BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Helene D. Goldfarb, Vice Chair, President Emerita

A member of the Feminist Press Board since 1982, Helene D. Goldfarb (she/her) has served as chair and president, and has been the chair of many committees. Helene was an educator from 1951 to 1995, taking a short hiatus to write questions for the TV show Tic-Tac-Dough. A graduate of Hunter College, she has served as president of the Alumni Association and the Scholarship and Welfare Fund, and is currently a board member of the Hunter College Foundation. She was president and treasurer of the Queens Chapter of the AAHC for over fifty years, and serves on the board of the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House. She received her master’s degree from NYU. For over twenty years, she worked at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center as administrator of the National Critics Institute. She also produced two one-act plays written by Gene Feist, founder of Roundabout Theatre Company, and lit the first show at the Roundabout in the early 1960s.

Nancy Sheppard, Vice Chair

Nancy Sheppard (she/her) is a marketing executive with more than twenty years of success in book publishing at Random House, Penguin USA, Macmillan, and Hachette. She has created and executed hundreds of cutting-edge campaigns for internationally bestselling authors including Sue Monk Kidd, Terry McMillan, Elizabeth Gilbert, Adam Grant, Deborah Harkness, Lev Grossman, Ijeoma Uluo, and many others. She is the director of her own branding and marketing agency, Bluestocking Literary, and lives in New York City.

Matthew Backus, Treasurer

Matthew Backus (he/him) is an associate professor of economics at Columbia Business School, a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a research affiliate of the Centre for Economic Policy Research. An empirical industrial organization economist, he is an expert on antitrust, auctions, bargaining, and productivity. He earned his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan after a brief career in organizing, and now lives in the Upper West Side.

Thomas Bourveau

Thomas Bourveau (he/him) is an associate professor of accounting at Columbia Business School and a faculty fellow at the Millstein Center at Columbia Law School. He is an expert in capital market research with a focus on white collar crime. He earned his PhD in Management Science from HEC Paris, and a Master in Public Affairs from Science Po Paris. He lives in the Upper West Side.

Norrell Edwards

Norrell Edwards (she/her) is a scholar, activist, and communications consultant for nonprofit organizations. Her employment experience and research interests place her work at the nexus of global Black identity, cultural memory, and social justice. She is currently a Distinguished Lecturer for her alma mater, the CUNY Macaulay Honors College. Previous to her position at CUNY, Norrell was the Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Texas Christian University and prior to that served as the Assistant Director of Education at Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative. With extensive scholarship on the Haitian diaspora, Norrell has published in several peer-review journals and has edited collections as well as public work in LA Review of Books, The Grio, and the Black Westchester.

Norrell graduated with a BA  in English Literature from Hunter College, followed by a PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park in twentieth and twenty-first century Black Diaspora Literature.

Hannah Egerton

Hannah Egerton (she/her) is the Director of Candidate Services at the Campaign Finance Board, where she works with campaigns for New York City municipal offices. Through her time at the CFB she has developed training programs and provided trainings to members of the public in partnership with local NYC nonprofits.

Hannah received her MPA from NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and her BA from Smith College. She lives in Brooklyn.

Laura K. Hamilton

Laura K. Hamilton (she/her) is the Senior Director of Strategic Competition Initiatives at Oracle. She is also a voracious reader, passionate intersectional feminist, and lawyer. Laura's law practice focuses on antitrust policy, anti-money laundering/compliance controls, and white collar crime. She has a BA from New York University in History, with concentrations in French and Middle Eastern Studies, and a JD from The George Washington University Law School. She lives in Washington, DC.

Hitha Palepu

Hitha Palepu (she/her) is an investor, author, and ardent feminist. Her portfolio is focused on women-founded and women-benefitting companies, including MM.LaFleur, Girls' Night In, iFundWomen, and Werk. She is the author of How to Pack: Travel Smart for Any Trip and curator of #5SmartReads. She lives in New York with her husband and two sons.

