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At Choice USA we don't want to keep knowledge in the hands of the few.
That's why we develop trainings to share what we know with others. Choice USA seeks curriculum development and advice from experts no matter where they are - and we train activists and leaders in communities to train others, too. Learn more about our trainers below.
Faculty Curriculum Developer:
 Tracy Weitz, PHD, MPA, is a lifetime advocate of women’s health and reproductive rights. She has a masters degree in public administration with an emphasis in health care and a doctoral degree in medical sociology from the University of California (UCSF), San Francisco. Dr. Weitz’s passion is for those aspects of women’s health which are marginalized either for ideological reasons, or because the populations affected lack the means or mechanisms to have their concerns raised. Dr. Weitz directs ANSIRH where her current research focuses on innovative strategies to expand abortion provision in the U.S. Dr. Weitz also serves as the Associate Director for Public Policy at the UCSF National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health (CoE) having served as its founding executive director over a decade ago. The UCSF CoE seeks to integrate women health care, research, professional education, leadership development, and community participation. In 2006 Dr. Weitz was appointed to the UCSF Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women and serves as Director for a NIH-funded project to develop women’s scholars as leaders in developing nations.
Dr. Weitz is former faculty member of the International Family Planning Leadership Development Program (IFPLP), the Choice USA Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute, and Mills College. She is a former board member of the National Women’s History Project and the California Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (CARAL, now NARAL Pro-Choice California). In 1999 she received the UCSF Chancellor’s Award for the Advancement of Women. In 2001 she was named a Tish Sommers scholar and in 2004 she was selected as a fellow for the Communications Leadership Institute in Washington, DC and the Women’s Policy Institute in Sacramento, CA. In 2006, Dr. Weitz was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to the Women’s Health Council, an advisory group to the California Health and Social Services Agency. Finally, she serves as the Executive Director for the Association for Academic Women’s Health Programs (AAWHP).
 Dr. Carol Mason, an interdisciplinary scholar focusing on twentieth-century American culture and narrative, is Associate Professor of English and Women's Studies at Oklahoma State University. Before arriving at OSU, she taught literature, women's studies, and American studies at the University of Minnesota (where she earned a Ph.D. in English), Hobart and William Smith Colleges, University of Pittsburgh, and UNLV. A postdoctoral fellowship from the Bunting Institute at Harvard University helped support the research for her first book, Killing for Life: The Apocalyptic Narrative of Pro-life Politics (Cornell University Press, 2002). As a 2002 Rockefeller scholar-in-residence at the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia, Mason began work on her second book, Soul on Appalachian Ice: Gender, Ethnicity, Protest. Her articles have appeared in National Women's Studies Association Journal, Cultural Studies, The Journal of Constitutional Law, Appalachian Journal, Hypatia and many edited collections. Her scholarly interest in critiquing right-wing movements complements a background in activism and nonprofit development.
Alumni Trainers:
 Suzy Day is an alumni of the University of Missouri Women's and Gender Studies program. She is committed to creating the next generation of women leaders and defying the negative rhetoric of her small home farm town. This passion has driven her to serve as President of her sorority, co-found The Women's and Gender Studies Organization on her campus, and work with her local Women's Center. Suzy is a graduate of the 2006 National Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute and trainer with Choice USA
 Aya DeChellis is a reproductive justice activist and social worker from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She earned a Bachelor's degree in Social Work and certificates in Latin American Studies and Women's Studies from the University of Pittsburgh, where she first got involved with Choice USA. While there she organized with Students for Reproductive Freedom to win a key victory for access to emergency contraception. She then went on to become the Trainings Coordinator for the United States Student Association in Washington, DC where she ran the Grassroots Organizing Weekends (including the Choice GROWs) and Electoral Trainings. Aya is currently the Program Director for New Voices Pittsburgh, the local affiliate of SisterSong, the national women of color reproductive health collective.
 Alexandra DelValle is an Oberlin College graduate and holds a B.A. in Women’s Studies and Sociology. While at Oberlin, she received the Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellowship, and concentrated in Puerto Rican feminism and nationalism. She has considerable experience in the social justice movement, having worked with feminist organizations such as NOW-NYC and NARAL Pro-Choice New York as well as with labor and anti-gun violence groups. In college, Alexandra was an active member and leader in the Latina/o student community, and was also a counselor and teacher with Oberlin’s Sexual Information Center. At the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, Alexandra coordinated the Latinas Organizing for Leadership and Advocacy (LOLA) trainings and Latina Advocacy Networks. She also serves on the Pro-Choice Public Education Project's Young Women's Leadership Council. Alexandra is the recent recipient of Choice USA’s Generation Award for Commitment to Leadership for 2006.
