, graduate student, and researcher. Shana grew up in a racially and economically segregated public housing development in downtown New Orleans, where she became acutely aware of economic, racial, and gender disparities fueled by violence, the overpolicing of communities of color, and multiple subjectivities.

Shana received two undergraduate degrees in history and sociology from the University of New Orleans in 2000 and is currently completing her master’s degree in sociology. Shana is a member of the national advisory collective of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and is an advisory member of “Painting Our Courage: A Revolution To End Gender-Based Violence and HIV and AIDS,” a documentary project of Mehret Mandefro, Jacqueline Patterson, and Aishah Shahidah Simmons. 

Shana currently serves as the Interim Executive Director of the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic, and Project Coordinator of the Sexual & Reproductive Advocacy Project, a New Orleans-based strategic planning and participatory action research initiative. She is co-founder of New Orleans Women’s Health & Justice Initiative, a multidimensional community-based organizing project centered on improving women of color access to quality, affordable, and safe health care services, integrating health provision with the struggles to end gender-based violence and organizing for sexual and reproductive justice, and violent free communities. Shana serves on the Boards of Women With A Vision, Inc., Nowe Miasto Limited Equity Housing Cooperative. Shana is assisting with development of the New Orleans Women of Color Resource and Organizing Center, a project of WHJI and INCITE! New Orleans. Shana is also co-collaborating on the development of the regional and community development research institute.

Leila Hessini was born in Algeria, now lives in Morocco and serves as senior policy advisor at Ipas, a global organization that promotes women’s sexual and reproductive rights. She has written extensively on the women’s movement in the Middle East and North Africa. Leila serves on several boards that promote women’s human rights. For more information, visit: www.ipas.org

Silvia Henriquez oversees management, fundraising, and administration of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. In just three years, Henriquez positioned NLIRH as one of the leading organizations working to advance the reproductive health and rights of Latinas. She has increased national visibility through the March for Women’s Lives, the National Latina Summit, and various public speaking events. Prior to her leadership position at NLIRH, Henriquez was the national campus coordinator at the Feminist Majority Foundation, the outreach director at the National Abortion Federation, and a policy analyst with the Latino Issues Forum.

Henriquez currently sits on the board of directors of both the Reproductive Health Technologies Project and the Guttmacher Institute. She has also been recognized by the National Women’s Health Network at their 30th Anniversary as one of the 30 activists working on behalf of women’s health. Henriquez is also the recipient of the 2005 Young Professional Award from the American Public Health Association.

She has a B.A in international affairs and an M.A. in women’s studies from the George Washington University. Henriquez has co-authored Our Health Our Rights: Reproductive Justice for Latinas in California (2003) and authored Forging New Partnerships, Improving Access to Reproductive Health Care for Latina Immigrants (2004).
For more information, visit: http://latinainstitute.org/.

Sujatha Jesudason, Ph.D., Executive Director of Generations Ahead, began working for reproductive and genetic justice at the Center for Genetics and Society in 2004. She founded Generations Ahead in 2008 and helped develop its vision of inserting a powerful social justice voice in the public policy debates on reproductive and genetic technologies. Generations Ahead brings diverse communities together to promote policies on genetic technologies that protect human rights and affirm our shared humanity. She has been active as an organizer, advocate and researcher in communities of color and on women's issues for more than 18 years. She serves on the Board of Directors of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum and comes to this work with a background in immigration, racial justice, domestic violence prevention, particularly in the South Asian community, and reproductive rights in communities of color. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley in sociology.
For more information, visit: http://www.generations-ahead.org/.

Kierra Johnson is the Executive Director of Choice USA, an organization that mobilizes and provides ongoing support to the diverse, upcoming generation of leaders who promote and protect reproductive choice both now and in the future. Johnson’s top priority is developing new leaders, and since 1999, she has helped Choice USA transform its image, voice, and mission, from a pro-choice organization with a youth project into a dynamic, youth-led, and youth-focused organization. From the diversity of participants in regional and national trainings, to the organization’s strategic collaborations and partnerships, Choice USA has redefined what it means to be youth-driven by developing young leaders and funneling them to positions of leadership across the progressive movement. Johnson is the 2002 recipient of the Young Women of Achievement Award from the Women's Information Network and served as a member of the Board of Medical Students for Choice from 2003 to 2006. Johnson currently serves on the Resource Generation’s National Organizing Advisory Committee and is a District of Columbia Delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
For more information, visit: http://www.choiceusa.org/.