Mónica Tavares

Mónica Tavares is the associate vice chancellor for communications and marketing at the City University of New York. She brings a deep well of executive experience in local government, communications and immigrant affairs. She came to CUNY following two years as vice president for external relations at the Hispanic Federation, where she was responsible for managing the organization’s government relations, public relations, marketing teams and its overall communications strategy. Previously, she served as chief of staff in the Office of Communications and External Affairs at the New York City Department of Education, where she also did policy work on immigration and civic engagement. Tavares also served in the administration of New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. In addition to managing operations, staffing, intergovernmental relations and communications there, she oversaw One NYC One Nation, a two-year civic engagement initiative designed to increase the participation of immigrants in New York City’s civic life. She spent eight years working at El Museo del Barrio, New York’s leading Latino cultural institution, and currently serves on its Board of Trustees.

Tavares holds a B.A. in Latin American literature from SUNY College at Potsdam and a certificate in nonprofit management from the Hispanic Leadership Institute at Baruch College. A native of the Dominican Republic, she lives in East Harlem.

Florence Wright

Florence Wright is a board certified radiation oncologist with Ochsner Health System. She has a passion for women’s sexual health and wellness, a focus on health equity, and a strong commitment to helping her patients manage the emotional and spiritual challenges that accompany cancer diagnosis and treatment. 

She holds an M.D. from the University of Southern California and completed residency in Radiation Oncology at Mt. Sinai Medical Center. She has served on the faulty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. 

As the granddaughter of founder Florence Howe, she has a particular dedication and sense of stewardship for the Press. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and two daughters. 

Zoe Feldman

Zoe Feldman is an operator and strategist working across CPG and health and wellness. She has a 17-year career spanning from multinational to start-up companies, and has managed and grown diverse, high-performance teams. She has held leadership roles across a variety of companies, but is most proud of her work on the non-profit and NGO side, including Edesia Nutrition, REI Path Ahead Ventures, Transhealth Northampton, The James Beard Foundation, and Smith College. Her favorite FP title is Tastes Like War.

Donia Hanaei

Donia Hanaei (she/her or they/them) serves as the Director of Development for Global Rights for Women where she works to raise funds for legal and systems reform aimed at eliminating gender-based violence. Prior, she has worked as a development professional with Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta where she focused on AANHPI civil and voting rights. She is a passionate intersectional feminist and the daughter of Iranian immigrants. She serves on the board of the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP) Georgia chapter. She is dedicated to uplifting the voices and protecting the rights of women, gender-expansive people, and LGTBQIA+ identifying communities in the Middle East and North Africa region.

She holds a B.A. in International Affairs with an emphasis on the Middle East and North Africa from the University of Colorado Boulder and a M.A. in International Affairs with a national security concentration from the University of North Georgia.

Kathy Sandler

Kathy Sandler is a leader in the field of publishing technology and innovation. She currently works in IT at Penguin Random House. She worked on the launch of the Storia eReader at Scholastic and the launch of the digital editions of Fitness and Parents magazines to iPad at Meredith. She worked at Hearst Magazines in publishing technology for 20 years. Kathy was named one of Folio’s 40 Most Influential People in Publishing. She was Co-President of Women's Media Group, President of Women In Production, and founded Digital Asset Management Day at Seybold. She has an MBA from NYU and taught in the Master's in Publishing programs at NYU and Pace. Since 2009 she has had a blog and now a weekly newsletter on Technology * Innovation * Publishing at www.sandlertechworks.com.

Amanda J. Reffsin

Amanda J. Reffsin (she/her) is the Associate Principal of Humanitarian Assistance, working to lead Miyamoto International's humanitarian response programs, ensuring alignment with project goals, donor needs, and organizational objectives. She has previously held positions with the International Rescue Committee and UNICEF USA, and earned degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in International Educational Development and Ithaca College in Culture & Communications. 

She is bi-East Coastal, splitting time between Queens, New York and Washington D.C., utilizing her Amtrak time to catch up on reading. If she's not talking about books, she's likely talking about her dog Brisket, why the reality tv show Survivor is a microcosm of American society, or dreaming of one day being a contestant on Jeopardy.