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Roadmap for Women’s Economic Justice
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Elizabeth Riotte is currently Assistant Corporate Secretary of Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), a diversified energy and utility company with more than $30 billion in assets and operations in 25 states, focusing on corporate governance, securities law compliance, public disclosures, and securities filings, and providing support to the board of directors. Liz was previously an attorney at Axiom, a leading provider of tech-enabled legal services and an associate at Verrill Dana LLP in Portland, Maine and BakerHostetler LLP in Cleveland, Ohio. Liz holds a B.A. from Tufts University and a J.D. from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law School, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Case Western Reserve Law Review and graduated magna cum laude and Order of the Coif. Liz lives in Cumberland with her husband, Sam, and their two young daughters.

Marina is a multilingual international professional committed to providing meaningful services to populations of diverse backgrounds and cultures. She was born in a town in Russia which is 22 miles from Arkhangelsk. Arkhangelsk and Portland have been sister cities since 1988. She first came to Maine in 2003 to study at Maine Law as an international student. Marina was a human rights lawyer in St. Petersburg, Russia, working on the issues of domestic violence, human trafficking, and women’s rights. She also holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Management from the Muskie School at the University of Southern Maine and in April’22 will graduate from the Institute for Civic Leadership program at Maine Development Foundation.

Currently, she is a Global Talent Navigator at the Office of Equity, Inclusion, and Social Impact at the University of Southern Maine. While serving as a board member, Marina hopes to promote the interests of New Mainers.

Marina lives in Yarmouth with her husband and two daughters. Her daughters now also volunteer at the Portland-Arkhangelsk Sister Cities Committee.

Lauren Jacobs worked in the field of outdoor sport education for seven years prior to joining the Kinesiology and Physical Education faculty at the University of Maine. Her thesis research investigated the way Maine elementary schools decide when students may go outside for recess and physical education classes. Prior to coming to UMaine, Lauren worked in the non-profit sector helping increase outdoor sport opportunities and access for Maine children. She also taught physical education in a PK-8 school. Lauren is a registered Maine Guide and a registered yoga instructor. Lauren is the daughter of MWL founder Linda Smith Dyer and Charlie Jacobs.

After growing up in southern Maine and graduating from Middlebury College, Erin Cinelli served as Executive Director of the Spannocchia Foundation for 12 years, supporting an education center and organic farm in Tuscany, and splitting her time between Italy and Maine. Since 2013, she has been the Executive Director of the Emanuel and Pauline A. Lerner Foundation, based in Portland, ME. The Lerner Foundation recently launched a 5-year initiative to raise the post-secondary education aspirations of middle school students growing up in rural Maine communities. She also serves as a grant-making advisor with the Rocking Moon Foundation, based in Washington, DC and midcoast Maine. Erin earned a Master of Public Policy and Management from the Muskie School at the University of Southern Maine in 2005, is a 2014 graduate of the Exponent Philanthropy Next Gen Fellows program and serves as Vice Chair of the Maine Philanthropy Center board. Erin and her husband Ben co-own Farmers’ Gate Market in Wales, ME and The Farm Stand in South Portland, purveyors of local, pasture-raised meats and sustainably grown produce from a network of farms in central and southern Maine. They have 2 young children.

Rebecca has been leading the leveraging efforts as well as overseeing overall project management, performance monitoring, financial reporting processes and structure that ensures alignment of resources with program activities, management of travel requirements, and being a member of the evaluation team. Rebecca has extensive experience working in Tribal health, health equity, public health nutrition, program evaluation, and systems development. She is currently the Director of Operations for Wabanaki Public Health and oversees the day-to-day operations for all the WPH’s work plans and deliverables. Prior to this position, she served as a public health consultant working with Tribal communities to conduct community assessments, developing data collection, and reporting tools, developing system-wide performance measures, and evaluating the success of current initiatives. In her previous role, Rebecca has 10 years of experience working in State government, where she worked for the Office of Health Equity, WIC program, Public Health Informatics, and Infectious Disease Epidemiology. In her work with the state government, Rebecca reviewed and evaluated statewide health equity evaluation efforts, developed data collection, analysis, reporting, and visualization tools, and worked with technology vendors to improve data systems. Prior to state government, she worked at the Jackson Laboratory working in mouse genome informatics, conducting genomic analysis on mouse and human genes to determine appropriate nomenclature. She is a graduate of the University of Maine with a B.S. in Biochemistry; holds an MPH in Epidemiology from Emory University and a Ph.D. in Public Health - Community Health from Walden University.

Lucia Hunt is the directing attorney of family law at Pine Tree Legal Assistance where she leads a team of attorneys who represent survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. Lucia is the chair of the statewide Commission on Domestic and Sexual Abuse. She lives in Yarmouth with her husband and two energetic children.

