Deepa Panchang
Nurse Practitioner
Deepa is a nurse prac­ti­tion­er liv­ing in New Orleans. She began her career in inter­na­tion­al health and human rights, work­ing to hold human­i­tar­i­an aid mech­a­nisms account­able and uplift grass­roots voic­es. In 2014, she returned to school to study nurs­ing, and now works as a Fam­i­ly Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er at a com­mu­ni­ty clin­ic, focus­ing on LBGTQ+ issues, sex­u­al health, and harm reduc­tion. She has been active in racial, health, and birth jus­tice issues in the New Orleans com­mu­ni­ty over the past decade. Com­ing from an upper-caste Indi­an fam­i­ly with roots in Maha­rash­tra and Kar­nata­ka, she has been study­ing and unpack­ing the role of caste in her life and in the US con­text. She is pas­sion­ate about build­ing with oth­er South Asian dias­poric folks and across race lines towards a queer, anti-caste, anti-racist trans­for­ma­tive jus­tice vision.

Jayeesha Dutta
Artist, Cultural Organizer, Facilitator
Jay­ee­sha (she/her/ella) is a tri-coastal, tri-lin­gual Ben­gali inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, cul­tur­al orga­niz­er, pop-ed facil­i­ta­tor, and heal­ing jus­tice prac­ti­tion­er with 25 years of move­ment build­ing expe­ri­ence. She was born in Mobile, raised in New York, aged in Oak­land, and is deeply grate­ful to call New Orleans home. She is a co-found­ing mem­ber of Anoth­er Gulf Is Pos­si­ble Col­lab­o­ra­tive, cat­alyz­ing the use of art, cul­ture, media, direct action, and trans­for­ma­tive jus­tice from across the Gulf South to the Glob­al South towards a just tran­si­tion for our peo­ple and the plan­et. Jay­ee­sha is also a train­er and coor­di­na­tor for the Stay­ing Pow­er Heal­ing Jus­tice Pro­gram at Wind­call Insti­tute. In addi­tion to SAALT, she serves on the boards of direc­tors for Eye­wit­ness Pales­tine, Alter­nate Roots, and the Cli­mate Jus­tice Alliance. Jay­ee­sha is an avid trav­el­er, home chef, live music lover, danc­ing queen, and adores being near (prefer­ably swim­ming in) any body of clean, life giv­ing water.

Maheen Kaleem, Esq.
Attorney
Maheen Kaleem, Esq., is a first gen­er­a­tion Pak­istani and human rights attor­ney who has ded­i­cat­ed her life to cre­at­ing a world where girls of col­or are safe and free. She has almost twen­ty years of expe­ri­ence sup­port­ing youth and fam­i­lies impact­ed by per­son­al and state vio­lence, and mak­ing way for those tra­di­tion­al­ly mar­gin­al­ized from for­mal sites of pow­er to lead efforts to advance racial and gen­der jus­tice. In the var­i­ous roles she has held in direct ser­vice, advo­ca­cy, and phil­an­thropy, she has always ground­ed her work in the wis­dom of women and girls who have sur­vived the carcer­al sys­tem, sex­u­al exploita­tion and abuse, and sex traf­fick­ing. Maheen cur­rent­ly serves as the Deputy Direc­tor of Grant­mak­ers for Girls of Col­or, an orga­ni­za­tion com­mit­ted to ampli­fy­ing and resourc­ing trans­for­ma­tive orga­niz­ing work led by girls and gen­der expan­sive youth of col­or. She has advo­cat­ed for the suc­cess­ful pas­sage of numer­ous laws and poli­cies at the fed­er­al, state, and local lev­els that pro­tect the rights of sur­vivors of child sex traf­fick­ing, as well as girls in the child wel­fare and juve­nile jus­tice sys­tems. Maheen cur­rent­ly resides on unced­ed Pis­cat­away land in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., also known as Choco­late City. She is from the Bay Area in Cal­i­for­nia, and loves poet­ry, music, the Real House­wives of Atlanta and Potomac, and the Gold­en State Warriors.

