In celebration of Women's HERstory Month, join us for a panel discussion "A Portrait of Leadership & Empowerment"

Thursday, March 28, 2024 |  6PM-8PM  | NAC Ballroom
RSVP at tinyurl.com/ccnyWHM24

Free Food and Refreshments Provided

Sponsored by: CCNY Division of Student Affairs, Department of Student Life and Leadership Development, Gender Resources, Urban Mentoring And Achievement Network and Teen Exposure Project

Featured panelists:

Lydia T. Blanco: Journalist, Host and Media Personality

Elizabeth Lundi: Assistant Commissioner of Equal Employment Opportunity at the NYC Department of Correction

Okema T. Moore: Producer, Director, Actor, Writer

Joan H. Robinson: Assistant Professor of Social Science and Law at CCNY's Division of Interdisciplinary Studies (CWE)

Panelist Bios:

Lydia T. Blanco

Lydia T. Blanco is a trusted journalist, vibrant host, digital media personality, and communications strategist who is passionate about building community through storytelling.

As a journalist, she focuses on entrepreneurship, career, and lifestyle. Throughout her career, she has reported on education, financial literacy, tech, health, and more at NBC News, Black Enterprise, Forbes, and a variety of publications. In addition to writing feature stories, Lydia is an on-air talent, speaker, moderator, facilitator, media content strategist, and brand transformation specialist. Some of her highlight interviews include Thasunda Brown Duckett, Percy ‘Master P’ Miller, Octavia Spencer, Jamie Dimon, Cathy Hughes, Sheryl Sandberg, and Debra Lee. Her speaking engagements range from Google to Social Media Week in Lagos, Nigeria.

Lydia is the host and producer of the how-through lifestyle podcast, The Get My Life Tour, which focuses on practicing vulnerability and how to show up for yourself. To date, the podcast show has an international audience, and is distributed on 15 listening platforms.

Additionally, Lydia is the creator of Sincere Visions, a digital platform rooted in equity, media literacy, sociology, history, and culturally responsive reporting. As a media professional, Lydia is committed to amplifying the voices of people in marginalized communities and humanizing the experiences of those who are often overlooked.

Elizabeth T. Lundi

Elizabeth T. Lundi, JD was appointed Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity in July 2021. Prior to this appointment, Ms. Lundi served as the Deputy Director for the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity at the NYC Department of Buildings and as an Agency Attorney for the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene where she co-chaired the Department’s Race to Justice Committee. As Assistant Commissioner of EEO, Ms. Lundi is responsible for formulating and implementing the agency’s EEO policy and procedures, ensuring effective fulfillment of the agency’s EEO obligations, and providing legal counsel to executive, managerial and supervisory staff on all EEO matters. Ms. Lundi earned a Juris Doctor from Rutgers School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts from St. John’s University and is licensed as an attorney in New York and New Jersey.

Okema T. Moore 

Okema T. Moore is an Emmy Nominated, PGA producer, writer, actor and rising director. She has created content for Lifetime, Netflix, Nickelodeon, DreamWorks, FOX, and Disney/Marvel. Her unscripted content includes Kenya Barris’ Klutch Academy, for BET, Beat Bobby Flay and The Kitchen on Food Network, Oprah’s Color of Care on OWN and the Smithsonian Channel, Founding In Color Season 2 on Peacock and Nomad with Carlton McCoy on CNN. Her scripted work has premiered at TRIBECA, ABFF and Outfest. 

Okema has placed in a host of labs and fellowships. She was a Branded Directing Fellow for the 2021 MinoritiesInFILM, a semi-finalist in the 2022 Blackhouse Producer’s Lab and a two-time 2nd rounder for Sundance’s Producer’s Track in 2021 and 2023. In 2023 Okema became a fellow for the Stowe Story Producer’s Lab and the Black Magic Collective Producer’s Lab and a finalist for the Commercial Director’s Diversity Program. 

Most recently she developed and produced a new docu series for STARZ premiering later this year and directed eleven social spots for ULTA Beauty. She was a finalist for PANO’s Producing micro-grant with an Honorable Mention, and is a writing fellow for Women Going Places, for her self-written short, Purses & Floors which she is developing into a series.  As an actor can be seen on Season 2 of both Amazon Prime’s Harlem, and allblk’s Makeup x Breakup, as well as the 2023 BET holiday film, So Fly Christmas starring Tichina Arnold and Tammi Roman and has voiced five campaigns in the last two years, with a narrative animated digital series that she voiced a lead character for releasing this year as well. 

Okema serves on the board of NY Women in Film & TV and the Black TV & Film Collective, and is a member of the NY Television Academy, SAG-AFTRA and the Actor’s Equity Association. She is committed to continuing to lift while she climbs, building up womxn, queer, Indigenous, POC and especially Black female identifying creatives, as she simultaneously strives toward continued success in her own creative career.

Joan H. Robinson 

Joan Robinson, JD, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Social Science and Law at The City College of New York.  Her research examines the intersection of technology, inequality, and law, with a particular focus on technologies of surveillance.  She is especially interested in how inequalities often get baked into technology design and how these designs can be adopted or resisted by end users.  In her forthcoming book, The Home Pregnancy Test, she examines the device from its conception in the lab to its uses today, including its reinforcement of race, gender, class, and age inequalities. 

Robinson currently teaches in the BA and MA programs in the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, at the Downtown Campus.  Before becoming an academic, Robinson was a Staff Attorney with The Legal Aid Society in the South Bronx and Brooklyn, where she represented low-income women and families in civil proceedings such as housing, public benefits, immigration, and domestic violence.  In her personal time, she is a caregiver, likes to knit and crochet, has about 80 species of houseplants, and is a speedcuber.