Emily B. Parker is a certified public accountant and a senior manager at BerryDunn, in the firm’s Not-for-Profit group. She works with a variety of not-for-profit and governmental organizations providing audit, consulting, and compliance services. She has her master’s degree in Accounting from the University of Maine. Emily serves on the board of the Good Samaritan Agency, a not-for-profit organization that provides teen-parent education and single-parent services in Bangor, Maine. You will find her helping at her family farm or enjoying time at the lake in her spare time. Emily lives with her husband and two children in Newport.

Andrea received her Ph.D. in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies from The Ohio State University and her B.A. from Colby College. Her research focuses on the racial-ethnic, gender-sexual, religious and place-based identities of immigrant and white youth in Lewiston, where she herself was born and raised in a multi-generational Franco-American family. From 2018-2020, Andrea worked with the Diverse BookFinder project at Bates College, where she coordinated the launch of an online tool to help public librarians across the U.S. diversify their children's book collections. She currently co-leads professional development workshops for Maine public school educators on how to incorporate diverse books into existing curricula to facilitate ongoing and necessary conversations about race and racism with their students. Andrea has served on the Board of Directors for the YWCA of Central Maine and was the Project Scholar for the Maine Humanities Council book series commemorating the centennial of women's suffrage in the U.S. Andrea currently sits on the Diverse BookFinder Advisory Council and serves as the Vice Chair for the Androscoggin County Committee of the Maine Community Foundation. Andrea lives in Lewiston with her husband and best friend since middle school, Shaad, their budding feminist/5-year-old daughter, Eidie, and their sweet kitties, Haathi and Pop Tart. Hailing from a family that bred and sold Labrador puppies, Andrea only recently admits to having converted from “dog-person” to “cat-lover,” an identity much more in line with the rest of this bio. Fun fact: Andrea served as an MWL intern when she was in college!

Quinn Gormley (she/they) currently serves as the Executive Director of the Maine Transgender Network (MTN). Her work with MTN ranges from community-building initiatives, expanding health equity and access across the state, suicide prevention, policy advocacy, and violence prevention. Before MTN, Quinn worked in a variety of community organizing settings, including at the Health Equity Alliance managing a rural HIV testing program and building rural LGBTQ+ communities, and with the Maine People’s Alliance working on economic and health justice issues. Throughout her work, Quinn believes in centering the wellness of marginalized communities, and that the root of power and liberation can be found in communities that embrace their diversity and interdependence. She lives with her husband Ezra and a small menagerie of pets in Central Maine.

Cape Elizabeth

Gretchen Johnson joined the MWLEF Board in 2018- but her feminist activism began at age three when she marched alongside her mom with an ERA sign. Gretchen participates on the Development Committee and was a member of the MWL 40th Anniversary Planning Committee. As the Director of Marketing for Verrill Dana, Gretchen oversees the strategic planning, client development, public relations, branding, and community engagement for the firm. She brings those skills to bear in her work for the MWLEF. As an avid supporter of the Arts, Gretchen participates in committees on behalf of the Portland Museum of Art and Portland Symphony Orchestra and has held season tickets to Portland Stage for nearly 10 years. Gretchen has volunteered at the Center for Grieving Children since 2008 and currently serves on the Board. In her free time, Gretchen competes in road races and triathlons, and encourages her own 5-year old “powerful woman” to find her voice and to help others.

Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross is serving her third term in the Maine House, representing the Portland neighborhoods of Parkside, Bayside, East Bayside, Oakdale and the University of Southern Maine campus. Talbot Ross serves the Maine House Democratic caucus as assistant House majority leader. She is the first and only Black woman elected to the Maine Legislature and to legislative leadership.

A ninth-generation Mainer and longtime public servant, Talbot Ross has dedicated her career to social justice. Prior to her time in the Legislature, she led the NAACP in Maine and founded several nonprofit organizations, including Maine Black Community Development, Inc., Maine Freedom Trails, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Fellows. She chaired the Maine State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for several years as well as the African American Collection of Maine housed at the University of Southern Maine.

Talbot Ross is the recipient of numerous awards, including the University of New England’s Deborah Morton Award for exceptional civic leadership. She received the 2020 Gerda Haas Award for Excellence in Holocaust and Human Rights Education and Leadership and was named the 2020 Woman of the Year by Emerge Maine.

Shawna Traugh, DSW, LCSW is a Clinical Consultant to the children’s services programs for Aroostook Mental Health Center. Shawna is passionate about community advocacy and child/youth mental health awareness. She is a member of the Pride Aroostook steering committee and is invested in LGBTQIA2S+ advocacy. Shawna was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and moved to Tobique First Nation (Neqotkuk) as a teen. She has lived in Maine since 2003 where she started working in the social work field. She has been a licensed clinician since 2006. Shawna is passionate about education and inspiring others to learn. She has 2 Bachelor degrees (BA & BS), a Master’s (MSW), a Post-grad certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis (USM) and most recently completed her DSW (Tulane). She enjoys traveling, singing, dancing, and roller skating. Shawna lives in Caribou with her partner and a very high-maintenance cat named Rex.