who we are
Advisory Board
Mishonda Baldwin
Mishonda Baldwin, 39, is a former Democratic congressional candidate for
Maryland’s third district and is a decorated Desert Storm war veteran.
Ms. Baldwin is a professional speaker, a Certified Master Facilitator,
and an Assistant State’s Attorney for Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
Among her other accomplishments, Ms. Baldwin served for three years as
the youngest Maryland Board of License Commissioner, served as a United
States Delegate to Egypt and Jordan for the American Council of Young
Political Leaders, and was twice elected National Chair of the National
Black Law Students Association.
Megan Bennett
Megan Bennett is a senior political science and public relations major at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. She interned for Running Start in the summer of 2007 and continues to be very active in promoting the organization's mission. She serves on the judicial review board of Phi Alpha Delta, participates as a volunteer for UD's annual Christmas on Campus Adopt a Child Program, and is a member of a campus ministry retreat planning team. After graduation, Megan hopes to work in the public or non-profit sector and move to Washington, DC.
Liz Berry
Ms. Berry is a Legislative Assistant and Deputy Communications Director for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). She serves as an advisor to the Congresswoman on the Foreign Affairs Committee as well as domestic policy matters such as financial services, education, agriculture, transportation, labor and women's issues.
Before working on Capitol Hill, Ms. Berry consulted Democratic campaigns, specializing in persuasion mail, message development and integrated communications for political, labor and corporate clients at Mack/Crounse Group and Stones’ Phones. She also worked at the Women's Campaign Forum where she coordinated nationwide fundraising events and developed press outreach and public relations initiatives.
Ms. Berry serves on the Board of Directors of Women Under Forty PAC (WUFPAC), a nonpartisan political action committee that supports women forty years of age and under running for federal public office. A native of Phoenix, Arizona, Ms. Berry graduated from American University with a B.A. in Communications, Law, Economics and Government.
Heather Marie Burke
Ms.
Burke is a development specialist in participatory methodologies, gender
analysis and gender mainstreaming in project design, implementation, and
evaluation. Ms. Burke has a successful track record as a practitioner
and program manager, both in the U.S. and overseas, working with
government officials and recipient populations in the domain of
grassroots community organizing and development, political
participation, education, and women's rights and leadership for social
justice and social change. Her experience with political campaigns and
grassroots organizing includes her leadership in the 2004 U.S.
presidential elections as director of fundraising for the DNC in San
Diego, California and election week precinct leadership for
MoveOn.org in Colorado Springs,
Colorado. Ms. Burke is fluent in French and Spanish and received her
Bachelor of Arts, Cum Laude, in International Relations and French from
Virginia Polytechnic and State University, including honors
participation in Virginia Tech's political science and public policy
driven, Washington Semester, and one year of study at The University of
Nice Sophia Antipolis, France.
Anne Saunders Fabry
Ms. Fabry is a Government Relations Specialist with Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels LLP, representing clients in a variety of industries before the federal government. Prior to joining Brown Rudnick, she was Director of Legislative and Corporate Affairs for The Michael Lewan Company which specialized in developing and executing public policy strategies for domestic and international corporations. Her past work experience includes the Democratic Leadership Council and Progressive Policy Institute, the office of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman as well as the Democratic National Committee and multiple campaigns. Ms. Fabry is a 1988 graduate from Mount Vernon College with a dual concentration in International Relations and Urban and Comparative Societies, where she received the Outstanding Sophomore Award and participated in their Honors program. She is currently President of the Women’s Congressional Golf Association and a member of the Woman’s National Democratic Club, Women in Government Relations, and Women in Housing and Finance. She is a native of the Washington, DC area and currently resides in Rockville, Maryland with her husband.
Jenny Kim
Ms. Kim is an attorney at Miller & Chevalier Chartered. Her background and practice are concentrated in the areas of government contracts, government ethics, corporate compliance reviews and training, campaign finance/lobbying laws, and international trade. Previously, Ms. Kim served as a United States Presidential Management Fellow and worked for fifteen months in The White House Office of Counsel to the President as an Ethics Advisor and in the Missile Defense Agency. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from New York University and earned her Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School. She also speaks and reads fluent Korean and speaks conversational French.
Currently, Ms. Kim is an American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Business Law Fellow (2006-2008). Additionally, she is the first co-chair of the ABA Public Contract Law Section’s Young Lawyer Committee. She also serves as the Public Contract Law Section’s Vice Chair of Professional Responsibility and Ethics, of International Procurement, and of Membership. The ABA Young Lawyer Division appointed Ms. Kim as liaison to both the Public Contract Law Section and the Standing Committee on Election Law. Recently, Ms. Kim was appointed to the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia (WBADC) Taskforce on the Initiative for Advancement of Women in the Profession. In addition to her substantial involvement in bar associations, Ms. Kim serves as Senior Counsel to the Women Under Forty Political Action Committee (WUFPAC). She also serves on the Leadership Circle of the American University’s Women & Politics Institute’s Young Women Leadership Program. She is also a member of the Women in Government Relations and the Washington Homeland Security Roundtable.
Heather King
Heather King is an associate at the Washington, DC office of the law firm Boies, Schiller and Flexner LLP. She focuses on complex litigation.
Prior to joining the firm, Ms. King served for five years as Special Assistant and Policy Advisor to United States Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was also a member of Senator Clinton’s campaign staff in 2000 and 2006.
