Priya Varadarajan is the founder of Durga – I’m Every Woman, a nationally recognized gender justice initiative that reimagines how women and girls belong in India’s public spaces. Drawing from lived experience, she has built Durga into a systems-change organization that blends behavioral science, grassroots mobilization, and institutional partnerships—introducing India’s first panic alarm in public transport, training 5,000+ active bystanders, and collaborating with 75+ colleges on safe, inclusive campuses. With two decades across philanthropy, policy, and grassroots action—including leadership roles at the Azim Premji Foundation and Co-Impact—Priya has advanced gender equity, anti-trafficking, care economy, and reproductive rights initiatives. She also serves on state committees addressing child marriage, inheritance law reform, and workplace justice. 

Jaye Wesley is an experienced non-profit leader and crisis counselor dedicated to community advocacy and support. As Executive Director of the Kenora Sexual Assault Centre, Jaye oversees staff and volunteers, manages ministry contracts, and advances strategic initiatives that strengthen services for survivors of sexual assault and human trafficking. With a strong background in policy, financial management, fundraising, and stakeholder relations, Jaye has successfully built collaborative partnerships across agencies to ensure accessible, trauma-informed support. Her career also spans roles as a paramedic and Special Constable with the Ontario Provincial Police, reflecting her deep commitment to serving vulnerable populations. Jaye holds multiple diplomas and degrees in counseling, Psychology  Social Work, Law Enforcement and Forensic Sciences.

Bridget Taremotimi is a passionate advocate for women and girls, working at the crossroads of human resources and gender justice. As the Head of General Services at the Women at Risk International Foundation (WARIF), she assists survivors of sexual and gender-based violence while strengthening the systems that safeguard them. With over ten years of experience, Bridget has led training sessions on sexual harassment prevention, diversity, and empowerment, creating safer environments for women in the workplace and the community. She holds a Master’s Degree in Industrial and Labour Relations and is dedicated to mentoring young women to see themselves as agents of change. Driven by her belief that every woman deserves dignity, safety, and opportunity, Bridget continues to use her skills and voice to promote equality and resilience.

Mariana Valente is a law professor and researcher at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and co-founder of InternetLab in Brazil. She has been researching gender-based violence on the internet since 2014 and is the author of the book Misoginia na Internet, which was a finalist for the Jabuti Award. She was a member of the Federal Senate’s Commission of Jurists that drafted the AI regulation bill, and of the working group of the Secretariat of Social Communication of the Presidency of the Republic (SECOM/PR) to assess the impact of deepfakes. Internationally, she has worked in partnership with the UN and chaired the Law and Policy Working Group of the International Panel on the Information Environment, which seeks to bring scientific evidence to the global process of public policy formulation for the information environment. In 2025, she received the Internet Governance Highlights Award from CGI.br (Brazilian Internet Steering Committee).

Professor Nata Duvvury is Director of the Centre for Global Women’s Studies. She is a feminist economist and a global expert on the economic burdens that violence against women, including sexual violence, places on individual women, their families, communities and society more broadly. She has led multiple projects in Africa and Asia on violence against women, HIV and AIDS, women’s sexual health, masculinities and exploring community interventions to prevent violence. She is Scientific Advisor to the Lancet Commission on Gencer based Violence and Maltreatment of Youth.

Dr. Brenda Oulo is a feminist researcher and advocate whose passion for gender equity inspired her transition from medicine to research and data science. Trained as a health economist and data scientist, she brings a multidisciplinary perspective that bridges quantitative rigor with an understanding of gender dynamics. Her work centers on developing and validating psychometric tools and applying evidence-based approaches to strengthen adolescent girls’ agency. Dedicated to advancing girls’ well-being, she focuses on equipping them with the skills and opportunities to shape their futures and improve life outcomes.

Renée Williams is a dedicated advocate and leader in the field of victim services, currently serving as chief executive officer of the National Center for Victims of Crime. With over 15 years of experience in the nonprofit and legal sectors, Renée has a proven track record of championing the rights and needs of victims of crime. Prior to her role at the NCVC, Renée was the executive director of a legal services organization in Pittsburgh that focused on the legal rights of victims of domestic violence and other indigent clients. She has represented NCVC on “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt,” Court TV, HLN, and is a frequent guest on podcasts. She has been instrumental in shaping national conversations around victims’ rights and has been a vocal advocate for changes to the justice system that better protect and support victims of crime. As the executive director of the NCVC, Renée continues to lead with integrity, compassion, and a commitment to making a difference in the lives of those affected by crime. 

Lise Gotell is a Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Alberta whose scholarship examines gender, sexuality, and law. Her research focuses on the legal regulation of sexual violence in neoliberal contexts and includes widely cited work on Canada’s affirmative consent standard, antifeminist backlash, gender-based violence policy, and the rough sex defence. Cited by the Supreme Court of Canada and law reform bodies internationally, she bridges scholarship and advocacy. A former National Chair of LEAF, she now chairs NAWL’s Violence Against Women Working Group. She has won several teaching awards, along with the University of Alberta’s Community Scholar Award.

Monika Stanisława Płatek is a Polish legal scholar, criminologist, and politician. She is a professor at the University of Warsaw, and her research focuses on penal systems, criminal and civil law, gender studies, and feminist jurisprudence. She has been a candidate for the Senate of Poland and the European Parliament. Płatek founded the Polish Association for Legal Education, of which she then served as the president. She has also been a board member of the Panoptykon Foundation, an anti-mass surveillance human rights NGO, and the board for the Osiatyński Archive, a legal archive.

Dr. Renata Giannini is a researcher and practitioner specializing in the intersection of women’s rights, conflict, and climate change. For over 16 years, she has worked with leading think tanks in Argentina, Brazil, and the United States, shaping public policy on gender equality, public safety and sustainable development. In Brazil, she led the creation of EVA (Evidence on Violence and Alternatives to women and girls), the country’s largest publicly available database on violence against women. Her current research project “Guardians of the Amazon: women’s contribution to climate change mitigation” examines the outcomes of 15 conflicts over land and water in the Amazon, assessing the different strategies used by women defenders to overcome them.

Mona Tajali is a scholar of gender and politics, specializing in women’s political participation and representation in Muslim countries, with a comparative focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey. Her research includes analysis of feminist mobilization against patriarchal structures as well as the experiences of institutionalization of women’s rights in semi-democratic and non-democratic contexts. She is the author of Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table (2022) and co-author of Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (2011), both published as open access. She is also the co-editor of Women and Constitutions in Muslim Contexts (2024), the first compilation analyzing several national constitutions of the Muslim world through a gender lens.

Aleksandra Ivankovic is Deputy Director of Victim Support Europe, a Brussels-based NGO network of victim support organisations. Aleksandra holds a MSt in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford, UK and has a particular expertise in the rights of victims of terrorism and mass victimisation, gender-based violence and rights of persons with disabilities.