Moneek Bhanot
Co-Founder and Leadership Coach, Reflecting Justice
Mon­eek Bhan­ot (she/her) is a sys­tems-lev­el strate­gist, coach, and leader. Being a Pun­jabi Sikh woman has taught Mon­eek the impor­tance of hon­or­ing the human­i­ty in our­selves and oth­ers, show­ing up in ser­vice to her com­mu­ni­ty, and truth-telling. She is the Co-Founder of Reflect­ing Jus­tice, a DEI coach­ing and con­sult­ing firm that works with indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions to dis­man­tle white suprema­cy and cre­ate equi­table sys­tems. Mon­eek has fif­teen years of expe­ri­ence in K‑12, high­er edu­ca­tion, and non-prof­it set­tings, where she has guid­ed stu­dents, edu­ca­tors, and lead­ers to more deeply under­stand their role in chal­leng­ing sys­tems of oppres­sion. She has also led orga­ni­za­tions to exam­ine poli­cies and prac­tices to ensure they are equi­table at all lev­els, from per­for­mance man­age­ment to strate­gic plan­ning. She received her under­grad­u­ate degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego, and her mas­ter’s degree in High­er Edu­ca­tion Admin­is­tra­tion from the Har­vard Grad­u­ate School of Edu­ca­tion. She lives in the Bay Area with her hus­band and best friend, Ravi, and their two won­der­ful children.

Naji’a Tameez
Board Trea­sur­er & Lawyer
Naji’a Tameez is a Pak­istani-Amer­i­can lawyer in New York City. She became a lawyer in the hopes of using her career to give back to the immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties she was raised in. She has devot­ed her legal career to work­ing with, and for, mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties, specif­i­cal­ly in hous­ing rights, immi­gra­tion, and access to health care. Naji’a has a BA from Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty, is also an alum­na of Dou­glas Res­i­den­tial Col­lege, and has her JD from Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege of Law.

Nikita Chaudhry
Board Secretary & Artist, Activist, Educator
Niki­ta (she/hers) is a Punjabi/Indian Amer­i­can artist, activist, and edu­ca­tor cur­rent­ly based in Los Ange­les. A grad­u­ate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, with a major in Dra­ma, minor in Per­for­mance Stud­ies, and hon­ors cer­tifi­cate in The­atre Stud­ies, her projects have extend­ed from stage to screen. She is most pas­sion­ate about push­ing for inter­sec­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion in media and enter­tain­ment, as well as cre­ative work that uplifts under­rep­re­sent­ed nar­ra­tives and direct­ly gives back to the com­mu­ni­ty. Along­side her per­for­mance career, she con­sults with social jus­tice orga­ni­za­tions, most notably hav­ing part­nered with the Wom­en’s March Nation­al Team for the Wom­en’s Con­ven­tion in Detroit in 2017, and cam­paign­ing with Nithya Raman for LA City Coun­cil and Cha­lo Vote for the 2020 elec­tion. As an edu­ca­tor, she has taught fit­ness, dance/movement, and musi­cal the­ater, and serves as a facil­i­ta­tor spe­cial­iz­ing in iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics and performance.

Sabrina Singh
Attorney, Latham & Watkins, LLP
Born and raised in Kath­man­du Nepal, Sab­ri­na came to the Unit­ed States for her under­grad­u­ate edu­ca­tion and law school. Sab­ri­na served on the board of Nepal Ris­ing, a 501(c)(3) non-prof­it that mobi­lizes the Nepali dias­po­ra in the Unit­ed States for devel­op­ment efforts back home. A recent grad­u­ate of Har­vard Law School, Sab­ri­na served as a stu­dent attor­ney in the Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Clin­ic and the Immi­gra­tion & Refugee Clin­ic. She has worked in the field of human rights, with Human Rights Watch and Earth­Rights Inter­na­tion­al. In Nepal, Sab­ri­na did busi­ness accel­er­a­tion and com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing with farm­ers and entre­pre­neurs in rur­al Nepal and con­duct­ed pol­i­cy research on wom­en’s eco­nom­ic empow­er­ment at a non-prof­it called Daayitwa.