Audacia Ray, Founder and Director
Audacia Ray is a former sex worker who was an executive editor at the Utne Reader award-winning $pread magazine for three years and is the author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration. As the Program Officer for Online Communications and Campaigns at the International Women’s Health Coalition and a communications consultant for the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, Audacia has worked with activists all over the world to build communications strategies around challenging topics like youth sexual health, sexual rights, HIV, and sex work. She has been blogging about sexuality and culture since 2004, and has shot and edited a variety of videos and video podcasts, including Naked City TV, a twenty-two episode documentary video show that she produced for the Village Voice in 2008. The Village Voice named the Red Umbrella Diaries series and Audacia’s blog Waking Vixen to their Best of NYC list. Audacia also developed a syllabus and taught as an adjunct professor of Human Sexuality at Rutgers University for three semesters. She has a BA from Eugene Lang College at the New School and a MA from Columbia University. Audacia founded the Red Umbrella Project in the summer of 2010. For inquiries about collaboration, press inquiries, and other thoughts about our programs, email: audaciaray@redumbrellaproject.org

Emma Caterine, Program Officer, Speak Up! Media and Advocacy Program
Emma Caterine recently left Virginia to move to her dream city of Brooklyn, New York. She completed a B.A. in English and a B.A. in African-American Cultural Studies from the College of William & Mary. She has done work in the past with labor organizing, archival science, LGBTQI activism, radio and venue management, and volunteer coordination. Emma brings her diverse set of experiences to the position of Program Officer and will be helping to coordinate RedUP’s advocacy for the “no condoms as evidence” bill S1379/A2736 as well as other legislation and policies which impact sex workers in New York. You can reach her at emma@redumbrellaproject.org.

Kamron Shahraray, Program Officer, Speak Up! Media and Advocacy Program
Kamron Shahraray rose up from the Jersey shore like a kitschy version Bottecelli’s Venus and later moved to New York, where he is finishing his undergraduate studies in Film/TV Production and Journalism at New York University. He brings prior experiences in grass-roots coalition building and community organizing, particularly around issues affecting immigrants and Middle-Easterners, to the Red Umbrella Project. When he is not dismantling hegemonic systems of power, or procrastinating on his thesis film, he enjoys pursuing one of his greatest passions, nail art. Email him at kamron@redumbrellaproject.org.

Danielle, Outreach and Communications Coordinator
Danielle has a long standing love affair with linguistics, which developed in her younger years down south in New Jersey. Since her rise from a young babe into a babe of current years, she wore many hats, from professional cook at a meditation center to photography studio manager. With her tech-savvy understanding of online identities, Danielle spoke publicly on many occasion about the interaction of the sex, workers in the industry, and their presence on the internet. Since her arrival to New York City, almost two years ago, she has maintained multiple freelance writing gigs, addressing all things music and photography. When she isn’t keeping sexy time hours at her full-time job, Danielle is held captive by her two cats and her love of science, all while finding time to create films with her best friend and determine the exact moment of the singularity’s arrival. Email her at danielle@redumbrellaproject.org.

Daisy McCloud, Project Coordinator, Clear My Name Campaign
Daisy McCloud is a native New Yorker who has participated in many Red Umbrella Project programs including Speak Up! media and legislative trainings and December 17 (International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers). In 2012 she also co-facilitated the legislative trainings, and joined Audacia along with members of the sex worker community in Washington DC for the International AIDS Conference.  She has been working with the Red Umbrella Project and the Sex Workers Project (at Urban Justice Center) on the “No Condoms as Evidence” bill including speaking about it at the legislative trainings, meeting with elected officials in their local offices, and going up to Albany for a lobby day this past spring. Daisy McCloud is the project coordinator for one of Red Umbrella’s newest campaigns, “Clear My Name”, that is set to start this fall. She is currently active in the sexy trade industry, as well as being a student and a mother of two girls. Email her at daisy@redumbrellaproject.org

Anna Saini, Project Coordinator, Breaking Bounds
Anna Saini has lived many lives as a political scientist, radical activist, and multi-media artist. She completed a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science at the University of Toronto and McMaster University respectively. She works as a community organizer on drug and education policy reform, civil and labor rights, prison abolition, police brutality, and post-colonial feminist liberation. Her work has appeared in: Bust Magazine, Make/Shift Magazine, her self-published anthology Colored Girls, and in the first issue of Red Umbrella Project’s literary journal, Pros(e). Email her at anna@redumbrellaproject.org

Josh Ryley, Podcast Editor
Josh Ryley lives and works in NYC. He holds a BFA in studio art and a culinary arts degree, so you will often find him covered in glue, thread, paint, or food. He has read a few times at the Red Umbrella Diaries and hosted the Like a Virgin night of stories in May 2012. He is currently working on compiling his numerous stories and adventures within the sex industry into a discernible document, and is published in issue one of Pros(e). Josh began editing the Red Umbrella Diaries podcast in spring 2012.

Eliyanna Kaiser, Advocacy Advisor 
Alongside Audacia, Eliyanna is the cofounder of the Speak Up! Media and Advocacy Program. Audacia and Eliyanna codeveloped the media training and advocacy workshops, as well as the guides that complement these workshops. She lives with her wife and their twin sons in Harlem, and volunteers her expertise to RedUP.