Mia Mingus is a queer, disabled woman of color, South Korean transracial adoptee, organizer and one of the Co-Executive Directors of SPARK Reproductive Justice Now (formerly Georgians for Choice) in Atlanta, Georgia. She believes that reproductive justice is crucial in the struggle for social change and the fight to end oppression. Through her work on disability, race, reproductive justice, gender, sexuality, and transracial adoption, she recognizes the urgency and barriers for oppressed communities to work together and build alliances for liberation. Though her activism changes and evolves, her roots remain firmly planted in ending sexual violence.
For more information, visit: http://sparkrj.org/.

Kate Ott is Associate Director of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing. Combining over 10 years of work in faith communities, youth programs, and public health initiatives, she has devoted herself to advocating for sexual and reproductive justice in faith communities. She works with and develops connections between congregations, denominational bodies, public policy makers, and seminaries.

Kate holds a doctorate in Christian Social Ethics from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and a Master of Arts in Religion from Yale Divinity School. She is at work on a book project, entitled Saying No is Not Enough: Re-thinking Adolescent Sexual Ethics, based on her dissertation, and has a co-edited book forthcoming, Just Hospitality in a World of Riotous Difference. In addition to a number of scholarly articles, Kate is co-author of the second edition of A Time to Speak: Faith Communities and Sexuality Education and The Age of AIDS: A Guide for Faith-based Communities. She teaches ethics and sexuality related courses in university and seminary settings, and offers workshops for sexual and reproductive health organizations as well as congregations on sexuality education in faith based contexts.
For more information, visit: http://www.religiousinstitute.org/.

Diana Philip, Interim Executive Director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, has been working in public interest law and non-profit organizations for almost 20 years with issues involving gender violence, reproductive justice, and civil liberties. She began her activist career while an undergraduate at Indiana University as a student lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of Southern Indiana and a research assistant at the Kinsey Institute. After college, she developed innovative crisis intervention and legal advocacy programs for domestic violence and rape crisis organizations in Indiana and Texas for several years. In the late 1990s, Philip served as North Texas Regional Director for the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2001, she founded and launched the nationally recognized youth rights organization, Jane's DUE PROCESS, and served as executive director for its first four years. Philip just recently completed a successful 3-year pilot project for the Women's Advocacy Project serving as a consultant to domestic violence programs to increase legal services for battered women and their children in rural counties across Texas. In addition to answering approximately 6,000 hotline calls from Texas pregnant minors seeking information on their rights to abortion while at Jane's DUE PROCESS (and securing their medical and legal services where needed), Philip served as a patient advocate part-time for Whole Women’s Health in Austin for nearly 3 years. Not a stranger to us, she has served as a consultant and organizer for ACP, launching the first regional conversational event, the Texas Abortion Conversation, in December 2005, and has been providing non-profit business consulting to NCAP since January 2007. Philip is a member of the Women's Health Leadership Network for the Washington, D.C., think tank, the Center for American Progress, and serves on the advisory board for Lilith: A Fund for Reproductive Equity, a Texas-based abortion fund organization. She has presented at many professional conferences on the reproductive rights of minors including those sponsored by the National Abortion Federation, National Network of Abortion Funds, regional chapters of Medical Students for Choice, and state chapters of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, in addition to various law schools and medical schools. Philip has received awards in advocacy from the Dallas and San Antonio affiliates of Planned Parenthood as well as the first Reproductive Equity Award given by the Lilith Fund.
For more information, visit: http://www.ncap.com/.

Giovanna Rossi, Women’s Health Policy Advisor for the State of New Mexico, is originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico, but also grew up in Oxford, England. She received her bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Latin American studies from the University of New Mexico and her master’s degree in public policy from the London School of Economics. Rossi began her career working on campaign finance issues and moved on to raise money for democratic women to run for office in New Mexico. Rossi was the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice New Mexico for over five years, during which time the state legislature passed contraceptive equity and emergency contraception access bills, moving the state from a B- to a B+ grade for reproductive health. She was appointed by Gov. Bill Richardson (D) to his transition team for the Department of Health in 2003, and served as vice-chair of the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women from 2005 to 2006. Rossi was a columnist for the alternative newspaper, the Weekly Alibi, in 2005, and currently volunteers for Women’s Focus on the local NPR station, KUNM 89.9 FM. Rossi is the past president of the board of Emerge New Mexico, an organization dedicated to training women to run for office. In July 2006, Gov. Richardson appointed Rossi to be the first ever Women’s Health Policy Advisor, charged with establishing the Governor’s Women’s Health Advisory Council and developing and promoting women’s health policy for the state of New Mexico. Rossi also holds an adjunct faculty appointment at the University of New Mexico, where she teaches a women's health policy class.
For more information, visit http://www.womenscommission.state.nm.us/womenshealth

