BOARD OF DIRECTORS and staff
NAAFA is run by an Executive Director and an all-volunteer Board of Directors. Our Executive Director manages the day-to-day operations of NAAFA and serves as the official spokesperson of the organization.
The NAAFA Board of Directors determines NAAFA’s mission, strategic goals, and official policies. As a working board, our board members support the Executive Director and other staff in sustaining the organization’s mission and vision through education, advocacy, and support of fat people. The Board of Directors has the ultimate authority over the organization’s actions.
The NAAFA Board, 2023. Left to right: Amanda Cooper, Dawn Clark, Tigress Osborn, Trevor Kezon, Christina Chase, Darliene Howell, Tamra Dozier-Garland (not pictured: Marcy Cruz, Tegan Lecheler, and Elaine Lee)
Headshot of Tigress Osborn
Tigress Osborn (she/her) - Executive Director
Prior to being appointed the first Executive Director of NAAFA in over two decades, Tigress served as Board Chair and Director of Community Outreach. As leader of the most diverse board in NAAFA’s 54-year history, Tigress championed an intersectional approach to fighting anti-fatness through education, advocacy, and support. Her work with NAAFA has been featured in USA Today, Huffington Post, and Newsweek, and heard on BBC AntiSocial and ABC News. Tigress also hosts and produces the NAAFA Webinar Series, which features a wide variety of activists, scholars, and artists from fat community. Tigress founded Full Figure Entertainment in 2008 in Oakland, CA, and co-founded the PHX Fat Force in AZ in 2019. Tigress is a Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) consultant and educator whose clients have ranged from major tech companies to small non-profits. She is a two-time women's college graduate with a BA in Black Studies from Smith College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Follow Tigress @iofthetigress on your favorite social media.
Headshot of Amanda Cooper
Amanda Cooper (she/her) - Chair of the Board and Communications Committee Chair
Amanda joined the Board of Directors in 2020. She is an activist, organizer and Senior Partner at the LightBox Collaborative, a communication consulting firm. Amanda has more than twenty years of experience working with organizations throughout our social justice movements, including organized labor, civil rights, and reproductive health and justice.
Headshot of Christina Chase
Christina Chase (she/her) - Governance Chair
Christina is a superfat black and disabled creative problem solver who is passionate about equity, inclusion, and intersectional fat liberation. Christina brings a delightful enthusiasm to fat activist work. She holds a Master of Arts in Education, and is highly skilled in organizational learning, community building, and professional development training. In her free time Christina loves reading science fiction, playing board games, and slaying at karaoke.
Pic of Dawn Clark, a white, female presenting with short brown hair, brown eyes. She is wearing a sleeveless rainbow stripped top and yellow hoop earrings.
Dawn Clark (she/her) - Medical Advocacy Chair
Dawn is a couple of years into fat activism. She has done advocacy previously for housing and food insecurity. She has the privilege to share her experiences in fat hate with medical students, doctors, and eating disorder professionals.
Pic is of Marcy Cruz, a young Black/Latina woman with short brown hair with layers of blue and pink on the left side wearing drop earrings and a light gray top underneath a dark gray jacket
Marcy Cruz (she/her) – Fashion Industry Relations Director
Marcy joined the Board of Directors in 2020. She is an award-winning writer/author, educator and activist with 20 years of experience in the plus size fashion industry. She is also signed to State Management as an extended-sizes (4X+) fit model and is the content creator of the blog Fearlessly Just Me.
Pic of Tamra Dozier-Garland, a young fat Black womxn with dark brown hair and wearing an animal print top
Tamra Dozier-Garland (she/her) - Social Media Director
Tamra is a certified life coach, writer, speaker, MC, and serial entrepreneur. She owns and operates Dozeland Creative and is co-founder of a fintech startup. Tamra’s coaching is dedicated to helping fat women transform the way they see themselves and love the body they are in. Tamra brings a passion for creating lasting change along with her marketing experience and love of service. Tamra has volunteered for various non-profits in service of children and people experiencing financial insecurity for more than 15 years.
Pic is of Darliene Howell, an older white woman with short white hair, wearing glasses and a maroon-colored sleeveless print top
Darliene Howell (she/her) - Administrative Director
Darliene Howell has worked directly with NAAFA since her retirement in 2004; first as the recording secretary to the Board of Directors in 2007, was the Chair of the Board in 2015. In 2020, she elected to step down as Chair of the Board and remains Administrative Director. She has been active in fat community 20+ years.
Pic of Trevor Kezon, a young fat man with short hair with blond highlights and wearing glasses and a black top
Trevor Kezon (he/him) - Programming Co-Chair
Trevor is a writer, activist, and podcaster. His work has been featured in the New York Times, and he currently co-hosts The Big Fat Gay Podcast, which discusses the issues that fat people and their admirers face in relationships, media, and society.
This image contains Tegan, a young white woman with long, sandy blonde hair and green eyes smiling softly into the camera.
Tegan Lecheler (she/they) - Legislative Advocacy Chair
Tegan is an organizer and policy nerd from Minneapolis, MN. Her work primarily centers around fat and anti-poverty organizing.
