Radhika Balakrishnan, Executive Director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership, and Professor, Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, has a Ph.D. in Economics from Rutgers University. Previously, she was Professor of Economics and International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College. She has worked at the Ford Foundation as a program officer in the Asia Regional Program. She is currently the Chair of the Board of the US Human Rights Network and on the Board of the Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Association for Feminist Economics. She is the co-editor with Diane Elson of Economic Policy and Human Rights: Holding Governments to Account (Zed Books, 2011). She is the author of Why MES with Human Rights: Integrating Macro Economic Strategies with Human Rights (Marymount Manhattan College, 2005). She edited The Hidden Assembly Line: Gender Dynamics of Subcontracted Work in a Global Economy (Kumarian Press, 2001), co-edited Good Sex: Feminist Perspectives from the World's Religions, with Patricia Jung and Mary Hunt (Rutgers University Press, 2000), and also authored numerous articles that have appeared in books and journals. Professor Balakrishnan's work focuses on gender and development, gender and the global economy, human rights and economic and social rights. Her research and advocacy work has sought to change the lens through which macroeconomic policy is interpreted and critiqued by applying international human rights norms to assess macroeconomic policy.

Savi Bisnath, Associate Director, holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University and an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles. Savi has worked with NGOs, philanthropic institutions and the United Nations on issues related to conflict, natural disasters, governance and recovery; economic and social rights; and violence against women in specific countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Middle East as well as in the United Kingdom and the United States. Most recently, she served as the Senior Governance Advisor at UNDP Pakistan. She is the author of several published articles and practical tools, including a post-crisis needs assessment guide (2010). Savi is also the co-editor of Global Tensions: Challenges and Opportunities in the Work Economy (Routledge, 2004) and Gender and Development: Theoretical, Empirical and Practical Approaches, Vols I & II (Edward Elgar, 2001).

Download print-quality photograph (©2010 Paula Cort)

Charlotte Bunch, Charlotte Bunch, Founding Director and Senior Scholar of the Center for Women's Global Leadership, Rutgers University, has been an activist, writer and organizer in the feminist and human rights movements for over four decades.  A Distinguished Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies, Bunch was previously a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in DC and a founder of Quest: A Feminist Quarterly.  She has served on the Board of Directors of many organizations and is currently on the Board of the Global Fund for Women and the Advisory Committee for the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

She has edited nine anthologies and authored Passionate Politics: Feminist Theory in Action and Demanding Accountability: The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Women's Human Rights as well as numerous essays.

Bunch has been central to feminist organizing around the UN World Conferences on Women (1980-95) and to numerous civil society efforts at the UN, including the Advisory Committee for the Secretary General’s 2006 Report to the General Assembly on Violence Against Women, and a leaders in the GEAR (Gender Equality Architecture Reform) campaign for a new UN Women agency.  Her contributions to women's human rights are recognized by many including the National Women's Hall of Fame, the White House Eleanor Roosevelt Award, and the “1000 Women Peace Makers” nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Papers of Charlotte Bunch at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute: http://oasis.harvard.edu:10080/oasis/deliver/~sch00220
http://oasis.harvard.edu:10080/oasis/deliver/~sch00221

Passionate Politics: The Life and Work of Charlotte Bunch is now available for purchase on DVD. The film brings Charlotte Bunch’s story to life, from idealistic young civil rights organizer to lesbian feminist activist to internationally recognized leader.  Charlotte’s story is told by women from Asia, Africa, South America and the Caribbean who have worked with her to put women’s rights on the global human rights agenda. Braided throughout the film are excerpts from Charlotte’s personal letters that illuminate her determination to create a more just world. For information on ordering Passionate Politics, visit http://t.ymlp333.net/usyazaebqwacaueeafam/click.php.

Lucy V. Vidal, Information and Communication Director, has been with CWGL since 1996. Previously, she worked at the Center for Social and Legal Research as Senior Assistant Editor of their newsletter, Privacy & American Business, coordinator of their national conference and as a researcher. Vidal has had various duties at CWGL. She coordinated logistics for the 1998 Women's Global Leadership Institute, the 1998 Global Tribunal to Celebrate and Demand Women's Human Rights and was part of the onsite facilitation team at the 1998 Feminism in the Muslim World Leadership Institute in Istanbul, Turkey. She then went on to manage CWGL's work in information and communication technologies. Vidal currently handles the Center's publications and archives, maintains the website and resource center and serves as the United Nations liaison. She graduated from Rutgers College, Rutgers University, with a B.A. in Political Science and completed a Master's Degree in Library and Information Science in 2007.

Alex Anastasia, Administrative Assistant, began her affiliation with CWGL in June 2010 as a student intern working on the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign. She has worked as a Program Assistant on social media development, website maintenance, local and global outreach, funding source research, document production, and networking for the 16 Days Campaign and has also assisted with the Center’s programmatic focus on economic and social rights. Alex currently works with Dr. Balakrishnan to support her work on feminist economics and also assists with the communication and media needs of the Center. Alex earned her B.A. in Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University – New Brunswick in 2011.

Sarah Weirich, Graduate Assistant, earned her B.A. in International Relations at Rhodes College and upon graduation was granted a Fulbright Fellowship and an Islamic Civilization Initiative Grant to Jordan, where she studied women’s movements, Arab feminisms, Islam and Arabic. She presented her Fulbright thesis, “Islamist Women in Jordan: Informal Networks, Mobilization, and Islamist Success,” at the Islamic Civilization Initiative in Sidi Bou Saїd, Tunisia in 2006. In the following two and a half years, she completed two Master’s programs. One program in Near and Middle East Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and the other program in Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She is also the author of “The Da’wa Movement: Spaces for Women to Speak,” in The Bulletin of the Council for British Research in the Levant Bulletin (2009). Sarah is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Rutgers University and a Graduate Assistant at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL). Her main topics of interest include: the religious right, terrorism, counter-terrorism, human rights, secularism, women’s human rights, and the Middle East.