Maine Women's Policy Center

Board of Directors

Peaches Bass, Augusta, Board Chair
Peaches specializes in women in the workforce for the Maine Department of Labor. She is a program specialist for the Maine Jobs Council. Peaches has received several honors and awards, including the Presidential Award from the Maine Lesbian-Gay Political Alliance, the Mabel Sine Wadsworth Women's Health Achievement Award, and a Social Landscape Artist Award from Maine Initiatives. She has served on the Maine Women's Lobby and Maine Women's Policy Center Boards since 2007, including stints as the Secretary and Vice-Chair. Peaches was born and raised in Chicago, where she was first introduced to feminism and women’s reproductive rights in the late 60s and early 70s.  She worked for a feminist health clinic in Chicago, and after moving to Maine, she worked for MidCoast Family Planning for seven years.  In 1984, Peaches founded and coordinated the Lesbian Health Project at the Mabel Wadsworth Center and later served as the Executive Director of the Maine AIDS Alliance for eight years, before taking a brief leave of absence from Maine to work as a development coordinator for the Larimer County TANF Program in Fort Collins Colorado.

Elizabeth Johns, Orono, Board Vice Chair
Elizabeth has a longstanding interest in older women's economic security and in social welfare policy. Currently she is involved in a local campaign to protect and strengthen Social Security. Elizabeth organizes and directs many outreach opportunities in the Orono/Bangor area. She is a Ph.D. candidate in gerontology at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Andrea Summers, Portland, Board Treasurer
 Andi is an Accredited Representative at the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP).  Her role includes providing legal counsel and immigration forms assistance to immigrants throughout Maine; representing clients at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; running ILAP's Detention Project for individuals detained at Cumberland County Jail for immigration violations; and doing outreach/advocacy about immigration law.  Prior to her work at ILAP, Andi was an elementary school teacher for ten years.  She has taught in Freeport, Yarmouth, Portland, Costa Rica and Peru.  Andi grew up in Chelmsford, MA. She has her BA from Brown University and received a Master’s in Education from the University of Maine.

Katherine Kilrain del Rio, Portland, Board Secretary
Kathy, the daughter of two librarians, grew up in the Capital District of New York and received her B.A. from Alfred University.  She has primarily worked in the education field teaching children and adults of all ages in a variety of settings. In 2006, Kathy moved from NYC to Maine where she works with adult learners as Executive Director of Literacy Volunteers of Greater Saco-Biddeford and strives to increase access to literacy services at a statewide level as Affiliate Network Director at LV Maine.  Kathy is a 2008 graduate of the New Girls Network and a 2010 graduate of Emerge Maine and she is currently a member of its Board of Directors.  Among Kathy’s many volunteer activities, she reads for Maine AIRS of the Iris Network, serves as a team leader for the Maine Speakers Bureau for Marriage Equality, and a member of the team creating the Maine Easy-to-Read Voter Guide since 2008.  Most recently, she completed the ICL Leadership Intensive as a member of the Sigma Class.

Katherine O'Grady, Georgetown
After eight years in private practice, Kate is general counsel to an international technology consulting firm advising on employment, general corporate, tax, and intellectual property matters.  Kate has a joint degree in Women's Studies and History from Middlebury College and she received her law degree from the University of Maine School of Law.  Following law school, Kate clerked for the Maine Superior Court and she subsequently served as a law clerk to the Honorable John A. Woodcock, Jr., U.S. District Court, District of Maine.  In addition to serving on the Maine Women’s Policy Center Board, Kate is a member of the Executive Committee of the Family Planning Association and a member-attorney of the Life, Law, Work Network and she is a 2008 graduate of the New Girls Network.

Rebekah Smith, Union
Rebekah is an attorney who has a neutral-focused practice, serving as a hearing officer for the Maine Department of Education and the Maine Public Employees Retirement System, an arbitrator for the Maine Labor Relations Board, and a mediator.  She is also a policy fellow at the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine, where she co-directs a residential political and civic leadership training program for college women.  After graduating from law school, Rebekah clerked for the Maine Supreme Judicial Court as well as the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals, and then served a two-year fellowship as a Skadden Fellow at Maine Equal Justice Partners, where she represented low-income families in legislative and administrative arenas.  She has served on the boards of Maine Initiatives, the Maine Women's Fund, the Maine Law School Alumni Association, and the Union Vose Library Capital Campaign.

Sheila Nelson, Topsham
Sheila is the Director of the Coordinated School Health Programs with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.  She is a graduate of Smith College and she holds a Masters of Public Health from the University of Michigan. 

Vivian Mikhail, Topsham
Vivian Mikhail (2010-2013).  Vivian is a Washington, D.C. native who has called Maine home since 2003.  She completed her undergraduate studies at George Washington University, and earned her JD at Catholic University.  After law school, Vivian litigated employment, domestic relations and commercial law cases.  Her legal career since then has included consulting and publishing work, and now most recently serving the State of Maine as the Assistant Attorney General for Tobacco Enforcement.  Vivian also serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors of Maine Hands & Voices, the state chapter of a national non-profit that works to support and advocate for families of children who are deaf or hard of hearing. She lives in Topsham with her husband, Peter Rosenberg, and daughter, Nadia.

Jill Rosenthal, Portland
Jill is a Program Director at the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), where she directs projects that focus on health systems performance, quality and patient safety, and child health and development. She provides policy analysis and technical assistance to states on these and other issues, including health promotion/disease prevention and health disparities. She currently directs the Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABCD) III program. Jill Rosenthal joined NASHP in 2000 after moving to Maine from West Virginia where she served as program manager in that state’s Center for Rural Health Development. Previously, she worked as a field director for the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health’s Tobacco Control Program. Jill is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Colgate University, and holds an MPH from the University of North Carolina.

Karla Black, Portland
Karla is General Counsel at the Department of Administrative and Financial Services.  She was previously Deputy Legal Counsel and then Legal Counsel for Governor Baldacci.  After law school, Karla served two terms as a clerk for the New Hampshire Superior Court, where she was appointed Chief Clerk in her second year.  She is a graduate of the University of Maine and the University of Maine School of Law.

Ellen Ridley, Scarborough
Ellen is the Director of Foundation & Corporate Relations, Office for Institutional Advancement, University of New England.  Ellen previously worked with Family Crisis Services where she focused on research in statewide policy development and training in the areas of workplace response to domestic abuse and violence and criminal justice systems response specific to bail.  She was the Principal Investigator in a joint research project with University of New England entitled “Domestic Violence and Mental Health Counseling: Investigating Safety Outcomes” (2007) and she coordinated two multi-disciplinary, statewide projects creating new computerized criminal justice information-sharing processes between Maine State Police and Maine Judicial Branch.  Ellen is the co-author of Maine Department of Public Safety web-based Domestic Violence in the Workplace Training curriculum and a co-investigator with Maine Department of Labor on two research studies investigating domestic violence and the workplace. Ellen had a degree in History and Women’s Studies from the University of Southern Maine.