Aziza Ahmed holds a law degree from the University of California Berkeley, a master′s of science in population and international health from the Harvard School of Public Health, and a BA from Emory University. She is currently Assistant Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law.  Prior to joining the Northeastern faculty, Professor Ahmed was a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health Program on International Health and Human Rights. She came to that position after a Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship with the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW). At ICW, Professor Ahmed engaged in numerous human rights projects pertaining to women and HIV/AIDS including on the forced and coerced sterilization of positive women in Namibia. Aziza has worked on human rights and social justice issues in South Africa, Namibia, the Caribbean, India and the United States. She has worked with and for various United Nations agencies, international and domestic non-governmental organizations.

Professor Ahmed currently serves a member of the Technical Advisory Group on HIV and the Law convened by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).  She continues to support the work of many civil society organizations domestically and internationally.  She teaches Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights, International Health Law, and Property Law. 

Deborah Arrindell is the vice president of health policy and head of the Washington, D.C., office for the American Social Health Association (ASHA). During her tenure at ASHA she has been instrumental in organizing advocacy efforts on a number of STD-related policy issues. Currently, she also serves on the boards of Advocates for Youth, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, the Global Campaign for Microbicides, and the Partnership to End Cervical Cancer. Prior to joining ASHA, Ms. Arrindell held numerous positions in health and social policy, including serving as executive director of the Home Care Aid Association of America, associate Director of Governmental Affairs for the American Nurses Association, assistant director of social policy for the League of Women Voters and public policy director for Wider Opportunities for Women. Ms. Arrindell has more than 30 years experience in social policy and health policy, including work for women’s economic justice, reproductive and sexual health and employment and training.

Kelly Blanchard is the president of Ibis Reproductive Health. She holds a master’s degree in population and international health and a bachelor’s degree in social studies from Harvard University. She was also a Fulbright Scholarship in Ghana. Prior to joining Ibis, Ms. Blanchard worked at the Population Council as a program associate, where she managed a growing program on reproductive health in South Africa and the Southern African region. Her most recent research has focused on contraception, medical and surgical abortion, microbicides, and cervical barriers for HIV/STI prevention. Ms. Blanchard has authored or co-authored more than forty articles on reproductive health topics in developed and developing countries. In 2006, Ms. Blanchard won the Outstanding Young Professional Award from the American Public Health Association’s Population, Family Planning and Reproductive Health Section.

Jon S. Bouker is a partner and co-manager of the Government Relations Department at Arent Fox. He has extensive experience in the United States House of Representatives; he previously served as chief counsel and legislative director to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), and as minority counsel to Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), a ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee. Mr. Bouker was also the Democratic staff director for the House Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, the subcommittee with federal legislative jurisdiction over the nation’s capital. Mr. Bouker is an adjunct professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law, where he has taught the legislation course since 1999. He is the vice president of the Washington Free Clinic and sits on the boards of D.C. Appleseed and the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clark School of Law. Jon chairs the District of Columbia Affairs Section of the D.C. Bar. He is a member of the American Bar Association.

Charlotte Bunch, the founding director and a senior scholar of the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University, has been an activist, writer, and organizer in the feminist and human rights movements for more than four decades. A distinguished professor in Women’s and Gender Studies, Bunch was previously a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., and a founder of Quest: A Feminist Quarterly. She has edited nine anthologies and authored Passionate Politics: Feminist Theory in Action and Demanding Accountability: The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Women's Human Rights as well as numerous essays.

Bunch has been central to feminist organizing around the UN World Conferences on Women (1980-95) and to numerous civil society efforts at the UN, including the Advisory Committee for the Secretary General’s 2006 Report to the General Assembly on Violence Against Women, and a leaders in the GEAR (Gender Equality Architecture Reform) campaign for a new UN Women agency. She has received the White House Eleanor Roosevelt Award and was included in the “1000 Women Peace Makers” nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro is an international leader and advocate for the health, development and human rights for women, girls and minority groups. She is currently President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, the largest publicly supported grantmaking foundation that advances human rights by investing in women-led organizations that use Global Fund  grants to promote women’s human rights. The Global Fund for Women’s model of social change philanthropy brings together grantees and donors to realize a better world for women. 

Kanyoro’s accomplishments include: spearheading efforts to include girls education and women's leadership to Packard Foundation grantmaking while Director for Population Program; as a champion for young women, she successfully led initiatives to ensure the representation of women under 30 on local, national and global boards; and was the first non-white woman to serve as general secretary  (CEO) of the World YWCA, the largest women’s membership organization that operates in more than 120 countries reaching more than 25 million women and girls annually. During her ten years at the World YWCA, the organization celebrated its 150^th anniversary with a campaign that raised $15 million dollars.

