Mindy Fetterman is Editorial Lead for Burson, Cohn & Wolfe in Washington, D.C.

Previously, she was a newsroom reporter and editor for over 25 years at USA TODAY and other newspapers. She was Managing Editor/Content Strategy for USA TODAY following several years as Deputy Managing Editor in both the News and Money sections of USA TODAY.

She has written freelance articles in The Washington Post, AARP Bulletin and for Kaiser Health News.

Janai Nelson, Associate Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
Janai Nelson is the seventh Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the country’s first civil and human rights law organization. As an organizational thought-leader at LDF, Ms. Nelson works with the President and Director-Counsel to determine and execute LDF’s strategic vision and oversee the operation of its programs. She is also one of the lead counsel in Veasey v. Abbott, a federal challenge to Texas’s voter ID law. Prior to joining LDF in June 2014, Ms.
Nelson was Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship and Associate Director of the Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development at St. John’s University School of Law where she was also a full professor of law.

Ms. Nelson received the 2013 Derrick A. Bell Award from the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) Section on Minority Groups and was named one of Lawyers of Color’s 50 Under 50 minority professors making an impact in legal education. Prior to joining St. John’s faculty, Ms. Nelson was a Fulbright Scholar at the Legal Resources Center in Accra, Ghana. She began practicing law as the 1998 recipient of the NAACP LDF/Fried Frank Fellowship, following federal district and appellate court clerkships. Ms. Nelson later became Director of LDF’s Political Participation Group, overseeing all voting related litigation and matters, litigating voting rights and redistricting cases, and working on criminal justice issues. Ms. Nelson has appeared in various media as an expert on race, civil rights, constitutional law and election law, and regularly speaks at conferences and symposia nationwide.

Maria Emanuel Ryan, DDS, PhD is Vice President and Chief Dental Officer at the Colgate-Palmolive Company where she provides oversight and leadership to dental and dermal clinical organizations, biosolutions, knowledge management and scientific communications. Dr. Ryan previously served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Oral Biology and Pathology at Stony Brook University where she was actively involved in teaching, practice and research. She is the immediate past President of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR). Dr. Ryan has received numerous awards including both an NIH National Research Service Award and a Physician Scientist Award. She was the recipient of the New Dentist Leadership Award from the Dental Society of the State of New York, received an achievement award from the American Dental Association and was the first recipient of the Victress Health Award which she received in Berlin, Germany in 2010 to recognize her educational and research efforts in the area of women’s health. Dr. Ryan is a Distinguished Alumnus of Stony Brook’s School of Dental Medicine and was a Fellow of the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program for Women at Drexel University College of Medicine. She was a founding member of the Leadership Council for the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University her alma mater. Dr. Ryan is a nationally and internationally known speaker and author who has appeared on multiple media outlets to discuss the role of the dental professional in the provision of optimal overall health care.

With more than 20 years of experience in nonprofit management, fundraising and development, communications, and politics, Anastasia Staten serves as the Executive Director of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) Foundation, the charitable and philanthropic organization for the U.S. video game industry.

At the ESA Foundation, Staten is responsible for overseeing the strategic vision and daily operations of the Foundation’s positive impact on young people and efforts to enhance the image of the social impact of video games.

In addition to Staten’s role as an executive in the video game industry she also has proudly served as the Chair of the Board of Trustees for The Halo Trust, the world’s largest humanitarian mine clearance organization.

Andrea Short is vice president and deputy general counsel for Verizon Communications’ Public Sector business unit. Andrea and her team provide legal advice and counsel to help Verizon achieve its mission of being the market leader in communications and IT solutions for federal, state and local government customers throughout the US. Since joining Verizon in 2005, Andrea has held a variety of counseling and litigation roles with the company. Prior to that, Andrea was a litigation associate with the law firms Richards Layton & Finger and Womble Carlyle. Andrea is a graduate of Washington & Lee University Law School, where she was a managing editor of the Washington & Lee Law Review, and holds a BA in political science from Davidson College.

As Operations Manager for Malala Fund, Danielle Wivell-Wagner coordinates security and logistics for high-level delegation trips to various countries (Pakistan, Brazil, Lebanon, and Ethiopia), supports Finance and Operations across the organization and welcomes new members to the team. She previously served as a Project Coordinator for the Global Business Coalition for Education and A World at School, a Service Member with AmeriCorps and an Intern with the Consulate of Ecuador in Washington, D.C. She holds a B.A. in International Studies with a minor in Spanish and a certificate in Latin American Studies.