 Jessica Haro is a member of the Choice USA board of directors, and the past president of Stanford Students for Choice, a Choice USA affiliate. As president, she ran the Stanford campaign to defeat Proposition 73, a ballot initiative for parental notification of a minor's abortion which would have written a definition of life beginning at conception into the California constitution. Jessica received the Choice USA Member Award for Excellence in Organizing at the 2006 Generation-to-Generation Celebration for her work on this campaign, in which she mobilized more than 3,000 students. A graduate of the 2005 Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute, she was also a peer counselor at Stanford's Sexual-Health Peer Resource Center, a residential Peer Health Educator, and a fellow in Stanford's Center on Women and Gender at the Roosevelt Institution, a progressive student think tank.
 Meredith Golden is a student at the University of North Carolina at ChapelHill. She is the Vice President of Zeta Tau Alpha sorority and was the president of the UNC-CH safer sex squad in 2006. Meredith is passionate about comprehensive sex education, reproductive justice, and breast cancer awareness and research. She is a graduate of the 2006 National Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute and trainer for Choice USA's The History of Choice: Future of Justice training. She has participated in the Student Global AIDS Campaign and UNC's Honor Court Outreach Program. Go Heels!
 Azi Golshan has been active in the reproductive rights movement for six years. As a student at Hampshire College, she was a Choice USA chapter leader, a volunteer with the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion Fund, and a core member of Hampshire's student of color activist group. She is the co-coordinator of the national conference "From Abortion Rights to Social Justice" and co-authored the article "Pro-whose-life? Ten Reasons Why Militarism is Bad for Your Health," which was published in the Women's Review of Books in 2004.
 Katie Kramer is a Junior at Loyola University in Chicago studying Political Science and Women's Studies. Katie has been involved in the reproductive rights movement since high school. In college, she founded the College Advocates for Reproductive Education (CARE), the first group of its kind at her Catholic university. In 2006, Katie was named Planned Parenthood's "Young Volunteer of the Year" and is a graduate of Choice USA's 2006 Midwest Regional Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute. Katie is spending the Spring 2007 semester in Washington, DC working on the Hill as she aspires to one day become a United States Senator.
 Eddy Morales is the Deputy Director of Leadership Development at the Center for Community Change, where he is helping to develop Generation Change, an ambitious program to recruit, train, and nurture new talent in community organizing and the nonprofit sector, particularly from underrepresented communities, and to elevate the field of community organizing and non profits. Prior to working at the Center, Eddy served as the elected President of the U.S. Student Association, the nations oldest, largest, and most inclusive student organization representing millions of students on Capitol Hill, the Department of Education and the White House. During his tenure, he coordinated several of USSA’s most aggressive campaigns to defeat some of the largest proposed cuts to education spending and key programs in the history of the Department of Education, elevated the organization’s presence in national coalitions and across the country, and built the organization’s field capacity. Eddy also raised over $1.5 million in his last year to fund a 5-year strategic plan process and its implementation. Eddy serves on the boards of several national youth organizations including Choice USA, the United States Student Association and the Generational Alliance, a coalition of nine youth organizations.
 Melody Nelson is a Wimmin's Studies Major at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. A native of Los Angeles, California, Melody divides most of hir time in Las Vegas between school and developing new ways to facilitate discussion around reproductive issues with her group, the Pleasure Educations Resource for the Vegas VAlley (PERVV). Zhe is a black queer activist who is dedicated to eradicating all forms of homophobia and transphobia using the reproductive justice framework. She is a participant in the Southwest Partnership with Choice USA and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and a graduate of Choice USA's 2006 National Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute.
 Erica Smiley is a Southern Field Organizer at Jobs with Justice. She was formerly the National Coordinator of the Young Communist League-USA, a multi-racial, working class youth organization that is committed to a better world through socialism. She has held positions with Jobs with Justice and was the National Field Director of Choice USA, a pro-choice organization focusing primarily on youth access to reproductive healthcare. She is originally from North Carolina, and joined the social justice movement organizing around affirmative action, financial aid, and to prevent the building of prisons and juvenile facilities through a broader statewide youth coalition. Smiley sits on the National Committee of the Communist Party- USA.
Staff Trainers:
 Kierra Johnson, Executive Director, is a southern girl from the peach tree state of Georgia. With a solid background organizing around reproductive health, racial justice, student’s rights and access to education, Ms. Johnson is a prominent and dynamic leader in developing the growing national reproductive justice and progressive movements. As a recent addition to the Resource Generation Regional Organizing Advisory Committee, she works with young people of financial wealth to effect progressive social change through the creative, responsible and strategic use of financial and other resources. Also a member of the Women’s Health Leadership Network with the Center for American Progress, Ms. Johnson is guiding new and innovative initiatives across the progressive movement to ensure youth leadership and investment in long-term social change in support of reproductive and social justice.