A true global citizen, Kanyoro has lived and worked in all parts of the world including Africa, Europe and the United States. Her extensive international experience has made her a sought after thought leader for media, government, advocacy and NGOs. She has written and published extensively on matters affecting the lives of women and children. 

Kanyoro received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and her D. Min. from San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

She has been the recipient of numerous awards over the years, including the 2011 Changing the Face of Philanthropy Award from the Women’s Funding Network, the African Women’s Development Fund Women of Substance Award, Femmes Africa Solidarité Leadership in Peace Award, Women, Leadership, and Human Dignity Award for significant contribution to the advancement of human dignity, the Kenya Government Presidential Award in recognition of international leadership, and the Global Leadership Award on HIV and AIDS from the World Vision and International AIDS Trust. In addition, Kanyoro is a founding member of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS and served on its leadership council for the first five years. 

Frances Kissling has been involved in reproductive health in the U.S. and internationally for more than forty years. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Ms. Kissling was president of Catholics for a Free Choice from 1982 until 2007. She was a co-founder of the Global Fund for Women, and was founding president of the National Abortion Federation. In 1970, Ms. Kissling became the director of one of the country’s first legal abortion clinics in New York City. She is strongly committed to public funding for reproductive health and abortion, and is the co-author of “Rosie: The Investigation of a Wrongful Death,” which chronicles the first and only reported death from abortion following the U.S. government’s decision to cut off federal funds for abortion in 1977. She has served, or serves, on the boards of Ibis Reproductive Health, The Guttmacher Institute, International Women’s Health Coalition, Catolicas Por el Derecho a Decider in Mexico, SIECUS, and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. She also serves on the technical review committee for the Safe Abortion Access Fund and the Eurongos Small Grants Facility.

Dr. Sinding is a recognized expert on international population matters who, until his retirement in 2006, served as Director-General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). Following a 20-year career at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Dr. Sinding served as Population Advisor to the World Bank, Director of Population Sciences for the Rockefeller Foundation and Professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia University.

Beth Tritter is a Managing Director at The Glover Park Group and specializes in government relations and strategic communications. While at The Glover Park Group, Tritter has focused primarily on clients with an interest in U.S. foreign policy. She has advised multinational corporations such as Standard Chartered Bank and De Beers on their thought leadership strategies and helped them engage with US audiences. Tritter has also worked with a range of non-profit organizations, advocacy coalitions, and foundations with a specific interest in U.S. foreign assistance – including the Better World Campaign, the International Conservation Partnership, and the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network — on legislative strategy, campaign planning and outreach, and messaging. Tritter joined GPG after nearly a decade on Capitol Hill, serving most recently as Legislative Director for Congresswoman Nita Lowey of New York, Chairwoman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations. In this capacity, Ms. Tritter led the strategic planning for and oversaw the implementation of Lowey’s domestic and foreign policy agendas, including navigating the legislative process on the Appropriations and Homeland Security Committees. While on Capitol Hill, Tritter focused primarily on foreign policy, defense, trade, and homeland security, with special attention to foreign aid, international development, and international women’s rights issues. As Congresswomen Nita Lowey’s lead representative in setting Democratic priorities for and negotiating the yearly, $20 billion-plus foreign aid bill, she conducted oversight over programs at USAID and the Departments of State and Treasury, with specific focus on U.S. policy toward and aid for the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America, poverty-focused development assistance, counter-narcotics and law enforcement assistance, and anti-terrorism aid.  Tritter received Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in Modern Middle Eastern Studies, and studied at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. She is on the board of the Society for International Development-Washington, the Democracy Council, and the Washington Chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

Photo by Washington DC photographer Aaron Clamage

Serra Sippel is the president of the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), where she leads the organization's education and advocacy efforts to ensure that U.S. foreign policies and programs promote sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls globally.

Serra has more than 17 years of experience advocating for women's rights and related issues. Prior to joining CHANGE, Serra was the international program director at Catholics for Choice (CFC), where she worked for more than eight years to advance the sexual, reproductive, and other human rights of women around the world. In addition to her years at CFC, Serra has been involved in the fight for women's rights through her work at a homeless shelter for women with children in Texas, and on behalf of women prisoners in the state of Indiana. Serra also has collaborated with women's rights activists around the world to secure and promote sexual and reproductive health and rights. Among Serra's many achievements as an advocate is her leadership at the United Nations to safeguard the critical agreements regarding women's sexual and reproductive rights made at the UN world conferences in Cairo and Beijing.

Serra holds a master's degree in religion, with an emphasis on peace and justice. She is the author of numerous articles and other publications on sexual and reproductive health and rights, has spoken at international conferences, and is sought after for commentary and analysis on U.S. foreign policy and sexual and reproductive health rights.