Adaora Asala
Adaora Asala is a queer, afrofeminist Nigerian social commentator, community organizer, diversity consultant, and nonprofit social media expert. She has lived in New England for more than 10 years and identifies as an “iQWOC” due to my international/immigrant (queer woman of color) perspective. She is the founding director of QWOC+ Boston, the first LGBT social networking group for women-identified people of color in New England, and is known within the LGBT people of color community and across mainstream LGBT, feminist, and other progressive circles, for the fun, innovative and boundary-pushing strategies she’s concept-ed to increase consciousness of diversity, unity, and pride within Boston’s mainstream queer community. In addition to being recognized as a regional leader in local press, her steadfast vision, and consultative approach to community organizing and diversity has already proven itself in New England as evidenced by stories of LGBT folks of color emerging from parts of the city and state that the mainstream community had long ignored in their marketing and outreach campaigns.
She makes her living as a software sales professional, is an avid video-gamer, cool kitty-owner, and a mean theme-party thrower. She blogs about diversity, event planning — including how these two concepts are more connected than you think — and technology at Spectra Speaks.
Amanda Johnston
Web & Publications Manager, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD)
Amanda manages web, email, social media, multimedia and print communications for GLAD’s Public Affairs and Education department. Prior to joining GLAD in March 2007, Amanda served for six years as the Managing Director of The Boston Jewish Film Festival, where she oversaw all print and electronic communications, as well as all festival logistics. She first discovered the power of the internet in the mid-90s through her work with the Austin, Texas-based grassroots media training center Women’s Access to Electronic Resources, and through her work designing the first website for the Feminist Bookstore Network. Amanda is a former performer and Board Member with the dance company Big Moves Boston, a former Board Member of Women in Film & Video/New England, and served as the Programmer/Coordinator for the Boston LGBT Film Festival at the Museum of Fine Arts from 2005-2009. She holds a Masters Degree in Media Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
Nilagia McCoy
Nilagia McCoy is the Membership, Outreach, and Promotions Coordinator at Cambridge Community Television, Cambridge’s public access TV station and media center which strives to involved people from all walks of life in digital media production in order to foster community dialogue. She also works as a new media consultant to MIT’s Cambridge Science Festival. Nilagia obtained her B.A. in Film and Media Studies, as well as a marketing certificate, from the University of California, Santa Barbara. A southern California native, Nilagia worked in community radio and also marketing, before relocating to the Boston area in 2008.
Robbie Samuels is a white queer feminist trans man with extensive community organizing, event logistics and fundraising experience. In 2006 he founded Socializing for Justice (www.sojust.org) to build a cross-issue progressive movement in Boston based on the philosophy of abundance.
He is the Special Events Manager at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), an adjunct professor at Lesley College teaching “Activism and Change in Communities”, a Planning Committee member of the Boston chapter of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism and affiliated with several other organizations.
In 2009 he was the recipient of the inaugural Lavender Rhino Award presented by the LGBT History Project and the Gender Hero award presented by The Theater Offensive.
