Staff

Ieshia Scott is a public and motivational speaker, health educator, mentor, peer, and support group facilitator based in Broward County, Florida. Ieshia became interested in HIV advocacy to help people living with HIV overcome barriers, access services, and find support in others living with HIV after being outed in 2014 publicly on Twitter. Through the support and opportunities made possible from that moment, Ieshia found passion from her lifelong secret. She went on to create and facilitate trainings and content for youth, young adults, and HIV service organizations. Notably; “ABC’s of HIV,” “Dating and Disclosure,” and capacity-building services in client service, program development, program implementation, and community engagement as a consultant.

Since 2015, Ieshia has partnered with various organizations and public agencies to bring awareness to HIV/AIDS, uplift, and advocate for women living with HIV seeking sisterhood and support. Former UCF Knight, Ieshia received her Bachelor of Science in Health Services Administration and a Masters in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management from Nova Southeastern University in August 2022.

Crystal Townsend is a native of Beaumont, TX who fights for justice and equity, especially related to health and human rights. She has a background in public health and brings experience in community, issue-based, digital, and electoral organizing.

For more than a decade, Crystal has worked to intentionally and systematically support and grow a culture of inclusion, accountability, and anti-racist organizing leadership, particularly within the local HIV response. Crystal has served in many roles including HIV prevention specialist, program manager, and most recently, coordinator of END HIV Houston – a citywide, grassroots coalition focused on ending the HIV epidemic in Houston/Harris County through racial and social justice.

In 2019, Crystal had the privilege of working alongside the fierce leaders of the Positive Women’s Network Greater Houston Area chapter to co-create H-Town Power – the successful electoral organizing campaign that helped educate and mobilize over 150,000 unlikely voters in the historic 2020 Harris County election.

This year, Crystal was one of six lead organizers backed by Houston in Action to join Full Circle Strategies’ Inaugural 2021 Ukombozi Fellowship – a year-long fellowship for BIPOC and aspiring white allies to understand better how to dismantle racially oppressive systems and reshape movements, organizations, and communities.

Additionally, Crystal is a proud board member of The Mahogany Project, Inc., a black, trans-led organization based out of Houston, TX working to reduce social isolation, stigma, and acts of injustice in TQLGB+ communities of color.

As a partner, mother, and someone deeply embedded in her community, Crystal wants her work to uplift the experiences of BIPOC and TGLBQ+ communities to amplify the intersectional nature of our lives through intentional joy, thoughtful organizing, and supporting the shift of narrative power – which shapes the norms and rules by which our society lives. In this work she feels that we can honor our own humanity and serve as a reminder that we live full, beautiful, complex lives, not single issue ones.

Victoria is an artist, activist, and communicator from Montevideo, Uruguay. Her migration experience to Alabama and its legacy of civil rights struggle contributed heavily to shaping her values and aspirations. She studied English Literature at the State University of New York at Purchase and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her professional background includes a decade of community organizing, communications, and non–profit development. She developed a passion for grassroots storytelling while serving as Communications Coordinator for the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice, where she had the privilege of curating a multimedia exhibit featuring the stories of prominent immigrants’ rights activists for the world-renowned Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Working for Adelante Alabama Worker Center, she sharpened her political analysis and honed her skills in movement arts (screen-printing, puppet-making, painting, and graphic design) and popular education–fighting side by side with some of the most marginalized communities in Alabama while centering cultural expression, joy, healing, and rebellion. Victoria is thrilled to bring her slew of skills and passions to the PWN team, where she hopes to shine an even brighter light on the incredible, intersectional work being done by women and people of trans experience living with HIV.

Elena Ferguson is a Nashville native and earned her J.D. from Belmont University College of Law in 2020. Throughout her law school career, she served as a legal intern with the Nashville Public Defender’s Office, Juvenile Court of Nashville, and Law for Black Lives. After law school, she served as the If/When/How RJ Fellow at Healthy & Free Tennessee, serving as the lead on their proactive policy agenda.

Throughout her fellowship, she had a particular focus on legislation related to incarceration, pregnancy, and doula access in Tennessee. Elena earned her B.A. in Sociology with an Africana Studies Concentration from the College of the Holy Cross in 2017.

Sallie J. Thomas (Howard University School of Law ’21) is a dedicated reproductive justice advocate who focused her academic scholarship, intern, and extern opportunities on addressing issues of the movement. Sallie interned with the District of Columbia Department of Health (DC Health) in their General Counsel office, the National Partnership for Women and Families, and at the National Institute for Reproductive Health.