Malika Saada Saar is the Founder and Executive Director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights. The Ford Foundation honored The Rebecca Project for Human Rights’ achievements with the “Leadership for Changing World” award. Ms. Saada Saar and the Rebecca Project for Human Rights were also selected by Redbook magazine for the Mothers and Shakers 2005 Award. Ms. Saada Saar is the founder of Crossing the River, a written and spoken word workshop for mothers in recovery from substance abuse, and the founder and former executive director of Family Rights and Dignity, a civil rights project for low-income and homeless families in California. Ms. Saada Saar has been featured in Essence magazine, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, “Good Morning America,” USA Today, The Tavis Smiley Show, and Redbook magazine.

Ms. Saada Saar received her B.A. from Brown University, M.A. in education from Stanford University, and J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.
For more information, visit: http://www.rebeccaproject.org/.

Eveline Shen, MPH is the Executive Director for Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice. A first-generation Chinese American, Ms. Shen has been with ACRJ for eight years. Over the last 16 years, she has organized extensively with low-income communities of color around issues of social and environmental justice. She has served as the director of multiple countywide projects developing strategies of community organizing, popular education, community-based participatory research, and policy-advocacy. In the last eight years, Eveline has focused her work in the Asian Pacific Islander communities and has written articles, manuals, and training curriculum on popular education and community organizing. She holds a master’s degree in public health from UC Berkeley in community health education.
For more information, visit: http://www.reproductivejustice.org/index.html.

Aimée Thorne-Thomsen brings her passion as a social justice activist and her extensive experience in leadership and communications to her role as Executive Director of the Pro-Choice Public Education Project. Her work at PEP focuses on creating spaces for and elevating the voices of young women in the reproductive justice movement. Prior to joining PEP, she held senior management positions in the non-profit and private sectors. Aimée sits on the Center for American Progress' Women's Health Leadership Network and the board of directors of the the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, Law Students for Reproductive Justice, and the Steering Committee for Causes in Common. She also serves on the editorial board of Our Truths/Nuestras Verdades. She earned her bachelor of arts degree from Yale University and a master’s degree in public administration from Baruch College, City University of New York.
For more information, visit: http://www.protectchoice.org/.

Rhonda Waller, Ph.D. is the Deputy Director of Break the Cycle, a national non-profit organization dedicated to engaging, educating, and empowering youth to build lives and communities free from domestic and dating violence. Dr. Waller's passion for reproductive health rights, maternal and child health, and youth services, coupled with her ability to reach out to her clients, staff, and colleagues with genuine compassion and the desire to serve, contributes to her history of success with non-profit, community-based organizations. Dr. Waller earned her B.A. from Spelman College, her M.A. from Clark-Atlanta University and her Ph.D. from Howard University.
For more information, visit www.breakthecycle.org  

Miriam Yeung is currently Executive Director, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum. Yeung is a dynamic and charismatic leader who brings diverse experiences to NAPAWF as a policy advocate, organizer, fundraiser, and manager. Prior to joining NAPAWF, Yeung was the director of public policy and government relations at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center in New York City. While at the center, Miriam was responsible for the advocacy, public policy research, community organizing, and government relations work. Her achievements include spearheading Promote the Vote, one of the country's oldest and largest LGBT voter education and mobilization projects, as well as Causes in Common, a national cross-movement project which seeks to build working alliances between the Reproductive Justice and LGBT Liberation Movements. Prior to her current position, Miriam worked in the LGBT Community Center's Youth Enrichment Services Program for seven years. In this capacity, she was the driving force behind its Safe Schools Campaign, a project that seeks to erase hate and homophobia from schools through the empowerment, training, and support of youth leaders.

Born in Hong Kong, Miriam immigrated to the United States when she was two and grew up in the Brooklyn projects. She is a graduate of New York University and received her master’s degree in public administration from Baruch College.
For more information, visit: http://www.napawf.org/.

Former Members
Kiran Ahuja, former Executive Director of National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.
Courtney Bell, former  Executive Director of All Women's Health Clinic, Bottomless Closet, and the Chicago Women's Health Center.
Eily Marlow, former  Executive Director of the Minnesota Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
Lourdes Rivera, former Project Director at the National Health Law Project and currently a Program Officer at the Ford Foundation.
Lisa Stone,  Executive Director  of the Northwest Women's Law Center.
Errin Vuley, former  Executive Director of Georgians for Choice.