Nanisa Pereles

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Office of Field Programs/Field Management Programs

Program Analyst

Nanisa S. Pereles is a Program Analyst at EEOC. During her tenure with EEOC, Ms. Pereles has served as Supervisory Investigator coaching teams of investigators involved in all types of employment discrimination cases. She has trained and mentored EEO Investigators from coast to coast. In addition, she has been selected to train both internal and external customers on EEOC’s statutes, and she and has been part of national development teams for investigative training and compliance materials. She has led teams of investigators for over a decade with a focus on partnership, empathy, and efficiency. Those efforts have led to strong results including millions of dollars in relief for affected parties. Ms. Pereles is a Partnership for Public Service 2021 Leadership Cohort graduate.

Prior to Ms. Pereles’ work at EEOC, she was an Immigration Officer and a High School Teacher. She received a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Southwestern Oklahoma State University and a Master of Arts in Communications from Oklahoma State University.

Mathew Shurka

Born Perfect

Co-founder

Mathew Shurka is a conversion therapy survivor and Co-Founder of Born Perfect, a campaign created by The National Center for Lesbian Rights that has spearheaded a movement to end conversion therapy. Since 2012, Born Perfect has worked with legislatures and policy makers across the US and abroad to help implement laws protecting LGBTQ people from so-called “conversion therapy.” Today 20 States and over 100 cities have pass laws banning conversion therapy.

Mathew leads the campaign alongside a team of lawyers, advocates, and other conversion therapy survivors committed to protect LGBTQ+ people through legislation, litigation, and public education. He has consulted on numerous films such as Boy Erased, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Pray Away, and Cured. Mathew and his partner live in New York.

Christina Feldmann

Christina Feldmann is a cis-hetero mom, wife, sister, aunt, and friend, to several members of the LGBTQ+ community. She advocates for the recognition of their humanity on a daily basis through conversation with acquaintances, co-workers, strangers, and to anyone willing to listen and grow. After losing her daughter, Haley, her writing has helped to raise awareness through organizations such as the Trans Lifeline and has encouraged support for The Jim Collins Foundation. She and her husband have spoken about the harmful effects that anti-trans legislation and policies have on transgender people and their families. She has been interviewed by The Daily Beast and several other media outlets have picked up her daughter's story.

Shannon Minter

National Center for Lesbian Rights

Legal Director

Shannon Minter is the Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR).

Minter was lead counsel for same-sex couples in the landmark California marriage equality case which held that same-sex couples have the fundamental right to marry and that laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation are inherently discriminatory and subject to the highest level of constitutional scrutiny.

Minter was also NCLR’s lead attorney in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding student group policies prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and rejecting the argument that such policies violated a student group’s rights to freedom of speech, religion, and association. 

Minter serves on the boards of Faith in America and the Transgender Law & Policy Institute. He has previously served on the American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Minter received his J.D. from Cornell Law School in 1993. He is originally from Texas.

Erica Thunder

North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights

Labor Commissioner

Erica Thunder was appointed North Dakota Labor Commissioner by Gov. Doug Burgum, effective June 3, 2019. As Labor Commissioner, Thunder leads the North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights, which is responsible for enforcing the state’s labor and human rights laws and for educating the public about the laws. The department also licenses employment agencies operating in the state and can verify the status of independent contractor relationships.

Euan Hwang

CenterLink

YouthLink Manager

Euan Hwang (he/him) is the YouthLink Manager at CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers.

Euan is a veteran in youth programming with over 10 years of experience. Since 2011, he has managed and coordinated various youth programs to improve the well-being of youth, equip the youth with leadership and life skills, and build safer spaces for a diverse group of youth. He is especially interested in listening and responding to the needs of queer and trans immigrant youth of color & bridging the gap between the youth and their parents/families/culture.

Born in South Korea, Euan immigrated to Canada when he was young and spent 20 years in the Great White North. He now resides in the US with his spouse. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Animation from Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning and a Social Service Worker Diploma from George Brown College. He is also bilingual in English and Korean.

Karen Ehrens

Karen Ehrens is a public health and nutrition consultant, registered dietitian, and policy advocate.
 
She currently serves as a public health consultant on food and nutrition security and maternal and child health projects, and just completed 12 years as the facilitator for the Creating a Hunger Free North Dakota Coalition. Ehrens serves on governing and advisory boards and the ND Health Equity Committee.
 
Karen was an intern for then-U.S. Representative Byron Dorgan. In 2016, she was a candidate for the North Dakota House of Representatives. She has provided testimony to the city commission, the state legislature and the US Senate on proposed legislation impacting health and nutrition.
 
Karen is past chair of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Legislative and Public Policy Committee and served the North Dakota affiliate as Public Policy Chair.

