NANCY NORTHUP
President

Nancy Northup is the President of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a global human rights organization that uses constitutional and international law to secure women's reproductive freedom. The Center has brought groundbreaking cases before national courts, U.N. committees, and regional human rights bodies, and has built the legal capacity of women's rights advocates in over 45 countries.

Ms. Northup joined the Center in 2003 with a rich mix of experience as a constitutional litigator, federal prosecutor, and women's rights advocate, and a reputation for intelligence, passion, and creativity. "I look forward to a time when a woman's right to control her reproductive life is secured as a fundamental human right, which cannot be denied in the name of religion, culture, or politics," Ms. Northup declared at the time.

Since then, Ms. Northup has pursued that vision at the Center with bold, new strategies. Under her leadership, the Center has aggressively expanded its international program, including the launch of an international litigation campaign that has included the first abortion case decided by the U.N. Human Rights Committee and the first case to frame preventable maternal deaths as a human rights violation. Building on its established reputation as first-rate litigators, the Center has also taken the human rights framework into its work in the U.S. It is now documenting U.S. rights violations through fact-finding reports and holding the U.S. accountable before U.N. bodies that monitor compliance with international treaty obligations. In 2008, Ms. Northup led the Center to establish the Law School Initiative to promote legal scholarship and teaching on reproductive health and human rights, an emerging body of transnational law not yet widely taught in U.S. law schools. This ground-breaking effort will shape the thinking of the next generation of lawyers, judges, and policymakers through fellowships for recent law school graduates, a visiting scholars’ program, curriculum development, conferences, and publications.

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LUISA CABAL
Director, International Legal Program

Luisa Cabal is the Director of the International Legal Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights, where she leads the Center’s legal advocacy efforts in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. In her nine years at the Center, Luisa has pioneered the Center's first international litigation efforts, filing cases before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee. She also designed and co-coordinated the first comparative study in Latin America on women's rights jurisprudence of the region's highest level courts. She is co-founder of Red Alas, a network of Latin American law professors who are integrating a gender perspective and women's rights into law school curricula in the region. Luisa received her law degree from the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, and her Master of Laws from Columbia University School of Law.

NANCY L. GOLDFARB
Director, Communications

Nancy Goldfarb is the Director of Communications. She is a veteran public relations and communications professional with expertise in media relations, issues management, strategic positioning and crisis communications. Ms. Goldfarb has served as a senior communications counselor for leading global corporations, including Unilever and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, for more than 20 years. She began her communications career in the public relations agency industry, working at Lobsenz-Stevens, Inc., and then Ketchum – one of the country's top PR firms – where she led the Consumer/Healthcare practice and developed award-winning campaigns for a diverse portfolio of clients.

She graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with a B.A. in sociology. Ms. Goldfarb is a member of New York Women in Communications, Inc. (NYWICI), a non-profit professional association. She lives in New York City with her husband, and their two teenaged children.

VIVIAN LINDERMAYER
Director of Development

Vivian Lindermayer, Director of Development, joined the Center in 2001. She has implemented fund development strategies that have grown the Center's fund-raising revenue by 43 percent from 2004-2007. In 2008, she directed a collaborative planning process that unified the Center's strategies around the human rights framework the Center has pioneered internationally and incorporated a sustained focus on influencing legal scholarship and teaching on reproductive rights. Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Lindermayer was the Director of Development at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she implemented major gift and special event strategies that dramatically increased funding from individual donors. From 1982 to 1993, she served on the senior editorial staff of Christianity and Crisis, where she initiated and edited award-winning articles and issues in the areas of reproductive rights, liberation theologies, human rights and economic and social justice. Ms. Lindermayer graduated with honors from Bryn Mawr College and did graduate work in philosophy at Columbia University.

LAURA MCQUADE
Chief Operating Officer

Laura McQuade joined the Center as Chief Operating Officer in June 2008. She is a committed non-profit professional with more than 15 years of experience in international development and advocacy. She worked for eight years at the Financial Services Volunteer Corps (FSVC), a not-for-profit public-private partnership whose mission is to help build sound banking and financial systems in transition and developing countries. As Managing Director, she served as the organization's chief financial officer, managed funding relationships with donors, and oversaw program activity in South and Southeast Asia. She also worked as FSVC's Regional Director for Asia, heading the first program in Indonesia and helping guide development of the organization's initial program activity in Thailand, the Philippines, and India. Most recently, Ms. McQuade was a risk management professional on the hedge fund credit team of Bank of America's Global Corporate and Investment Bank. She received an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and an A.B. in political science from the College of the Holy Cross. She currently lives on Long Island with her husband, John Haberkern, and their son Nathaniel.

CYNTHIA SOOHOO
Director, Domestic Legal Program

Cynthia Soohoo joined the Center in January 2008 as Director of the Domestic Legal Program. She brings a rich mix of experience in litigation, human rights advocacy, and legal education, making her well suited to lead the Center's efforts to employ bold human rights strategies in our U.S. legal advocacy work. Prior to joining the Center, she directed the Bringing Human Rights Home Project at the Human Rights Institute, Columbia Law School, beginning in 2001. The program works with attorneys and law students to develop and apply human rights strategies domestically. During her six years litigating cases at Covington & Burling, Cindy did extensive pro bono work, including work on the landmark human rights case Doe v. Karadzic. She clerked for the Honorable Gerard L. Goettel of the Southern District of New York. Cindy is a graduate of Williams College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.