In 1995, Ann Muno bought a low-fare airline ticket and boarded a plane for Beijing, China to attend the United Nations Women’s Conference.  What she found there was the largest gathering of women advocates ever to assemble—political dissidents, musicians and singers, theologians and philosophers, economists and dancers.

What she found there was her life’s work. When she returned home to Seattle, she co-founded an organization dedicated to girl justice. 

Taking what she discovered there, and putting pen to paper, she has published articles that capture what works to empower girls in academic, peer-reviewed journals including Social Work in Education, Crime & Delinquency and After School Matters. In 2017, Ann won a Robert Wood Johnson Interdisciplinary Research Leadership fellowship to further her state’s understanding of policies and programs that promote the health and education needs of girls who are frequently “invisible” in policymaking and are pushed out of opportunity.

 Ann currently lives in Seattle, WA, and directs a statewide policy non-profit called Justice for Girls. Having raised four daughters now in their 20s, two she gave birth to and two biological sisters she adopted from Ethiopia, her credentials on girl-related topics were forged as a parent.