A North Dakota native, Karen holds a Certificate in Public Health from the University of Minnesota, and obtained undergraduate degrees from ND State University and Minot State University. She and her husband, Duane live in Bismarck with their daughter.

Cody Schuler

FM Coalition to End Homelessness

Executive Director

Cody Schuler (he/him) is Executive Director of the FM Coalition to End Homelessness, an advocacy, education, and collaboration nonprofit with a mission to prevent and end homelessness in the Fargo metro area. He sees his work personally and professionally as a piece of a larger puzzle of ending homelessness by organizing people to come together to change systems and advocate for social justice. Cody is a Fargo Housing and Redevelopment Authority Commissioner and serves on the boards of directors for the Fargo Downtown Neighborhood Association and The Human Family.

Alyssa Kloss

Alyssa(she/her) was born and raised in Minot by a conservative air-force family. Growing up in a place where being queer was seen as something you did not share or take pride in, Alyssa took to art instead as a way to share her queerness- whether it was by submitting art into the local gallery or by putting her skills to the test with large public chalk murals outside the local record store. 

At 17, Alyssa started her work with children in a local after school program. After four years of working in Minot, she moved to Bismarck and began a job as a paraprofessional with one of the local middle schools where she has been working since 2019. Also in 2019, she began co-facilitating QSPACE, one of the only queer youth support groups in North Dakota. Having come from a background of generational trauma and center-right leaning military parents, Alyssa has used her life experience as a queer person to help LGBTQ+ kids find their voice. 

Ann Cook-Graver

U.S. Department of Education

Office of Civil Rights

Supervisory Civil Rights Attorney

Ann Cook-Graver is a Supervisory Civil Rights Attorney with the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Chicago Enforcement Office. Ann oversees a team of first-rate, dedicated attorneys and investigators who work on complaints alleging discrimination based on sex, disability, age, national origin, color, and race. Ann specializes in sex discrimination in athletics, discrimination based on LGBTQ identities, and issues affecting people with disabilities. Ann served as the Disability Rights Bureau Chief at the Office of the Illinois Attorney General before taking her position with OCR.

Before initiating a legal career, Ann worked as an Intelligence Analyst at the National Security Agency, Ft. Meade, Maryland, where she applied her Russian Language skills to follow the movements of the military of the former Soviet Union. Ann received an undergraduate degree from Marquette University and a law degree from Northern Illinois University College of Law. Ann is also a group fitness instructor and teaches several Spin cycling classes each week. She lives in Orland Park, Illinois, with her wife, son and dog, Holly, Mitch and Jake, in that order.

Tanya Tassi

Tanya Tassi works as the Director of Policy and Advocacy for ActionLink: The Center Action Network.  Prior to joining CenterLink, Tanya worked for the Los Angeles LGBT Center, serving as Residential Services Coordinator at Triangle Square - the nation's first and largest LGBTQ low-income senior housing facility. She was instrumental in developing and expanding their programming and advocacy services.

Tanya began volunteering with Wisconsin AIDS Resource Center at the age of 17, and continued to volunteer during her career, first at Nashville AIDS Project and then at PFLAG of Temecula, CA.  She is the founder and director of the Los Angeles Senior Mobilization Squad; a group of older adult advocates who are dedicated to protecting and expanding the rights of the LGBTQ community.

Tanya is a volunteer educator for the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging, a member of the Palm Springs Police Department's LGBTQ Outreach Committee and is involved in disaster preparedness as part of her local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).  She is a graduate of the University of Southern California's Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and East Los Angeles College.
 

CenterLink

Director of Policy and Advocacy

Julia Landis

CenterLink

Director of Operations and Member Relations

Julia Landis joined the CenterLink team after working in the private sector for over 25 years. She has extensive experience both in retail and call-center management most recently working in social paper i.e. creating, printing and assembling invitations for every event imaginable. Prior to joining CenterLink Julia was a store manager in a neighborhood invitation store. Previously she spent over 9 years working for a major telecommunications company as both a manager and on-line representative in a customer service call center. Julia is a former board member and current volunteer for Women In Network, Broward county's lesbian social and networking organization handling membership and heading up WIN's new Extreme Couponing program. Julia is a graduate of the University of South Alabama where she received her B.S. in Business Management.

Denise Spivak

Denise Spivak is the CEO of CenterLink – the association of LGBTQ community centers, where she has spent the past nine years working with center leaders.

Denise joined CenterLink after working in the private sector for over twenty years in both broadcasting and management.  She is a graduate of Gettysburg College where she received her B.A. in Psychology.

Denise holds a certification from BoardSource for nonprofit governance training and is a Standards for Excellence Licensed Consultant.

Denise was born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area. After living in the mid-Atlantic for 30 years, she and her wife moved to Florida where they currently reside.

CenterLink

CEO