Urvashi Vaid is a writer, attorney, community organizer and leader in LGBT and social justice movements. She is the Director of the Engaging Tradition Project at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. Ms. Vaid is an author of numerous essays and analyses, and is a former columnist for The Advocate. She founded LPAC, the first lesbian political action committee, in July of 2012.  She serves on the board of the Gill Foundation, an organization advocating for equal opportunity for all, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity.

For more than 10 years Ms. Vaid worked for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the oldest national LGBT civil rights organization in the U.S.. Ms. Vaid also formerly worked with the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she initiated the organization’s work on HIV/AIDS in prisons.

In the words of the HLS community members who nominated her, “Urvashi Vaid represents the best of where the queer legal movement has been and of where it might go next” and is continuously “challenging all of the many movements of which she is a part to strive for greater inclusivity, class consciousness, and radicalism.”

She received her Bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law.