Pamela Merritt, Honorary Chair (Collinsville, IL)

Pamela Merritt is executive director of Medical Students for Choice. She is a longtime writer, progressive activist, blogger, and co-founder of Reproaction, having served as co-director from 2015-2020. Pamela has been a featured contributor to National Public Radio (NPR), and her writing has also been published in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Guardian UK, Rolling Stone and Salon. Her blog site AngryBlackBitch.com was named one of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs by The Guardian in 2008. Pamela is a founding member of the Trust Black Women Partnership, and was a 2017 Reproductive Health, Rights, & Justice Fellow at the Rockwood Leadership Institute.

Aimee Arrambide (Austin, TX)

Aimee was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She was inspired to go into reproductive health, rights, and justice by her father who was an abortion provider in central and south Texas. She studied Philosophy at the University of Texas and received her Juris Doctor from New York Law School. She co-wrote the Public Leadership Institute’s Playbook for Abortion Rights, serves on the advisory council of Reproaction and is a We Testify Storyteller. She was an intern at Avow in 2006 and 2007, the political affairs director in 2013 and 2014, and joined as the executive director in 2018. In 2023, Aimee joined the Hewlett Foundation as the United States Reproductive Equity Program Officer

Candace Bond-Theriault (Washington, D.C.)

Candace Bond-Theriault, JD., LL.M. (she/her/hers) is a Black queer feminist lawyer, professor, writer, mother, and social justice advocate working at the intersections of law, policy, reproductive health rights, racial justice, LGBTQIA+ liberation, economic justice, and democracy reform. She is Adjunct Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Howard University, and Associate Director for Movement Building at Dēmos: a think tank for the Racial Justice Movement. Bond-Theriault sits on the SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW! Board of Directors and is an abortion and contraception context expert for Our Bodies Ourselves Today (Suffolk University). Her writing has been published in The Nation, SELF magazine, Ms. Magazine, Colorlines, the Root, Blavity, Rewire, the Advocate, the Grio, and the Huffington Post. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Queering Reproductive Justice: an Invitation (Stanford University Press).

Sapphire Garcia-Lies (Wichita, KS)

Sapphire Garcia-Lies is an activist and nonprofit leader focused on fighting for reproductive rights and racial equity in perinatal health. Her work is focused on unabashed truth-telling, calling for accountability within systems, and kindling community change from the grassroots level. In 2020, she founded Kansas Birth Justice, a nonprofit focused on policy change and direct community support to catalyze reproductive justice and perinatal health equity in Kansas. Sapphire takes pride in her strong community ties and in the hundreds of thriving babies she has helped welcome into the world as a community-based birth worker.

Angela Maske (Washington, D.C.)

Angela is a reproductive health and rights advocate and strategist with a focus on contraceptive access, youth engagement, and campus-based grassroots organizing. She is currently the Strategic Projects Manager at Advocates for Youth, where she has led youth-centered campaign strategy to make the first ever birth control pill available over-the-counter in the United States. As part of this work, Angela leads the #FreethePill youth council, a group of young people fighting for increased contraceptive access in their communities and at the national level. Angela also manages the Emergency Contraception (EC) Access Network and the Condom Collective, providing young people across the country doing critical direct service work with access to contraceptives. She currently serves on the board of directors of Rewire News Group and the Advisory Council of Reproaction. Angela holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Global Health from Georgetown University, where she first began organizing around sexual and reproductive health care. Her master’s scholarly research investigated demographic and behavioral factors associated with utilization of HIV and reproductive health services among young women in Eswatini.

Oriaku Njoku (Atlanta, GA)

Oriaku Njoku is a first-generation, Black, Igbo, Nigerian-American, Kentucky raised, queer, fat, Southern femme, healing centered coach living and loving in Atlanta, Georgia. Oriaku is deeply committed to finding joy and pleasure in everything she does including the work they do as the Executive Director of the National Network of Abortion Funds. She believes radical love is a core value that can be embodied and operationalized in movement spaces and truly believes that we can and will create a cultural shift around how we address abortion  and invites you to join her in making reproductive justice a reality. They joined the Reproaction Advisory board because she believes that opposition research is needed to know what and who we are up against in our movements. She also knows that doing this work will strengthen our ability to be strategic as we embark on this journey to the next iteration of Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice.

Chitra Panjabi (Chicago, IL)

Chitra Panjabi, MA, PCC, is an International Coaching Federation-credentialed certified executive and leadership coach and nonprofit management consultant. She has deep expertise in management strategy, board and stakeholder engagement, organizational equity solutions, and fundraising. In addition to her professional expertise, Chitra is an award-winning feminist activist. Previously, Chitra served as President and CEO of SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change where she revitalized the 50+ year old organization to advance SIECUS’ efforts in reshaping social, cultural, and political narratives around sex, sexuality, and sexual and reproductive health. She has previously served as a national executive officer–Vice President Membership–for the National Organization for Women (NOW) where she was responsible for managing operations, communications, fundraising, and membership engagement.

Chitra is the former Chair of, and currently serves on, the Board of Directors for the Chicago Abortion Fund and previously served on the Board of Directors for NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia Foundation and the Executive Committee for the Women’s Information Network (WIN), a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to advancing young women’s personal and professional growth. She was honored to be named a 2018 Fellow in the Rockwood Leadership Institute’s Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Fellowship and to receive WIN’s Young Woman of Achievement Award – Reproductive Justice and Women’s Rights in 2017. Born and raised in Hong Kong by immigrant Indian parents, Chitra has lived in the United States since 2008. In her spare time, she likes to eat good food, indulge in pop culture, explore her artistic side through teaching and creating glass art, travel, and spend time with her family, friends, and adorable dogs.

Libby Skarin (Sioux Falls, SD)

Libby Skarin is a former lawyer, avid reader, and civil rights enthusiast. After practicing law for several years in her home state of Iowa, her frustration with her inability to change systemic problems on a case-by-case basis pushed her headfirst into a career in policy advocacy. Since 2014, her professional efforts have focused on advancing civil rights and civil liberties – including reproductive rights and abortion access – for all South Dakotans. She is inspired by people who do hard work in hard spaces and is deeply committed to doing her part to enshrine a reproductive justice framework in both the legal and social norms of rural Midwestern states, including in carceral settings. Reproaction’s direct action philosophy and refusal to play by the rules favored in traditional power structures motivated Libby to join the Advisory Council. When she’s not working, Libby can often be found with a book in hand surrounded by her pack of scruffy rescue pets and her husband, volunteering with a local non-profit that provides support to transgender youth, or taking a nap.