Dia Cirillo, incoming TN President (July 1, 2018) moderated a panel of speakers including:

Dawn Harrington – Executive Director, Free Hearts

Dawn is a formerly-incarcerated advocate from Nashville, TN and serves as the executive director of Free Hearts, a nonprofit led by formerly incarcerated women that was created to reunite families and keep families together. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Recording Industry Management and Public Relations from Middle Tennessee State University and a Master of Business Administration degree in Information Technology from Bethel University. Dawn is currently a doctoral candidate in public Policy and advises a number of initiates dedicated to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women, including Nashville Defenders and Unheard Voices Outreach and the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.

Kathy Walsh – Executive Director, Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence

Working with survivors, advocates and policy makers over the last three decades, Kathy has helped craft more than 200 new laws improving victim safety and offender accountability including orders of protection, spousal rape, stalking and domestic assault. This legislation expanded the number of domestic violence programs and rape crisis centers in Tennessee from five in 1984 to more than sixty today and improved law enforcement response to domestic and sexual violence by creating a model training project educating more than 10,000 police officers, as well as provide much-needed emergency financial assistance to hundreds of victims of rape and abuse by establishing a statewide emergency assistance fund. Kathy is the co-author of many publications and serves on numerous boards and committees.

Zulfat Suara – Chair, American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee

Zulfat Suara is the Chair of the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee (AMAC). AMAC’s mission is to foster mutual trust and respect through civic engagement, community building and media relations. Since inception, AMAC has been working to increasing civic participation of Muslims in Tennessee via its quarterly leadership meetings, Muslim Day on the Hill and the annual Empowering Women Conference. For the last 5 years, Zulfat has served as the Women’s Day on the Hill Chair and coordinator of joint legislative day for several women organizations on issues affecting Tennessee women and children. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including by the FBI directors, ans serves on the Metro Action Commission of Nashville. She was inducted into the TN Women Hall of Fame in October 2015. Zulfat is a CPA and is the Assistant Controller at Meharry Medical College.

Keri Adams – CEO, Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee

Before joining Planned Parenthood 16 years ago, Keri worked in finance for the Gore/Lieberman Campaign in Nashville and the post-election audit state in Washington, DC. Prior to the Gore campaign, she worked in finance and management for multiple non-profits in Ohio and Illinois. She is currently the Chair of the Board of Community Shares, and is on the Board for the Holly Street Daycare. Keri is married and has three young daughters in Metro Public Schools.