Staff

Susan Scanlan, President

In 1977, Susan Scanlan helped found the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues and its policy arm, the Women’s Research & Education Institute (WREI).  At that time, there were 18 women in the House of Representative and one woman in the Senate.  Today, the Caucus has grown to 71 Congresswomen and 16 Senators—from 4 percent to 16 percent of Congress.  Ms. Scanlan served as director of the Caucus for five years before becoming director of WREI's Congressional Fellowships on Women & Public Policy.  Since 1980, this program has placed over 300 talented scholars on Capitol Hill to learn how public policy is really made.  Alums of the program have gone on to leadership positions in business, law, academia, medicine, non-profit work, and lobbying.  Alums of the program also serve in several state legislators and many hold positions of power in the legislative branch.

Ms. Scanlan began her career on Capitol Hill as legislative director for Rep. Charles Wilson, where she helped author legislation that admitted women to the U. S. military academies and established Women’s History Month in March.  After 12 years with the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues and WREI, she accepted a legislative liaison position with a private defense contracting firm, where she also handled training and development. For seven years, from 1991-1998, Ms. Scanlan pursued career opportunities in Asia with her husband, Jared Cameron. These included editing, teaching, and writing a monthly magazine column in Taiwan. She returned to the WREI staff in January 1999 and became president of the organization in 2000.  Because of WREI’s one-of-a-kind Women in the Military project, Ms. Scanlan was named by President Bill Clinton to the Advisory Committee on Employment and Training for Veterans at the Department of Labor.  In 2003, she received the Women’s Leadership Award from the International Women’s Democracy Center along with Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.

In November 2005, Ms. Scanlan became chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations, a coalition of over 200 progressive women's groups representing more than 11 million American women.  A frequent speaker on issues affecting women and their families, Ms. Scanlan has appeared on ABC, CNN, and PBS as well as in The Washington Post, New York Times, and other major media outlets to talk about healthcare, Title IX, and women in combat.  During the recent uproar over sexist/racist remarks by Don Imus, she debated his defenders on television and radio and led the effort to have him fired.

Ms. Scanlan is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Sweet Briar College and holds a master's degree in modern languages from Tulane University.

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	Scanlan@WREI.org

 

Lory Manning, Director, Women in the Military Project
Before joining the WREI staff, Captain Manning served for more than 25 years in the US Navy. During her tenure in the Navy, she served tours in telecommunications in Iceland, Panama, and the British Indian Ocean Territory where she commanded Naval Telecommunications Station, Diego Garcia. She also served on the staffs of the Chief of Legislative Affairs, Chief of Naval Personnel, Commander, US Naval Forces, Europe and Chief of Naval Operations. She is a member of the Secretary of Veterans' Affairs Advisory Committee on Women Veterans.

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	LManning@WREI.org

Bernice Sandler, Senior Fellow
Dr. Sandler is an authority on women's educational equity as well as in sexual harassment, the chilly classroom climate, and policies, programs and strategies concerning women on campus. She also serves as an expert witness in discrimination and sexual harassment cases. Dr. Sandler previously directed the Project on the Status and Education of Women at the Association of American Colleges. In the 1970s, she filed the first charges of sex discrimination against more than 250 institutions at a time when there were no laws prohibiting such discrimination in education. Dr. Sandler also played a major role in the development and passage of Title IX and other laws prohibiting sex discrimination in education and athletics. She holds a degree in counseling from the University of Maryland, holds ten honorary doctorates, has received numerous other awards, and has served on more than thirty boards. Among her recent publications are two books, The Chilly Classroom Climate: A Guide to Improve the Education of Women with Lisa A. Silverberg and Roberta M. Hall, and Sexual Harassment on Campus: A Guide for Administrators, Faculty and Students with Robert J. Shoop.

Marjorie Lightman, Senior Fellow
Dr. Lightman is currently co-director (with Dr. Shari Miles of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues) of “Connecting the Dots,” a project on women, religion, and public policy. Her earlier projects for WREI include “Crossing Borders,” which explored public policy alternatives for U.S. immigration law and practices. Before coming to WREI, Dr. Lightman served as executive director of the International League for Human Rights, worked with the Network of East/West Women, and helped organize the National Council for Research on Women. Her most recent publications include A Biographical Dictionary of Ancient Greek and Roman Women (Facts on File Press, 1999), which she is currently revising, and Ellis Island and the Peopling of America (New Press, 1997). She is also an associate editor of the northern Africa volume of Women Writing Africa (Feminist Press). Dr. Lightman holds AB and MA degrees from Hunter College and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University.

Anne Stone, Senior Research Associate
Ms. Stone is senior research associate at WREI, where she has authored and co-authored policy analyses on various subjects, including the federal budget, employment issues for women, women in the military, and immigration. She worked on all nine print editions of The American Woman, was co-editor of the fourth, seventh, eighth, and ninth editions, and is the editor of The American Woman on the Web: A Statistical Portrait. Ms. Stone lives in Mitchellville, MD, with her husband, Herbert Stone.