Our Fellows
The Opportunity Agenda’s Communications Institute Fellows are media-ready experts on some of the country’s most urgent challenges, coming largely from communities most affected by those challenges. For journalists seeking voices with a grassroots perspective that links economic opportunity, criminal justice, immigrant opportunity, and racial justice issues to the lived experiences of Americans, Communications Fellows are ideal spokespeople.
Eduardo Garcia
Field Manager, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human RightsEduardo Garcia is a field manager at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in Washington, DC. In this role he facilitates multicultural coalition efforts to advance federal campaigns in a key set of states. Prior to joining The Leadership Conference, Eduardo worked at Campus Progress, the youth organizing...
Get To know EduardoAna Garcia-Ashley
Executive Director, Gamaliel FoundationBorn in the Dominican Republic, Garcia-Ashley was just four years old when she began canvassing in a rural village as part of a public safety campaign headed by her grandmother, a neighborhood activist. After the assassination of Rafael Trujillo, she and her family fled the political violence in the Dominican...
Get To know AnaMichele Garnett McKenzie
Director of Advocacy, Advocates for Human RightsMichele Garnett McKenzie is Advocacy Director at The Advocates for Human Rights. She directs policy advocacy and community and coalition engagement around The Advocates’ priority issues, including immigration and human trafficking. Michele also leads the Discover Human Rights training initiative, the One Voice Minnesota monitoring project documenting the climate of...
Get To know MicheleSharron Garrison
Communications Director, Mississippi Center for JusticeSharon Garrison is the Communications Director for the Mississippi Center for Justice. Previously, Garrison served as press secretary for a 2007 gubernatorial campaign in Mississippi and served as Communications Director of The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi, a statewide nonprofit that received national acclaim for campaigns to reduce tobacco use....
Get To know SharronVicki Gaubeca
Director, ACLU-New Mexico Regional Center for Border RightsIn 2009, Vicki Gaubeca became the director of the ACLU-New Mexico (ACLU-NM) Regional Center for Border Rights, based in Las Cruces, where she has helped develop and implement its mission of addressing civil and human rights violations that stem from border-specific immigration policy and enforcement. The Center stands with border...
Get To know VickiAndi Gentile
Youth Justice Policy Strategist, Impact Justice’s Center on Youth Registration ReformAndi is the Youth Justice Policy Strategist for the Center on Youth Registration Reform (CYRR) at Impact Justice in Oakland, CA. Before joining the CYRR, Andi was a community organizer in worker-justice and queer and trans youth organizations in New York City and Austin. She also worked with the Texas...
Get To know AndiIrma Georgina Cruz
Regional Coordinator, Border Network for Human RightsIrma Georgina Cruz was born and raised in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. She is a mother of three and immigrated to the United States in 2002 to provide a better life for her family. In 2006 she was approached and invited to a “know your rights” presentation given by the...
Get To know IrmaJessica Glynn
Senior Director of Law and Policy, YWCA KalamazooJessica Glynn is a human rights attorney with more than 20 years of experience in community organizing and systems change advocacy. As the Senior Director of Law and Policy at the YWCA Kalamazoo, she provides comprehensive representation to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. She founded the...
Get To know JessicaDeborah Goldberg
Director of Special Projects, National Fair Housing AllianceDeborah Goldberg is a Special Project Director with the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA). Since 2005, she has led NFHA’s work on equitable rebuilding of the Gulf Coast region in the aftermath of the 2005 hurricanes. Goldberg has also been involved in NFHA’s public policy work on financial services issues,...
Get To know DeborahKimberly Gonzalez
Miami Coordinator, Dream DefendersKimberly Gonzalez is a 30-year-old queer Latina and Miami native by way of Cuba and Puerto Rico. She joined the Dream Defenders in July of 2012 and has participated in various campaigns including the 2012 Freedom Fall campaign, the Dream Era campaign that launched on the first day of the...
Get To know Kimberly