Pic is of Elaine Lee, a young Chinese-American woman with shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a drop necklace and black top underneath a black jacket
Elaine K. Lee (she/her) – Board Member
Elaine joined the Board of Directors in 2020. She is an activist, recovering corporate attorney and computer engineer. Elaine has previously served as Co-President of the Board of Directors of NOLOSE, a national nonprofit organization committed to fat liberation and eliminating hatred, prejudice, and discrimination toward fat people.
Image Description (provided by Francisca): Francisca Moreno's headshot. Francisca is a 24-year-old, fair-skinned, Latine person. They are wearing a pink top with white fringe and silver hoop earrings. They are in front of a fuschia background.
Francisca Moreno (they/them) - Board Member
Francisca is a mid-fat, queer, and Latine trainer and political activist currently residing in Wilmington, DE. They graduated in 2022 with a B.A. in Criminal Justice and Women and Gender Studies with a concentration in Domestic Violence Prevention and Services from the University of Delaware. They train on the dynamics of domestic violence with an emphasis on intersectionality, acknowledging how people’s identities impact the way they experience domestic violence. Francisca is the Founder of the Wilmington Fat Collective (@DEFatCollective), which was formed in 2023 and is Delaware’s first fat liberation group. In their free time, Francisca enjoys watching reality television, reading sapphic books, and making people laugh. You can find Francisca on Instagram @chica.chingona.
Kat Redniss (she/her) - Board Member
Kat Redniss or Katniss Everqueer (@katnisseverqueervt) is a performance artist, accessibility advocate, arts educator, and producer of queer, fat art events based out of Burlington, Vermont. She reads books about identity, belonging, body autonomy and liberation, imagination, and glitter for the Vermont Chapter of Drag Story Hour, working to increase queer representation in rural communities. Katniss performs burlesque throughout New England and beyond. Her digital content was featured by the Glasgow Burlesque festival, and her digital duet with creative partner Emoji Nightmare was nominated for Hollywood Burlesque Film Festival’s “Best Ensemble”. Katniss and Emoji produce two annual shows celebrating fat burlesque and drag. Katniss is a proud, fat, queer envelope pusher and fat liberationist. She shares, “As I’ve developed my burlesque identity, I’ve leaned deeply into centering fatness and queerness. Onstage, my body is always going to be perceived differently than someone who exists in a thinner, smaller body. I use my existence in the scene as an imperative: fat performers deserve space, respect, representation. I choose fat characters to lift up, fat cliches to tear down or reclaim. I am committed to presenting art that is unapologetically queer and liberating for folks in fat bodies.” Kat is an arts administrator and educator with experience in community arts programming, grant writing, communications, disability justice, and accessibility. She has her MA in Teaching Educational Theater and English from NYU, her Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington, and a BA in English and Economics from Smith College.
ADVISORY BOARD
NAAFA Board of Advisors — is a group of volunteers comprised of scientific, medical and legal leaders from all over world.
Barbara Altman Bruno, PhD, CSW is a clinical social worker, size acceptance activist, and Health At Every Size® pioneer - Specializes in working to end weight-related suffering
Jill Andrew, PhD is an equity educator and currently a politician in Ontario, Canada. She is also co-founder of Body Confidence Canada which produces the Body Confidence Canada Awards and also created Body Confidence Awareness Week recognized the second week in October annually in the Toronto District School Board and Winnipeg School Division. – Specializes in issues of gender, race, body justice, the housing crisis, healthcare and education inequities and the immeasurable benefit of arts and culture to our communities bodyconfidencecanada.com. Twitter: @BCCAwards
Deb Burgard, PhD, FAED is a psychologist specializing in eating disorders, as well as a fat activist and one of the founders of the Health At Every Size® model. Poodle Science video: youtube.com/watch?v=H89QQfXtc-k&t
Paul Campos, JD is a law professor, author, blogger and Professor of Law on the faculty of the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder. Specializes in the educating the public around weight-related "SCAMS"
Cinder Ernst is an author, Medical Exercise Specialist and Accredited Life Coach - Specializes in fitness coaching and creating a powerful partnership with your body, moving toward building the strength and stamina for bodies of all sizes cinderernst.com
Lily O'Hara, MPH, PhD is a health promotion practitioner, researcher, activist and Associate Professor of Public Health at Qatar University - Specializes in critical health promotion, fat studies, weight justice, and the Health at Every Size® approach
Esther D. Rothblum, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita of Women’s Studies at Diego State University and editor of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society, plus 20+ books. – Specializes in research and writing focused on the stigma of weight, weight and employment discrimination, and weight across cultures. rothblum.sdsu.edu
Brandie Solovay, Esq., JD is an attorney and activist. Brandie runs the Fat Legal Advocacy, Rights, and Education (FLARE) Project. Specializes in advocating for under-served and marginalized individuals and educating people about their rights
ADVISORY BOARD EMERITUS
Pat Lyons, MA, RN – Specializes in Medical Weight Discrimination
Sondra Solovay, JD - A disabled attorney, fat rights pioneer and author of Tipping the Scales of Justice, and co-editor of The Fat Studies Reader