Ms. Johnson’s top priority is developing new leaders and since 1999, she has helped Choice USA transform its image, voice, and mission, from a pro-choice organization with a youth project into a dynamic, youth-led and youth-focused organization. From the diversity of participants in regional and national trainings, to the organization’s strategic collaborations and partnerships, Choice USA has redefined what it means to be youth-driven by developing young leaders and funneling them to positions of leadership across the progressive movement.
Ms. Johnson is a Choice USA success story: her journey with the organization started as a participant in Choice USA’s National Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute in Washington, D.C., in 1999, after which she became Choice USA's 2000 Maxine Waters Reproductive Freedom Fellow. Once immersed in the movement as a Fellow, she knew that this would be her life’s work and joined the staff in 2001 as Choice USA’s Field Director.
Under Ms. Johnson’s leadership as Field Director from 2001 to 2003, Choice USA became more campaign-oriented; strategically targeting winnable issue campaigns in states and regions around the country. Choice USA engaged in unique regional and cross-movement collaborations to foster youth leadership development that will strengthen the pro-choice progressive base in crucial communities in the United States. As Choice USA’s Field Director for more than three years, she served as the co-chair of the Campus Coordinating Committee of the Campaign for Access and Reproductive Equity (CARE2000), a coalition of organizations committed to working on issues of reproductive health and rights access for lower-income women, tackling issues like welfare reform and Medicaid funding for reproductive health services.
Also in 2002, she developed and ran Choice USA’s state-wide student and youth-led campaign in California for emergency contraceptive (EC) access. As a result, the state passed legislation that year to require training for pharmacists to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception over the counter. It was the first state in the nation to embrace this standard long before the FDA made EC over the counter nationwide in late 2006, becoming a model for other campaigns nationwide and demonstrating a shift in youth power and leadership in the state.
Ms. Johnson took on the reins of Choice USA’s Development Department in 2003, becoming its Director from then until mid-2007. In her new role, she focused on building new relationships with foundations, individual donors, and funding sources, attracting new long-term supporters to innovative programs and collaborations of the organization. Under her leadership, Choice USA developed an individual donor program, encouraged innovative peer-to-peer annual house party fundraisers, and started Choice USA’s trademark Generation Awards – an annual event to recognize and give national visibility to amazing young leaders in the reproductive justice movement and raise support to further their leadership development.With her leadership in 2005 – as part of the organization’s planning committee – Choice USA undertook a comprehensive strategic planning process that incorporates forward-thinking and groundbreaking ideas into the future of Choice USA’s reproductive justice work.
Ms. Johnson is the 2002 recipient of the Young Women of Achievement Award from the Women's Information Network (flesh out WIN description) and recently served as a member of the Board of Medical Students for Choice from 2003 to 2006.
Ms. Johnson’s began her career as a student organizer around choice issues at the University of Colorado (CU) in 1999 at the age of 22. Through a pre-collegiate program at CU, she was a teaching assistant and a summer counselor, targeting low-income youth and youth of color. She also served as a Tri-Executive of the school’s student body during the 1997-1998 school year, where she worked for students rights and access to higher education.
On behalf of Choice USA, Ms. Johnson has spoken to media outlets, student groups, campus chapters, and for a variety of conferences, trainings and events including: In These Times, Blue Grid, The Student Operated Press, Young People For, RH Reality Check, Feministing.com, the National Youth Advocacy Coalition Conference, University of Wisconsin – Green Bay, Hampshire College, Northern New England Multi-Generational Women’s Conference at Dartmouth College, Yale University, the Religious Action Center, the Western States Center, the United States Students Association Annual Congress and Legislative Conferences, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Conference, SisterSong, the Democratic National Committee’s Young Women’s Leadership Conference, and many more. In her spare time, she is likely to be found at Tryst or Bukom, two of her favorite DC hangouts.
 Edith Sargon, Field Director, was most recently a lead organizer for the Service Employees International Union ( SEIU) where she is currently conducting campaigns for Mental Health Workers, L.A. City Employees, Head Start workers, Non-Public School workers, Teaching Assistants and Child Care Providers. A graduate of the University of California Santa Barbara, Sargon served as chair of both the UCSB Women’s Commission and Student Commission on Racial Equality. Sargon was a participant in the 2000 Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute and was the 2001 USSA Choice USA Joint Intern.
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