JUDGES BIOGRAPHIES

Teresa Ulloa Ziáurriz “La Tere”           

Senora Teresa Ulloa is the Director for the Coalition Against the Trafficking in Women and Girls for Latin America and the Caribbean. Her professional education includes an M.A. in Education from the University of London, a J. D. from the Autonomous National University of Mexico, and certifications including Women’s Human Rights and Development, International Humanitarian Law, Gender and Law, and Public Policy from the Sorbonne University in Paris and New York University. As a legal representative of Coadyuvancia, Ms. Ziáurriz has litigated more than 25,000 rape cases. Following her extensive work for the 1,000 Women for Peace project, Senora Ulloa was nominated as a candidate for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
    Teresa Ulloa is a dreamer, always dreaming of a best world of equality, democracy, development, and peace for women and girls.  She is also a fighter, always fighting to end gender violence and discrimination.  She is a believer, because she believes that educating women and girls in the knowledge of their rights is an empowering instrument against all forms of violence against them. She is a feminist who has devoted her life to fighting against injustice and to building peace; she is a warrior for peace. Teresa is a peace woman with a strong influence and inspiration from three women: her grandmother, her mother, and her daughter. The three of them are very powerful inspirations in her life. 

Ms. Ross is the National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, and served as National Co-Director of the 2004 March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C., the largest protest march in U.S. history. As part of a 30-year history in social justice activism, Ms. Ross founded and directed the National Center for Human Rights Education (NCHRE) in Atlanta. She has authored several pieces on reproductive justice, is a Women’s Studies graduate of Agnes Scott College and holds an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law from Arcadia University. She has also served on several human rights tribunals and is the Coordinator of the Women’s Working Group.
    Loretta Ross Loretta Ross is a mother, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother. She is a 2007 graduate of Agnes Scott College with a degree in Women’s Studies, possibly the only great-grandmother in her graduating class! In addition to being the National Coordinator for SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, she is a writer and a political commentator. She lost a family member in the flood of the 9^th ward of New Orleans, and has many family members from New Orleans still dispersed throughout the South. Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Loretta now makes her home in Atlanta and is on the National Planning Committee of the US Social Forum, and she is our facilitator for the Women’s Working Group of the USSF.

Margaret Burnham

Margaret Burnham is a Professor at Northeastern University Law School with an LLB from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Burnham’s experiences during the civil rights movement motivated her to pursue a career in law. She has since served as Director of the National Conference of Black lawyers and is a member of the South African Partners, a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of long-term partnership opportunities between the U.S., South Africa, and the Global Policy Forum of the United Nations. Professor Burnham chairs the National Center of Afro-American Artists and she has been active in many human rights arenas across this country and in other countries as well.
    Professor Burnham began her activist career with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, litigating school desegregation cases. In 1992, South African president Nelson Mandela asked her to serve on an international commission that investigated human rights violations committed by the African National Congress and this commission led to the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. Professor Burnham's fields of expertise include civil rights, human rights, and employee rights. She was the first African American woman to serve on the Massachusetts judiciary and she was the attorney for our great feminist sister Angela Davis at her trial in 1972