As part of our “Women on Wednesdays” series, please join the Women & Politics Instituteand the Barbara Lee Family Foundation (BLFF) for a virtual discussion on women's political participation in 2021. We will present the findings from our new Gender on the Ballot poll of female voters that explores women, the workplace and pandemic politics.

WPI Executive Director Betsy Fischer Martin will facilitate the panel discussion with Amanda Hunter, Executive Director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, Katie Connolly, Senior Director with the Benenson Strategy group, who conducted the survey and The 19th’s Editor-at-Large Errin Haines, who reported on the findings in an article for The 19th.

As Errin reported in her story about the poll, "Women Voters say Health Care and Workplaces Must Change Post-Pandemic." To learn more about this new research, check out our Gender on the Ballot website where you will find key takeaways, a blog post, and our press release.

As Executive Director, Amanda Hunter leads the Barbara Lee Family Foundation’s (BLFF) nonpartisan efforts to advance women’s political equality and increase women’s representation.

Previously, she served as the Foundation’s Research and Communications Director where she was responsible for promoting BLFF’s mission to advance women’s representation in American politics by leading all research and communications efforts. Hunter has covered the Foundation’s research on the role of gender in politics on PBS NewsHour, NPR, and CNN, as well as in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vox, the Los Angeles Times, and Politico.

Before joining the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, Hunter served as Director of Marketing and Communications at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, America’s first museum of modern art. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in English and Communications from St. Joseph’s College of Maine.

As Senior Vice President of Benenson Strategy Group (BSG), Katie Connolly uses her expertise as a writer and former journalist to help clients develop messaging that moves minds and sparks actions. At BSG, Connolly served as a senior member of the polling team for President Obama’s re-election campaign, and managed the firm’s work for the Obama White House as well as for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run.

Connolly came to BSG after serving as a Washington correspondent for the BBC and a campaign reporter for Newsweek magazine covering the McCain campaign. Prior to those roles, she has served as a strategic communications advisor, a management consultant, and a researcher serving a variety of private and public sector clients.

She holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she received the prestigious Menzies scholarship, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Queensland.

Errin Haines is a Founding Mother and Editor at Large for The 19th, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom covering the intersection of women, politics and policy, and an MSNBC Contributor.

An award-winning political journalist focused on issues of race, gender and politics, Haines was previously the Associated Press' National Writer on Race and Ethnicity. She has also worked at The Washington Post, The Orlando Sentinel and The Los Angeles Times.

Haines was a Fall 2019 Ferris Professor at Princeton University, teaching a class on black women and the 2020 election. She joins Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics as a fellow in their fifth anniversary class in Fall 2020.

Betsy Fischer Martin is an Emmy-winning journalist and former TV news executive. Currently, she is the Executive Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University and a faculty member in the School of Public Affairs, where she teaches courses on campaigns and elections. During her earlier career in television news, she spent 23 years at NBC News serving as the longtime Executive Producer of Meet the Press with Tim Russert and as the Managing Editor of NBC News Political Programming.

A native of New Orleans, Fischer Martin did her undergraduate and graduate work at American University in Washington, DC. She is a cum laude graduate of their School of Public Affairs and earned a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from the AU School of Communication.

"Women On Wednesdays" - She Votes: Women, the Workplace, and Pandemic Politics