Anita Gonzales-Evans serves as a Congressional Liaison with the U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) and has been an employee of the Department since 1997.  Ms. Gonzales-Evans is primarily responsible for developing and implementing congressional and legislative strategies on issues affecting mineral and revenue collections.  While with ONRR, she has served as the Team Lead to develop the organization’s strategic review team for diversity and inclusion.  In 2015 she was selected to participate in the President’s Management Council Interagency Rotation Program where she spent 6 months on assignment with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion.  Ms. Gonzales-Evans also serves as a Diversity Change Agent at the Department and has served on several diversity and inclusion panels.  She was recently appointed to serve as the Chair and Chief Diversity Officer for her organization.  Ms. Gonzales-Evans has continued to learn more about becoming a diversity and inclusion practitioner and is a graduate of The Institute for Federal Leadership in Diversity and Inclusion and earned a Certificate of Mastery in Diversity and Inclusion.  In 2016 she was named the organization’s Mentor of the Year.

Prior to joining the Department, Ms. Gonzales-Evans served as a Congressional Liaison with the U.S. Department of Energy.  She also worked on Capitol Hill for various members in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Anita currently serves as the President of the Federally Employed Women’s Capital Chapter and has served as the President and Secretary of Interior Toastmasters International. Ms. Gonzales-Evans also is a graduate of the Executive Potential Program, a developmental program designed to enhance leadership competencies.

Anita grew up in Baytown, Texas, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Houston and a Master’s degree in Political Management from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  Anita also earned a Certificate in Personnel Administration from the U.S. Graduate School.

Dr. Reese is the Vice President for Institutional Equity at Duke University and Duke University Health System. The office oversees diversity, affirmative action/equal opportunity, and harassment/discrimination prevention. He is also adjunct faculty in the departments of Psychology and Community & Family Medicine.

Before assuming this role, he was the Assistant Vice-President for Cross-Cultural Relations within the same office. For the last 40 years, Dr. Reese has served as a consultant to educational institutions, profit and not-for-profit corporations, and healthcare organizations in the areas of organizational change, conflict resolution, race relations, cross-cultural education and diversity. He is highly regarded as a senior diversity practitioner with a national reputation.

Before moving to North Carolina, he was the Associate Executive Director of the Fifth Ave Center for Counseling and Psychotherapy in New York City, the Ombudsperson for the Rockefeller Foundation, and founder and director of The Institute for the Study of Culture and Ethnicity in Manhattan.

He has represented both the International Council of Psychologists and the World Federation for Mental Health (Non-Governmental Organizations) at the United Nations. He is the co-founder of the North Carolina Diversity and Inclusion Partners in Higher Education and a trustee of the Wake Technical Community College in North Carolina.

Sharon M. Wong was selected as the Executive Director for Strategic Recruitment, Diversity & Inclusion for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in November 2016. In this capacity, she leads strategic recruitment, and diversity and inclusion management for the third largest Department in the Federal government, covering nearly 200,000 employees located throughout the country and around the world. Prior to this role, Sharon served as the Deputy Director (and Acting Director) for OPM’s Office of Diversity & Inclusion (ODI), the office that leads and manages the government-wide diversity and inclusion effort. As the Deputy Director for ODI, she was responsible for D&I policy initiatives, coordinating with the 60+ Federal agencies that submitted D&I Strategic Plans to provide technical assistance on implementing D&I strategies and goals, creating and sustaining D&I Councils and Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), and developing and executing the Diversity & Inclusion Dialogue Program to improve the Inclusion Quotient (New IQ) of agencies. She also coordinated with the National Affinity Groups to build strategic relationships for outreach and collaboration, and improve the representation of diverse communities. Ms. Wong came to OPM in September 2011, after serving as the D&I Officer at NASA/GSFC, where she led the D&I efforts since the program inception in 2000, leaving NASA/GSFC with a #2 ranking for Diversity (out of 220+ agencies) in the Best Places to Work in Government, as well as a detail to NASA HQ to standup the NASA D&I program. Her work experiences include 15 years as a Lead Software Integration and Test Engineer at NASA, and in Strategic Planning and Outreach at NASA HQ. Ms. Wong is returning as the National President for OCA, a national Asian Pacific American (APA) social justice and civil rights advocacy organization for which she was National President in 2013 – 2014; she’s a past Chair of the Asian American Government Executives Network (AAGEN), an organization of federal APA executives; and a Past President of the FAPAC. Ms. Wong served on the Maryland Commission for Women, and recently on the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Board of Governors. She is a lifetime member of Blacks in Government (BIG) and the Federally Employed Women (FEW) Ms. Wong has received the NASA/KSC Equal Opportunity Award, the Astronaut Silver Snoopy Award, and an Outstanding Leadership Award from NASA/GSFC. She has also been recognized by external organizations such as AAGEN with the Stanley Suyat Memorial Leadership Award, and with the 2016 Community Catalyst Award by the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), and was inducted into the Hall of Honor at Wheeling Jesuit University in 2017. She has a B.S. in Physics, a M.S. in Engineering Systems Analysis from the University of Central Florida (UCF), and a Diversity Management Certificate from Cornell University.