Emily Gorcenski

Emily Gorcenski was born in 1982, grew up in Columbia, Connecticut. She is a data scientist by profession, a mathematician and engineer by training at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and an activist by passion. She sits on the advisory boards of the Prosecution Project at Miami University in Ohio (Dr. Michael Loadenthal), and on the Youth Equity and Sexuality Laboratory at Suffolk University (Dr. Mimi Arbeit), two research labs studying violent extremism. Her experience in contemporary right-wing extremism is driven in large part by her personal experiences as a survivor of neo-Nazi terrorism in her home city of Charlottesville, Virginia, when terrorists came to the Unite the Right neo-Nazi hate rally intent on doing violence. As part of her efforts to understand right-wing extremist violence, she created First Vigil, a database of criminal cases involving hate crimes, right-wing anti-government extremists, and white supremacist violence. For that work, she was given numerous accolades; among them, she was named as one of 2018’s most influential feminists by Bitch Magazine. She is a queer, transgender, half Chinese mixed-race woman.

You can read more about her and her work in these articles:

1. The data scientist exposing US white supremacists: 'This is how you fight Nazis'

2. https://www.emilygorcenski.com/

3. Queer People and People of Color React to Charlottesville Activism