At the beginning of Pride Month 2024, Vince Tripi founded Expanding Horizons, a social-purpose business that offers traveling exhibits, talks, and curricula designed to celebrate diversity and foster pride in LGBTQ+ heritage. Vince is a passionate advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, dedicated to preserving its history and promoting a sense of belonging.

A double-alum of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Vince holds a master’s degree in administrative leadership and a bachelor’s degree in middle and high school education. In 2011 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the UWM LGBT Resource Center for campus and system-level diversity leadership.

Vince knows the power of volunteerism: he’s an Eagle Scout, provides HIV counseling at a free clinic, and trains adult leaders of non-profit youth programs. He’s spoken at universities across the country (and at Google’s New York HQ) on queerness in the media and how LGBTQ+ people can cultivate career success.

As Director of Education & Outreach for Milwaukee Pride, the organization that puts on PrideFest, Vince programs and organizes engaging participatory community education presentations and events on LGBTQ+ history, culture, and advocacy; and develops the vision, strategy, and operations for public history exhibits. In 2023, the Wisconsin LGBT Chamber of Commerce named Vince Advocate of the Year.

Before Vince founded Expanding Horizons, he was a corporate learning & development manager specializing in complex software systems. Vince was named among the Top 25 Emerging Training Leaders by Training magazine in 2021.

Lasalle is a Mixed Media Artist, Coordinator , Curator, and Muralist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Through his passions for art and design, he has provided creative art events, bright artworks, and supplied thought-provoking murals. As a black queer artist, he explore the the concept of life through storytelling and depth of his identity. Lasalle received his bachelors of Fine Arts from Valdosta State University and plans to further his education. Currently, Atlanta is where he calls home building his portfolio and helping local communities.

Camille Williams, a Chicago native and multidisciplinary artist, has been creating art for over two decades across various forms, including poetry, music, visual arts, performance, and activism. Her work often delves into themes of social justice, identity, and the experiences of marginalized communities. Williams began her artistic journey in the culturally rich South Shore neighborhood, honing her craft at Bryn Mawr Elementary and Morgan Park High School. After earning a full athletic scholarship to the University of Illinois at Chicago, she initially pursued a successful career in corporate accounting before fully embracing her artistic passions.

In 2005, she co-founded Spoken Existence Inc., a non-profit aimed at empowering marginalized black women, and formed the activist-performance duo AquaMoon. Their acclaimed choreopoems, including "Love Does Not Hurt," led to performances worldwide, and Williams continued to expand her artistic pursuits with acting, music, and visual arts. After relocating to Atlanta in 2011, she gained recognition for her roles in film and theater while preparing for solo exhibits that showcased her paintings and poetry. With her upcoming 2024 solo exhibit, "Sometimes I Feel," Williams remains dedicated to evolving her artistic journey and using her talents to inspire and uplift her community.

Briona Simone Jones, PhD, is the Audre Lorde Visiting Professor of Queer Studies at Spelman College. Jones’ body of work seeks to map the intellectual contributions of Black lesbians, whom she views as the architects of Black queer studies. She is the editor of the multi-award-winning book, Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought, the most comprehensive anthology centering Black Lesbian Thought to date. During the 2023-2024 academic year, Jones was a Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and curated the exhibition, The Pleasure of Rebellion, which attended to the personal and political contours of Cheryl Clarke and Alexis De Veaux's work. Jones is currently working on her manuscript, Black Lesbian Aesthetics.

M. V. Lee Badgett, PhD, is a pioneering researcher of the global cost of homophobia and transphobia, economic empowerment of LGBTI+ people, and LGBTI+ economic inequality. Her latest book is The Economic Case for LGBT Equality: Why Fair and Equal Treatment Benefits Us All (Beacon Press, 2020). She’s the Chief Economist and co-founder of Koppa: The LGBTI+ Economic Power Lab. In addition, Badgett is Professor Emeritx of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a Williams Distinguished Scholar at UCLA’s Williams Institute, where she was a co-founder and the first research director. She has worked with the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, Open For Business, UNDP, USAID, IDB, the U.S. State Department, OECD, global businesses, and many LGBTI+ organizations. Badgett’s work includes testifying as an expert witness (including as an expert witness in California’s Prop 8 case), analyzing public policies, consulting with development banks, briefing policymakers, writing op-ed pieces, speaking with journalists, and advising businesses.  She is quoted regularly in newspapers across the country, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post. Curve Magazine named her one of the twenty most powerful lesbians in academia, and she has appeared on The Advocate magazine’s "Our Best and Brightest Activists" list and Out Magazine’s “Out 100.”  In 2024, Melinda Gates named Badgett as one of 12 global leaders to distribute $20 million each to organizations working on women’s and girls’ health and well-being.