OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Our Board of Directors brings together a powerful collection of local and national leaders in the fight for women’s health and well-being. Organizations listed for identification purposes only.
Laura McTighe, PhD
Assistant Professor, Florida State University
Laura McTighe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at Florida State University and the Co-Founder and Associate Director of Front Porch Research Strategy in New Orleans. As an interdisciplinary scholar of gender, race, religion, and social movements, she studies the often-hidden histories of struggle that fill our present, and asks how practitioners use religion to organize and transform our world. Her research and teaching take shape in and are sustained through twenty years of work in our nation’s movements to end AIDS and prisons. She is the co-founder of the Institute for Community Justice in Philadelphia, and currently serves on the boards of Men & Women In Prison Ministries in Chicago and Reconstruction Inc. in Philadelphia. In partnership with WWAV’s Deon Haywood, Laura has published articles in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (2018) and Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society (2017) on WWAV’s 30-year history of organizing against sex work criminalization through a Black feminist lens, and on the centrality of front porches in doing this work.
Danita Muse, LCSW, LAC
Retired Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Public Health Practitioner
Danita Muses is a retired Clinical Social Worker Specialist, Licensed Addiction Counselor, Board Clinical Diplomat, and Masters in Public Health in New Orleans. She is one of the founding members of Women With A Vision, Inc. As a harm reductionist, she believes in providing the community with all of the information they need to make an informed decision about their health choices. Danita has a history of providing condom distribution, syringe exchange, health promotion on reproductive health, focus groups on women’s health, breast and cervical cancer education, and HIV testing. Danita also has a more than 25-year history of working in substance-abuse treatment programs.
Melody Robinson
St. Thomas Health Community Health Center
Melody M. Robinson has more than 12 years of experience in community health and public health program development and management. Ms. Robinson currently serves as the Clinical Director of St. Thomas Health Community Health Center. She previously served as the Program Manager for the Louisiana Comprehensive Cancer Control Program. Ms. Robinson was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the State of Louisiana Comprehensive Cancer Plan, regional staff across the state and the development of regional cancer control plans. She also served as the Co-Chair of the Executive Committee of the Louisiana Cancer Control Partnership. She has also been responsible for the development of the Women’s Health Department, Adolescent health Development, and developed the School linked clinic program for St. Thomas. Ms. Robinson has also served as an adjunct Professor for Dillard University and Tulane University School of Public Health. She received a B.S. in Biology from Xavier University of New Orleans and a MPH in Material and Child Health and Health Communication and Education from Tulane University School of Public Health.
Dr. Michelle Stiaes
Clinical Psychologist
Michelle Stiaes, Psy.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist who has been working in the field of mental health for over 20 years. Dr. Stiaes earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Loyola University in 1990 and a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Baylor University in 1996. During her training at Baylor, Dr. Stiaes provided psychotherapy and assessment services to children, adolescents, and young adults in the Texas School System. On internship at Tulane University Medical Center, her clinical rotations included the New Orleans Adolescent Hospital, Charity Hospital and the Tulane University Neurology and Psychiatry Clinic. After graduating from Baylor, she spent three years teaching at Dillard University. Dr. Stiaes became licensed in 2000 and immediately accepted a position with Southeast Louisiana Hospital’s Developmental Neuropsychiatric Program providing assertive community treatment to children and adolescents who were dually diagnosed with a developmental disability and a psychiatric disorder. After six years of civil service, Dr. Stiaes took a brief hiatus during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to assist the Jewish Board of Children’s and Family Services of New York with designing and providing resiliency workshops for mental health professionals who had the difficult task of serving Hurricane Katrina survivors while still having to tend to their own Katrina related affairs. Dr. Stiaes returned to civil service in 2009 and is currently employed by the Office for Citizens with Developmental Disabilities as a Community Psychologist working with individuals of all ages with intellectual/developmental disabilities who exhibit severe challenging behaviors.
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