Prior to law school, Sallie graduated from the State University of New York – College at Old Westbury with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She then went on to graduate from Stony Brook University with her Master’s in Social Work. Sallie worked as a medical social worker for a bit over two years prior to going to law school. Sallie is committed to seeking change for people living with HIV and is excited to join the PWN team!

Antoinette Jones was born and raised in Bronx, NY by way of Northern Virginia before settling in Atlanta, GA. She began her work with HIV advocacy in her early 20s, as a Peer Navigator, facilitating access to preventative care and treatment for people living with and at risk for HIV. She identifies as a Vertical Woman Living with HIV, meaning she has been living with HIV since Birth. Antoinette was called to peer advocacy to combat the isolation many people born with HIV go through due to the lack of awareness.

Antoinette is passionate about building leaders in her community and empowering folks to take charge of their sexual health, wellness, and pleasure. Antoinette has worked with organizations serving Black women and people of transgender experience developing programs, advancements in healthcare services, and mentorship/leadership development. She also works with HIV providers to improve services for PLWHIV. Antoinette is the Co-Executive Director of Dandelions, Inc., a non-profit that centers the development of Verticals (people born with HIV) through mentorship, trauma, healing, and peer-to-peer interventions.

Sarah is an abolitionist, reproductive justice organizer, public education advocate, and union organizer. Sarah started her career in 2016, organizing fast food workers to demand $15/hr, paid sick leave, and a union. 

Sarah holds the belief that electoral politics will never liberate our communities, but also believes that voting is an act of harm reduction and care for our neighbors. During the 2018 midterms, she led Democratic electoral outreach in a Republican suburb. Through knocking on countless doors and holding deep canvassing conversations, Sarah and her canvassing team flipped 3 red down-ballot seats to blue.

From 2019 to 2021, Sarah worked for Planned Parenthood where she helped to diversify volunteer teams, created new programs for patients to get involved in advocacy, and led multiple mutual aid campaigns. Before leaving Planned Parenthood, she worked alongside the organizing staff to form a union and transform the board of directors. 

During the pandemic, Sarah and a team of high school students lead a menstrual equity program. Together they distributed over $15k worth of menstrual products to young people who were struggling to access them. In 2021, Sarah led a COVID-19 education outreach campaign to decrease disparities in vaccination access in BIPOC communities throughout New Jersey. Sarah and her team of 15 fellows were successful in increasing vaccination rates. Public health has always been a cornerstone in Sarah’s organizing journey. 

You can find Sarah yelling about how important it is to protect and expand abortion access and legal rights. She is someone who has had several abortions, went through the judicial bypass to access abortion, and has been criminalized for seeking abortion care. She is also a mother. Her lived experiences have landed her on the unshakable understanding that advocacy and grassroots organizing is the only way we can preserve and expand bodily autonomy. Those same lived experiences led her to lead educational workshops for young folks on destigmatizing abortion. 

Sarah is rooted in the belief that our best ideas, plans, and strategies arise from learning together, discussing together, building together, and growing together and believes there is abundance in community. She knows the importance of finding your political home, taking to the streets, and showing up for one another. No one is coming to save us, if we don’t fight for the world we deserve, it will never come.

Alex is a healer, community organizer, educator, and co-conspirator based on unceded Nipmuc land, in the colonial state of MA. They are Mexican, indígena, 2Spirit, and queer. Alex studied Political Science and graduated cum laude from the University of Florida in December 2021, while also working several part-time jobs. Although this institution provided the formal credentials, they have been formally and informally taught by countless trans elders, queer artists, Black feminists, Indigenous leaders, and prison abolitionists that shaped their liberatory praxis.

In college, Alex was a queer and trans student activist, serving as president of the pride student union, hosting queer sex education workshops, leading a political engagement task force, and developing the first gender inclusive living and learning community on campus. Their research background includes serving as a lab manager for Dr. Carolyn M. Tucker’s psychology in health disparities team and a research assistant for the WELLS Healing & Research Collective under the mentorship of Dr. Della V. Mosley. They were a co-writer for two APA posters on a sustainable, community-based participatory research program training Black women as community health workers. Additionally, Alex completed a year-long marketing and community organizing internship at the Civic Media Center, a leftist library and alternative media space. Most recently, they worked as a residential advocate for an intimate partner violence emergency shelter, while also developing and facilitating a community-based support group for queer+ survivors.