Ms. King graduated magna cum laude from the University of Evansville in 1996, where she was also a member of the national honor society, Phi Kappa Phi. In 2005, she received a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.
Danielle Prendergast
Ms.
Prendergast is a government affairs representative for Sempra Energy, a
San Diego-based energy services holding company, focusing on the
company’s federal legislative and regulatory issues. Prior to joining
Sempra, she was an adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore and
American University, and a policy analyst for the Maryland General
Assembly. She earned her doctorate in Political Science from American
University, a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Clark
Atlanta University, and a bachelor’s degree in History from the
University of Maryland at College Park. Danielle lives in Maryland with
her husband Michael.
Kim Rappaport
Kim
Rappaport is in-house counsel for SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT in New York.
Her practice focuses on protection of intellectual property, particularly digital
music copyright and new technology industry actions. Prior to joining Sony,
Ms. Rappaport worked for eight years as a litigation associate in the Washington,
D.C. office of Arnold & Porter, LLP. During that period, she represented pro bono
clients in a variety of high-profile civil rights challenges. Notably, she
represented the highest-ranking female fighter pilot in the United States Air
Force in a constitutional challenge to certain military regulations applicable
to servicewomen stationed in Saudi Arabia and wrote an amicus brief on behalf of
the American Bar Association in the recent Title IX case before the United States
Supreme Court. Ms. Rappaport also created a teaching curriculum based on her pro
bono work and has guest lectured at high schools and colleges in the D.C. area as
part of a youth constitutional rights project she launched in 2001. Ms. Rappaport
graduated from Cornell University in 1996 with a Bachelors in Architecure and
received in 1999 a J.D. magna cum laude from American University, where she was
a member of the International Law Journal and published an often cited piece on
Internet censorship and freedom of speech online.
Coke Morgan Stewart, Esq.
Ms. Stewart is the founder of C.M. Stewart Consulting. She launched
her consulting practice to assist law firms in recruiting and retaining
exceptional attorneys and to solve the seemingly intractable problem of
increasing attorney productivity while improving job satisfaction. Ms.
Stewart conducts interactive workshops on time management, marketing,
and other professional development issues at some of the nation's most
prominent law firms. Her clients include DLA Piper, Greenberg Traurig,
Skadden Arps, Miles & Stockbridge, Goodwin Proctor, Akin Gump, White &
Case, and others.
Ms. Stewart brings many years of experience practicing law to her consulting services. She began private practice as a litigation associate at Verner Liipfert Bernhard McPherson & Hand, now part of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary. In 2001, she moved to Howrey Simon Arnold & White with the head of Verner’s litigation group. Ms. Stewart is a leader in the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association, where she works with the Professionalism and Ethics Subcommittee and the Raise the Bar Task Force, charged with drafting recommendations to improve the practice of law in large law firms. She holds a B.A. from Duke University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was Executive Editor of the Virginia Tax Review and Editor in Chief of the Virginia Law Weekly. After law school, she clerked for the Honorable James T. Turner of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Ms. Stewart lives with her husband and son in the Washington, D.C. area.
Diana Wells
Diana Wells, 40, is Co-President of Ashoka. Ashoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs—men and women with system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Since 1981, Ashoka has elected over 1,800 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries. Ms. Wells joined Ashoka in the 1980s after graduating from college. Her “intrapreneurial” drive quickly led to the creation of Fellowship Support Services, which links Ashoka social entrepreneurs to one another and to a wide array of information and supports. After a leave to obtain her Ph.D. in anthropology, she returned to Ashoka and has been in its leadership ever since.
Shelley Whelpton
Ms. Whelpton has over 15 years of experience in the areas of
non-profit program management, leadership, volunteer development,
communications, and advocacy. Her career and board commitments have been
dedicated to youth-related causes. She is currently consulting to the
Sheridan Group, a government relations firm which represents non-profit
organizations. Prior to the Sheridan Group, Ms. Whelpton managed AYUSA
International, a high school youth exchange program. AYUSA recruits
2,000 high school students from 80 countries each year and matches them
with volunteer host families across America for a 10-month home stay. As
AYUSA’s Executive Director, she developed and led a national coalition
of youth exchange programs to secure U.S. Department of State funding
for bridge-building post 9/11 exchange initiatives with the Middle East
. Funding by the Cultural Bridges Act of 2002, this program brings 600
academic year students each year to the United States from predominately
Muslim countries. Ms. Whelpton graduated from Williams College with a
major in Political Science. She completed a M.Ed. from Boston
University’s School of Education. She lives in Washington, DC with her
partner, Adair, and two sons, Owen and Charlie. She is an enthusiastic
parent and avid waters sports fan.
Amy Wolverton
Ms. Wolverton most recently was a communications law and policy consultant for the government relations department at Discovery Communications Inc. Prior to working at Discovery, Ms. Wolverton was FCC/Media Program Director and Associate Legal Counsel for The Campaign Legal Center, and an attorney and fellow for the Institute of Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center. She also spent three years as in-house counsel for Cox Communications, Inc. and four years at Alston & Bird, LLP. Ms. Wolverton is enjoying her third year as co-chair of the FCBA’s Online Practice Committee; she also served on the Charity Auction sub-committee and worked with the Relations with Other Bars Committee. Ms. Wolverton previously was a chapter board member for Women in Cable and Telecommunications. She earned her LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center, and graduated summa cum laude from Georgia State University College of Law and with distinction from Indiana University.