Emily Brandt, Executive Director Emily Brandt founded Take Back The News while earning her BA from Boston University, where she studied Women’s Studies, Psychology, and English, and where she served on the Executive Board of the Boston University Women’s Center. She has extensive activist and volunteer experience, including work as a writing mentor with Girls Write Now and as a crisis counselor with The United Way. She teaches English at a Public High School, where she also directs theater and co-advises the Gay-Straight Alliance. Julia Brandt, Director of Community Print Projects Julia Brandt is a public high school teacher of Biology and A.P. Environmental Science, as well as the advisor to her school's Gay-Straight Alliance and Tree Huggers Club. She earned her undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in 1995, and her Masters Degree in Environmental Conservation from New York University in 2004. While in college, she served as a sexual assault peer educator, organizing and hosting community events, including Take Back The Night and the Clothesline Project. She has also been a rape crisis center volunteer. She has also helped organize a student-facilitated annual workshop on relationship violence and sexual assault for the seniors at the high school where she teaches. Laura Blasberg, Director of Media Response Project Laura Blasberg is an attorney at a prominent Long Island law firm.  She graduated from Catholic University in 1993 with a B.A. in finance and from Duke Law School in 1996.  She also earned her LL.M. in Taxation from New York University School of Law in 1997.  While in law school she volunteered for the Domestic Violence Advocacy Project and was an Articles Editor for the Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy.  Her pro bono work as an attorney includes aiding families of victims of 9/11, assisting HIV positive individuals prepare their wills and health care proxies, and working with charitable organizations in securing their tax exempt status. Maria Brandt, Director of College Writing Project Maria Brandt earned her PhD in English from Boston College in 2003. Her article "'For His Own Satisfaction': The Elimination of the New Woman Figure in McTeague," which is a section of a larger dissertation analyzing narrative techniques that shielded early twentieth-century readers from the physical pain endured by New Woman characters, was published by American Transcendental Quarterly later that year. Currently, Maria is editing the memoir Return to Kamastone: One African Woman’s Search for her Ancestors, and teaching English at Monroe Community College, where she and Dr. Elizabeth Johnston will launch the prototype for Take Back the News' College Writing Project. Julia Wey, Director of Outreach Julia Wey is a public high school teacher of Global History and Geography. As an undergraduate, Julia studied in Japan and Central America through the Friends World Program of Long Island University. She received her BA in Anthropology from SUNY New Paltz. While in New Paltz, she was a chief organizer of the Take Back the Night in May of 2002, and the local coordinator of the first Take Back the News Community Print Project in New Paltz. Julia was also active in the Journalism department and the college newspaper, The Oracle, earning an induction into the Society of Collegiate Journalists. In 2005, Julia earned an MA in Social Studies Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Julia also volunteered at Mount Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention (SAVI).