4/2022: Adoptee Changemakers

**This is a recording of our We the Experts event on April 9th, 2022.**

Be inspired! This panel will feature four adoptees who are centering the adoptee experience to change laws, change policy, change practices, change minds, and change the world!*

Panelists

Gregory Luce is the executive director of Adoptees United Inc., a national nonprofit organization dedicated to equality for all adopted people, and an attorney and the founder of Adoptee Rights Law Center, a law firm where he represents adult adopted people. Gregory is considered a national expert on issues related to adult adopted people and their rights to identity, heritage, and citizenship. He is honored to be included in such a great panel discussion and excited to talk about critical legal and political issues impacting adult adopted people.

Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao, Ed.D., LCSW, LMFT, was the Founder and CEO of Center for Family Connections, Inc. in Cambridge and New York, Founder and Director of Riverside After Adoption Consulting and Training, PACT (Pre/Post Adoption Consulting and Training, and Pavao Consulting and Coaching. She is a lecturer in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and she has consulted to various public and private entities. Additionally, she has worked closely with individuals and families touched by adoption, foster care, and other complex blended family constructions. Dr. Pavao’s book, The Family of Adoption, has received high acclaim and she has also received many awards and honors. More than her degrees and honors, Dr. Pavao states her most valuable credential is that she has experienced life as an adopted person and she has love and great respect for both her birth and adoptive families.

Benjamin Fossen was adopted from Guatemala in 1990 and grew up in Minnesota. He is an entrepreneur, engineer, and investor. Ben co-founded Adoptees with Guatemalan Roots, a nonprofit that is a global community of people adopted from Guatemala. He is on the board of directors for Consejo Nacional Empresarial (Guatemalan National Entrepreneurs Council), an organization in Guatemala seeking to modernize the Guatemalan economy and represent the private sector. You can find him on twitter @benfossen. Ben is excited to speak on this panel with other amazing adoptee change makers.

Megan Boone is an East Asian transracial adoptee. She is a leader with Adoptee Voices Rising (AVR), a new group of U.S. transracial adoptees working towards equity for adoptees through community and legislative advocacy, and by centering adoptee voices in those discussions. Her background is in AAPI organizing and she has multiple years of experience fighting for adoptee citizenship at both the state and federal level. Megan is excited to be on this panel to discuss how the adoptee community can continue to build collective political power both in Washington D.C. and across the country.