Trailblazer Diversity and Inclusion Award

Selected jointly by the Division of Inclusive Excellence and the Alumni Association, this award recognizes alumni whose work exemplifies inclusion, promotes equity, and values and reflects the diversity of our world: gender identity and expression, sexuality, race, ethnicity, national origin, socioeconomic class, disability, religion, spirituality, age cohort, and the infinite other dimensions that intersect to make each person unique.

The 2023 Trailblazer Award Winner, Shireen Nori ‘16

The winner of the 2023 Trailblazer Award for Diversity and Inclusion is Shireen Nori ‘16, a recognized grassroots organizer and social movement strategist.

At 14, Shireen started organizing at the intersections of racial and reproductive justice. Since then, she has amassed a decade of experience working on campaigns at the local, state, and federal levels and in developing and strengthening social justice movements through training, coaching, and strategy development.

During her time at Whitman, she helped relaunch the 2013 Power and Privilege Symposium (PPS), served as the PPS Executive Director in 2014, and worked as a Senior Admissions Officer her senior year. Throughout college, Shireen also held a number of campaign and programmatic roles at Planned Parenthood Federation of America including National Spokesperson.

After graduating from Whitman, Shireen co-developed and executed winning political strategies for field campaigns and ballot initiatives in both Washington and Georgia. She pivoted from the reproductive justice movement to work in climate justice where she co-created digital strategy for the 2019 Climate Strikes, which brought 7.6 million people out to the streets in a single day. Her current work at Kairos focuses on power building in Black and brown communities and helping organizers understand how the issues they are fighting for are shaped by tech governance.

Good storytelling, the right to self determination, and collective power are all central to Shireen’s organizing methodology. She lives in Seattle, WA with her dog, Ruhi.