Girl Up Texas Coalition
Meet Our 2022 Speakers
Hon. Teta Banks
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Former National Chair of the UNA-USA, International Forum Inc. President, Global Human Rights Advocate
The Honorable Dr. Teta V. Banks is a diplomat, human rights advocate, and educator and is the Immediate Past National Chair of the United Nations Association of the United States of America. She is the first person of African descent to hold this position and also is the first woman of African descent to be elected to the Executive Committee of the World Federation of UNAs. Dr. Banks accompanied the U.N. Secretary-General on his mission tour for the refugee crisis, and was a U.S. delegate to the Secretary-General’s U.N. Special Session on Human Trafficking. Dr. Banks also has served as Consul General of the Republic of Liberia and has been responsible for increasing humanitarian aid to Liberia, trade and economic development, and as an advisor to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Dr. Banks has held numerous positions in non-profit organizations and governmental organizations and has served at several universities. She is a senior advisor to the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives by appointment by the great- granddaughter of Frederick Douglass, and serves on several Advisory Boards. She is the recipient of many awards and recognitions, including recognition as a “Distinguished Daughter of Liberia,” Global Goodwill Ambassador, Human Relations Commission’s Chairman’s Award, and “ Top 30 Influential Women of Houston.” She attended Wellesley College, Howard University, Wayne State University and Oxford University. She also holds certifications in Human Rights Education Training from US Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights, the Sustainable Development Goals from University of Copenhagen, and Global Diplomacy from University of London.
Ms. Heidi Brewer
NASA Flight Director
Heidi M. Brewer is a Flight Director at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Ms. Brewer started her career at NASA in 2006 in the Space Shuttle Instrumentation and Communications Officer (INCO) group. As an INCO flight controller, she supported 19 Shuttle missions and was Lead INCO for the final Shuttle flight, STS-135. At the conclusion of the Shuttle program, Ms. Brewer transitioned to the Space Station Integration and Systems Engineer (ISE) group in 2011, where she has been a specialist in integrating operations and training with SpaceX. She has supported 20+ Dragon missions for NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) programs and Commercial Crew Program (CCP), and most recently was the Lead ISE for the Private Astronaut Mission, Axiom-1. Ms. Brewer has also served as a lead operations integrator for the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), the Common Communication for Visiting Vehicles (C2V2) ship-to-ship radio system, and the Artemis Human Landing System (HLS). Ms. Brewer was raised in Marietta, Georgia, graduated from Georgia Tech with a BS in Aerospace Engineering in 2005, and also holds a Master of Aeronautical Science degree through Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. She is an avid runner and triathlete when she’s not on the job.
Shania Hurtado
Intersectional Gender Equality Advocate
Shania Hurtado is a Venezuelan-American global gender equality advocate, writer, coder, and rising sophomore at Harvard University from Houston, Texas. Shania's advocacy focuses on girls' education, increasing women's participation in STEM, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and climate justice. After discovering the disparities of women in STEM, particularly in computer science, she founded Houston Girls Code, a coding camp for Black, Latina, and/or low-income girls in grades 4th-8th grade. Passionate about ending gender-based violence, in September 2020, Shania Hurtado spoke at the Youth United Nations General Assembly on "Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Through an Intersectional Lens" and she testified in front of the Texas State Board of Education in support of comprehensive, medically-accurate sex education. Recognizing how Black, Latine, and/or low-income communities were disproportionately affected by climate change in her community of Houston after Hurricane Harvey, Shania organized the first Houston Youth Climate Rally with speaker Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Since then, the youth climate justice movement in Houston has grown to over 1,000 members.
Dedicated to Girl Up's mission, Shania formerly served as a 2021 Girl Up Teen Advisor, Southeast Texas Coalition Leader, and Club President and Founder at her high school. She was honored as a 2021 Coca Cola Scholar and a "20 Under 20 Young Innovators" Award by Diversity in Action magazine. As a student at Harvard, Shania has written for the Harvard Political Review, serves as the first-ever Diversity Chair for the Harvard University Engineering Society, and this summer, she is a Research Assistant for Dr. Emmerich Davies, analyzing data in R on how the expansion of education in low- and middle-income countries influences local politics and gender dynamics.
Nicole Minor
The Pangea Network Founder
As Founder and Executive Director of The Pangea Network, Nicole Minor believes that women can be a powerful force to affect change through entire families and communities. Nicole began to design programs in 2005 that have become the foundation of The Pangea Network. Prior to her formation of Pangea, Minor performed market research for consulting and technology companies in Europe and the United States. Later, in Brazil, she assisted a large international development agency during their in-country start-up phase. Here, she found her passion for working with women and youth after seeing the impact they can make on communities.
Returning to the United States, while working in the private
investment sector, Minor made the commitment to pursue her passion and began partnering with local women in designing programs that could provide the greatest value to the communities involved. She enlisted a board of directors, filed for non-profit status, and initiated the efforts which today benefit thousands of women and youth in disadvantaged areas. Minor earned a master’s degree in international management from Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management, in Glendale, Arizona in 1999 and a bachelor’s degree in French from UCLA in 1994. She resides in The Woodlands, Texas, the headquarters of Pangea.