They aspire to utilize their extensive social media and digital organizing skills to power-build in marginalized communities and subvert colonial systems of oppression. Alex operates from a place of love, honoring their queer and Indigenous ancestors as they fight for a truly liberated future. Outside of work, Alex loves spending time with their partner and cat. They enjoy collecting books, listening to music, watching movies, and curating tattoos.

“It’s revolutionary to connect with love.” -Tourmaline

Maya Arigala graduated from the George Washington University Law School with high honors in May 2023. During law school, she served on GW’s Civil and Human Rights Clinic, where she had the  opportunity to work on ongoing employment discrimination litigation at the D.C. Office of Human Rights. She also served as the founder of the Reproductive Data Privacy Initiative, a project within the Ethical Tech Initiative at GW which hosted events and produced public education materials on reproductive justice and data privacy. As a clerk for The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and the Public Interest Law Project, Maya had the opportunity to work on civil rights advocacy relating to economic, reproductive, and housing justice. Prior to law school, Maya studied comparative literature and postcolonial studies at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

Grace Rutha is an educator, activist, advocate, motivational speaker and community mobilizer.

She has worked in the HIV field since her diagnosis in 1985 when she founded the “AIDS Digest Health Magazine,” “Maisha Save a Breast Annual Dinner Dance Fundraiser” for breast cancer survivors living with HIV, and the “50+ Prime Time TEACH Alumni” for people aging and thriving with HIV.

Grace has 25 years of experience as a journalist and has served as a member of the Philadelphia FIGHT Community Advisory Board (CAB) and Board of Directors (BOD). She became the first community health worker apprentice in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania in December 2014, under the 1199C Department of Labor program customized for individuals who have been unemployed for more than six months due to life’s unexpected circumstances. 

She rose through the ranks to become Project TEACH (Treatment Education Activists Combating HIV) coordinator, lead coordinator in the education department, and deputy director of TEACH and Ancillary Programs.

Grace has a passion for women’s advocacy, ending HIV criminalization laws, human rights, writing, networking, and healthcare research and clinical trials. She is a long time member of Positive Women’s Network-USA PA Chapter.

She has a post-graduate diploma in mass communications and journalism and a Bachelor of Arts in English Language, English Literature, and Philosophy from the University of Nairobi; she is also a published author. 

Grace says her life has been highly informed by clinical trials, two of which have given her a magnanimous lease on life. Her dream is to see a world in which the HIV epidemic will not just end but where people living with HIV will thrive, enjoy respect and be free of stigma, access affordable health care and housing as a tool of prevention, and have the tools necessary to make informed choices and decisions through customized healthcare education. She takes these dreams from the foundational belief of the Denver Principles: ‘Nothing About Us Without Us.”

Tatiana Jorio was born and raised on the Lower East Side in New York City and now resides in Los Angeles. Tati is an organizer by nature- and began her organizing work in college fighting against rape culture on campus, successfully lead a campaign to bring free menstrual products on campus, serving as the Planned Parenthood Generation Action president at her college, and on Planned Parenthood’s national student leadership cohort. In addition to this, Tati has always been a storyteller advocating for change through filmmaking and acting, she created a documentary about the inequities prevalent at her film school, which went on to become an educational tool at her college and receive praise at various film festivals.

During college, Tati interned on a local city council campaign in the community she was raised in, and her passion for local community organizing flourished. Part of a local leadership of Latina leaders, Tati became a leader in her community- serving on her local community board on the human services, health, education & youth committee as well as the arts subcommittee, and serving as president of her local political club. In addition to this, Tati has worked with various community arts and cultural non profits doing outreach and communications, as well as volunteering with her local elected officials on mutual aid efforts during the height of the pandemic. Tati has been recognized by the New York State Assembly for her community organizing.

Tati will have worked on  21 elections by this fall, serving as campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, field director, strategy consultant and much more on various electoral races from City council, judicial, borough president, issue- based campaigns and more. She has trained and recruited teams of 100+ volunteers, fundraised for candidates, built field strategy, created leadership programs and lead internship programs for youth interested in politics. You can most likely find Tati talking about the importance of local elections and issue- based campaigns in building community power. Tati is most passionate about empowering community leaders with tools and strategies to continue to organize themselves for what they need in their communities. Tati knows that until we are all free- none of us are. Since her time at PWN, Tati has worked on various election cycles helping to design and improve the IVE program election cycle after election cycle. She hopes to continue to see new leadership develop out of the IVE program, and support PWN’s members in continuing to design the campaigns of their wildest dreams.