Staff
Mara Keisling, Executive Director
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Mara Keisling |
Mara Keisling is the founding Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Mara is a transgender-identified woman and a parent. As one of the nation’s leading voices for transgender equality, Mara has appeared on news outlets such as CNN and CSPAN, and is regularly quoted in the New York Times, the Washington Post and hundreds of other national and local print and electronic media.
Since NCTE was founded in 2003, the organization was part of coalition efforts that have won significant advances in transgender equality such as the passage of the first ever transgender-inclusive federal legislation, modification of the State Department rules for changing gender markers on passports, and the historic first Congressional Hearing on transgender issues.
Mara is a graduate of Penn State University and did her graduate work at Harvard University in American Government. She has served on the board of Directors of Common Roads, an LGBTQ Youth Group, and on the steering committee of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition. Mara has almost twenty-five years of professional experience in social marketing and opinion research.
Avory Faucette, Director of Operations
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Avory Faucette |
Avory graduated with honors from the University of Iowa College of Law in 2009 with an emphasis in international human rights law. Zie is a writer and queer activist who is published in the Journal of Gender, Race, and Justice and writes for the blogs Radically Queer, Gender Across Border, and Girl w/ Pen. Hir work on gender, sexuality, and genderqueer identity has appeared on Feministing, Feministe, RH Reality Check, and Ms. Magazine Online. Before joining NCTE as Director of Operations, Avory worked as Outreach Coordinator at the National Research Center for Women & Families, a health and health-policy non-profit.
Harper Jean Tobin, Policy Counsel
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Harper Jean Tobin |
As Policy Counsel, Harper Jean coordinates all aspects of advocacy on federal administrative policies and regulations for NCTE. When she is not engaging with federal agencies and the current administration, she works to provide information for the public about laws and policies that affect transgender people. Harper Jean previously worked at the National Senior Citizens Law Center’s Federal Rights Project, where she maintained a large attorney listserv, provided training and technical assistance to public interest lawyers, and wrote about court access issues for legal, policy and general audiences.
Harper Jean's writing on transgender equality and other issues has been published in the Harvard Kennedy School’s LGBTQ Policy Journal, Notre Dame’s Journal of Legislation, the Yale Law Journal Pocket Part, the Columbia Journal of Gender & the Law, the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, Clearinghouse Review, the National Law Journal, The Nation, and Roll Call. She received degrees in law and social work from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and is an alumna of Oberlin College.
Vincent Paolo Villano, Communications Manager
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Vincent Paolo Villano |
Vincent is NCTE’s Communications Manager, responsible for the organization's communications strategy and brand management. Vincent joins NCTE from the Center for American Progress where through the youth organizing arm, Campus Progress, he executed over 150 political, cultural and advocacy events that advance progressive policies in higher education, climate change, immigration and LGBT equality. While at Campus Progress, Vincent spoke across the country, training hundreds of students on campus organizing, lobbying and communications. Prior to his work at Campus Progress, Vincent cut his teeth in public relations working with recognized media expert, Cathy Renna.
Vincent is a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and 2008 graduate of the American University School of Public Affairs, where he received a high honor for his research on LGBT youth and intergroup relations. Committed to LGBT young people, Vincent served on the board of the Youth Pride Alliance where he launched a scholarship fund for Metro DC LGBT youth. Vincent is a 2009 New Leaders Fellow at the Center for Progressive Leadership.
Danielle King, Development Manager
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Danielle King |
Danielle is NCTE’s Development Manager, responsible for fundraising and donor relationship management. Danielle’s depth of experience focuses on local activism in Washington, DC as the current Vice President of the DC Black Pride, former Chair of Capital Transgender Pride Alliance, Inc., and former Board Member of Transgender Health Empowerment, Inc.
In recent years, she has worked extensively to link community partners, sponsors and donors with community based initiatives which advance the cause of transgender equality. Prior to her work on local transgender issues, Danielle was a sales manager at the Washington Blade.
Danielle is a national trainer and educator on gender issues. In her spare time she utilizes her formal training as a teacher to travel the country increasing cultural competencies of transgender people. She has been influential as a public health advisor on transgender health and is a regular guest lecturer on gender, race, and sexuality.
Danielle is a graduate of Old Dominion University and is a transgender-identified woman. She resides in Washington, D.C with her two shih tzu’s Mimi and Puccini.
Emily Ames, Health Law Policy Fellow
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Emily Ames |
Emily graduated magna cum laude from American University Washington College of Law in May 2011. While in law school, Emily interned at Whitman-Walker Health and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and was a McCleary Law Fellow at the Human Rights Campaign. She also worked as a Dean’s Fellow for Professor Nancy Polikoff, one of the nation’s preeminant LGBT family law scholars, and was a Publications Editor for the American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law. Prior to law school, Emily worked as a field interviewer and outreach worker for the University of Minnesota Youth and AIDS Projects. She received her B.A. from Macalester College in 2004.