Joan A. Kuriansky

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Joan A. Kuriansky, Executive Director of Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW).  Ms. Kuriansky has been an advocate on behalf of women's rights throughout her career. She has led several national and local organizations and has consulted on an international level in Russia, the NIS and Southeast Asia.

Ms. Kuriansky joined WOW in September 2001. Established in 1964, WOW works nationally and in its home community of Washington, DC to achieve economic independence for women and girls throughout their lifetime. WOW has worked on a program and policy level on issues relating to literacy, job training and education, technical and nontraditional skills, and career development. WOW leads the National Women's Workforce Network, the Elder Economic Security Initiative (EESI) and the Family Economic Self-Sufficiency Project (FESS). Through its various networks, WOW works in over 40 states to help advocates, administrators and policy makers develop tools to help families move toward self-sufficiency, with particular focus on the welfare and workforce systems. Locally, WOW offers direct support to women and teens as well as providing advocacy through its own Self-Sufficiency Initiative, as a co-chair of the DC Women's Agenda and the DC Jobs Council.

Between 1987 and 1994, Ms. Kuriansky was Executive Director of the Older Women's League (OWL).   OWL is a national advocacy and membership organization with chapters throughout the country. OWL addresses a variety of economic and social issues facing women as they age.  At OWL, Ms. Kuriansky   co-founded the Campaign for Women's Health building a coalition of over 8 million women and men.  In 1992, she was named A Women of Vision by the Ms. Foundation and received a Gloria Steinem award for her leadership in promoting health care reform.

Working in the field of violence against women since 1978, Ms. Kuriansky was a founding member and first President of My Sister's Place in Washington, D.C., Executive Director of Women Against Abuse (WAA) in Philadelphia, P.A. (1981-1987) and served as President of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence (PCADV) between 1983 and 1985. In 1995, President Clinton appointed Ms. Kuriansky to serve on the President's Advisory Council on Violence Against Women on which she served until June 2001.

Today, Ms. Kuriansky serves on a number of national and local boards including, the Muskie Institute for Child and Family Policy, the Workforce Alliance, Move the Mountain, Tradeswomen Now and Tomorrow, and the National Peace Foundation. She co-chairs the National Coalition on Women and Job Training and serves as an advisor to the Institute on Women's Policy Research and the Washington Area Women's Foundation Portrait Project. She is an appointed member of the DC Workforce Investment Council that oversees the DC workforce system and the Project Labor Agreement Task Force on the Baseball Stadium.

Ms. Kuriansky holds a J.D. (University of Virginia) and a Master's Degree in Urban Affairs (Occidental College).  She was awarded a CORO Fellowship in 1973. She received her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis where she was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

Ms. Kuriansky invites you to contact her at jkuriansky@WOWonline.org or (202) 464-1596.