Berkley Center

Donna Hakimian is currently a graduate student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she is a Master of Education candidate. Hakimian was previously the representative for gender equality and the advancement of women for the Baha’is of the United States. In that role she worked on a wide range of issues, including the prevention of violence against women, the involvement of men and boys in processes of gender equality, and gender equity in education. Hakimian has facilitated numerous discussions on gender equality with colleagues in Washington, DC; during the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women; and at leading universities across the United States. Hakimian holds an M.A. in Women’s Studies from the University of Toronto and a B.A. in Religious and Middle Eastern Studies from McGill University.

Laura Kovach has been the director of the Women's Center at Georgetown University since 2008 and has served as an adjunct faculty member for the Women and Gender Studies Program since 2011. Prior to this, Kovach worked for the Centre County Women’s Resource Center in State College, Pennsylvania, where she provided direct support and counseling to survivors of rape, intimate partner violence, and stalking. She also directed and organized K-12 outreach and abuse prevention education for the region. In 2003 Kovach joined the staff of My Sister’s Place, Inc. and was the director of education from 2004 to 2005. She earned her B.S. in Human Development and Family Studies and Minor in Women’s Studies from the Pennsylvania State University and a M. Ed. in College Student Affairs from the Pennsylvania State University.

Jen Luettel Schweer is the associate director for Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Services in Health Education Services at Georgetown University. She provides direct services, outreach, education, training, and programming around issues of interpersonal violence and is an adjunct faculty member in Georgetown's Women and Gender Studies Department. Before coming to Georgetown in 2006, she began her work in 2002 as an advocate and counselor with a community domestic violence and sexual assault crisis center. She serves on the Program Advisory Board for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network and co-facilitates the DC University Consortium. She is a member of the DC Sexual Assault Response Team and the DC Sexual Assault Victims Rights Amendment Act Task Force. Her B.S. in Education and M.A. in Counseling Psychology are from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the District of Columbia.

Aisha Rahman is of counsel at the Baig Firm in Atlanta and president of Sugarlimb Consulting. From 2011 to 2017 she was executive director of KARAMAH: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights and the head of the organization’s Family Law Division.

Rick Santos is president and CEO of IMA World Health, an international faith-based nonprofit that implements impactful and innovative public health programs in developing countries. With over two decades of experience in faith-based relief and development work, Rick has been responsible for providing leadership to large and complicated programs in the field and at the headquarters of two global development organizations. His programmatic approach includes prioritizing local partnerships and capacity building, which he believes are the key ingredients to successful development work. A USAID funded sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) project that IMA has implemented over the past five years in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, inspired Santos and IMA's board to do more on the issue. IMA is now the secretariat for the We Will Speak Out, US Coalition, which recently published with Sojourners the “Broken Silence” report, highlighting data on the attitudes and knowledge of SGBV from a survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors.