Women's Campaign Forum

The Honorable Jessica Lappin is a Democratic New York City Councilwoman representing the 5th District of Manhattan, which includes the Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island. While serving on the Council, Councilwoman Lappin has focused heavily on reducing class sizes, creating new parks, and making work site construction safer in New York City.

In January 2006, Councilwoman Lappin was elected by her colleagues to chair the Land Use Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting, and Maritime Uses, where she currently leads Council efforts to protect the historic fabric of New York City, approve new schools, and promote safe and sensible development. She has received awards from Friends of the Upper East Side and the Historic Districts Council for her work on preservation issues. The Councilwoman earned her B.A. in Government from Georgetown University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude.

Barbara Walsh is an American musical theater actress who has appeared in several prominent Broadway productions. Walsh is best known for her Drama Desk Award winning and Tony®nominated role as Trina in the Broadway production of Falsettos. Recently, Walsh was in the 2007 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, playing the role of Joanne. This production was also taped for television and aired on PBS in February 2008. She has also appeared on Broadway in Rock ‘n Roll! The First 5,000 Years, Nine, Blood Brothers, and Hairspray. Her Off-Broadway credits include Birds of Paradise, Stars in Your Eyes, and the Transport Group musical Normal.

Walsh’s television credits include guest roles on Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and the re-occurring role of Judy Schulman-Brown on One Life to Live. Walsh also appeared in the film Life with Mikey.

Alexander Chaplin has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including the award-winning television series “Spin City” and the 1995 drama filmThe Basketball Diaries. He has also appeared on “Scrubs,” “Numb3rs,” “Law and Order,” and many other popular shows. Mr. Chaplin attended Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center and The Juilliard School of Music.

Nancy Garfinkel, is the co-author of The Recipe Club and also co-author of The Wine Lover’s Guide to the Wine Country: The Best of Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino. A writer, design consultant, creative strategist, and editor for a wide range of magazine, corporate, and non-profit clients, she has won a host of graphic arts and editorial merit awards. She has written extensively about food and graphic arts. She holds aPh.D. in English from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Andrea Dew Steele is the President and Founder of Emerge America and is a passionate advocate for increasing the number of women in elected office at every level. In 2002, Andrea co-founded the first Emerge affiliate in Northern California. Andrea worked tirelessly to develop a top notch training program for Democratic women interested in running for office and in 2005 she founded Emerge America to replicate the model in all 50 states.

For 8 years, Andrea served as the Political Advisor to Susie Tompkins Buell, co-founder of Esprit Clothing and Democratic activist and philanthropist. Prior to moving to the Bay Area, Andrea worked for many years in Washington D.C. where she did policy work and fundraising for Democratic candidates, and where she developed her passion for electing women to office.

Andrea has three children, and holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tufts University and a M.A. in International History from the London School of Economics.

Hilary Klotz Steinman is a talented director and producer of documentary films. She has worked on several groundbreaking productions, including the documentary series Slavery and the Making of America, the television movie Test Tube Babies, and the television special Aging Out. Ms. Klotz was also a co-producer of the Emmy®Award Winning PBS documentary series American Experience: The Pill, which traces the history of the birth control pill.

Chambers USA named Ms. Stern one of America’s leading banking and finance lawyers. Ms. Stern is the principal drafter of the statute creating the financial oversight authority for the City of Philadelphia and served as special counsel to the City in all of the bond issues of that authority. As bond counsel to The School District of Philadelphia, Ms. Stern drafted deficit funding legislation for the School District and served as lead bond counsel for deficit funding bonds, multiple series of bonds for capital improvements and refunding bond issues for the District. She was recognized as the Best Public Finance Lawyer in Philadelphia by Philadelphia magazine. She is also listed in the Legal Intelligencer’s 2004 Women in the Profession, and is listed in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who of American Women, and Who’s Who in American Law. Ms. Stern is a member of the Firm’s Executive Committee and co-chairs the Firm’s Diversity Committee. Ms. Stern serves on the boards of the Police Athletic League, the Urban Tree Connection, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, the Jewish Federation Center for Israel and Overseas, the Thomas Skelton Harrison Foundation, and The Franklin Institute. She is Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Moore College of Art and Design.  She is a life fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Ms. Stern served as the chair of the Task Force on Alternative Finance Strategies for The School District of Philadelphia, as a member of the Tax Policy and Budget Advisory Committee of the City of Philadelphia, and on the Task Force on Regulatory Reform for The School District of Philadelphia. In addition, she served as consulting counsel for the Philadelphia Charter Commission.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky is running for Texas Attorney General. She practices law on both sides of the docket and is a mother, wife, teacher, lawyer and mediator. In 2006, after 27 years of law practice, Barbara Ann became the first woman in history to serve as the Texas Democratic U.S. Senate nominee. She was the first woman at Vinson and Elkins to have children as an associate and attain partnership. Barbara Ann was honored as the Outstanding Young Lawyer of Texas in 1988. She has been listed for the past 16 years in “Best Lawyers in America”. She received a JD with Honors from the University of Texas School of Law and a BA, magna cum laude. from the University of Houston.

Julia C. Levy, Executive Director of the Roundabout Theatre Company is celebrating her 20th year with the company. She joined Roundabout in 1990 as Director of Development with responsibility for the company’s annual fundraising campaign . Since then the company has grown from a mid sized off-Broadway company to one of the leading cultural institutions in New York City and the largest not for profit in the country. in addition to her ongoing responsibilities for managing the fundraising efforts, she now oversees public relations, government and board relations and Education@Roundabout, a $1 million+ program serving New York City’s public high school students and teachers. She was the impetus behind the company’s expanded education programming, launched during the 1993-94 season and culminating today with the creation of two New Century High Schools in partnership with the NYC Department of Education and New Visions, a non-profit agency. She serves as a board member of the Times Square Alliance and on the NYC Department of Education’s Arts Education Task Force. She has lectured at New York University, Columbia University and at various industry conferences. She holds a BS degree in Business Administration from the University of Vermont.

Susan Bernfield is the founder and artistic director of New Georges, an award-winning nonprofit theater company which produces ambitiously theatrical new plays downtown and provides an artistic home to some of the most adventurous theater artists (who are women) working today. Since 1992, she has produced 34 new plays off off Broadway (including works by Eisa Davis, Sheila Callaghan, Jenny Schwartz, Diana Son, Kate Moira Ryan, Lisa D’Amour, Tracey Scott Wilson and Neena Beber), ten festivals of new work, and countless shorter works, performance pieces and works in progress. Susan is also a playwright and solo performer whose plays have been presented or developed at, among others, O’Neill Playwrights Conference, Playwrights Horizons, HB Playwrights, New York Theatre Workshop, Magic Theatre, Adirondack Theatre Festival and, of course, New Georges, where her play Stretch (a fantasia) premiered earlier this year. Susan is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and trained as an actor at Circle in the Square Professional Workshop. She serves on the LCT3 Brain Bank, an advisory council to Lincoln Center Theater’s new emerging artists’ initiative, and as a Vice President on the Board of Directors of the Alliance of Resident Theaters/New York (A.R.T./New York).