The SSA is governed by a Board of Directors which is elected by the SSA's members. [Become a member]

Board members are elected for two-year terms by the members of the SSA.

Currently they are:

Hemant Mehta, Chair (board member since 2005)
Chicago, IL
[hemant AT secularstudents DOT org]

Hemant Mehta is currently the Chair of the Secular Student Alliance Board of Directors.

He attended the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he graduated with honors in both Mathematics and Biology. While there, he also helped establish their first secular student group, Students WithOut Religious Dogma (SWORD).  He is now earning his Masters in Math Education at DePaul University.

 

He has worked with the Center for Inquiry and is the SSA representative to the Secular Coalition for America.  He is also on the board of Foundation Beyond Belief, a charity organization targeting non-theistic donors.

Hemant was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for his work as the "eBay Atheist" and his book about the experience,  I Sold My Soul on eBay (WaterBrook Press), was released in 2007.

 

His website is www.FriendlyAtheist.com.

 

He currently works as a high school Math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago.

Don Sutterfield, Vice Chair (board member since 2008) 
Columbus, OH
[don AT secularstudents DOT org]

Don Sutterfield has been active in the freethought community for most of the last decade. He has volunteered with the SSA affiliate Students for Freethought at the Ohio State University, doing PR and advertizing, coordinating the protest of the National Day of Prayer events at the Ohio Statehouse, helping to create and maintain a freethought garden on OSU campus, and organizing one of the group’s most well attended events - a debate between Dan Barker and Dr. David Fisher on the existence of God. Having worn many hats serving Students for Freethought, Don was extremely pleased to be elected to the SSA board of directors in 2008 where he has served as chair of the foundations fundraising committee researching and writing grants, and as vice-chair of the board. Don has also volunteered as a counselor at Camp Quest Ohio in ’09 and will again this year. Don believes that working with younger people in the freethought movement is the best way to promote a future society in which secularism and humanism are ever-increasingly integral. Don is a student of Psychology and Philosophy and plans to continue to work within the freethought movement and someday teach, counsel, and write about the benefits of secularism.

Andrew Cederdahl, Treasurer (board member since 2009)
Columbia, SC
[andrew AT secularstudents DOT org]

Andrew Cederdahl is a political science major at the University of South Carolina. He is the president and co-founder of the Pastafarians at USC, which has developed into a successful student organization for nonreligious students at USC. His many accomplishments with the organization include being featured in the front-page New York Times article “More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops” about the secular movement in South Carolina, helping organize a highly successful Darwin Day debate featuring Dan Barker on the existence of God, which generated a capacity crowd of over 550 people and local media coverage of the event, working with other faith-based student groups at an “interfaith day of service” for a local food bank, and participating in an intercollegiate debate with another student from a Christian university contesting the rationality of belief in miracles. Andrew has also been featured in two other local media pieces about the Pastafarians at USC and several articles in USC’s campus paper, the Daily Gamecock.

John Figdor (board member since 2009)
Cambridge, MA
[john AT secularstudents DOT org]

John Figdor is a Humanist MDiv (the pre-ordination degree) at Harvard Divinity School preparing for a career as a Humanist chaplain. To many, the idea of an atheist going to divinity school might seem strange. However, for John it was perfectly logical. After he finished his B.A. in philosophy at Vassar, he decided to spend a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA at a domestic violence shelter in Butte, Montana. What was perhaps most interesting that year was when John learned that many Americans do not take their ethical advice from Aristotle, Kant, or Mill, but rather from religious leaders. He realized that if he was going to make a meaningful contribution to the ethical dialogue in this country, he ought to study religious ethics. Hence, he enrolled at Harvard Divinity School and studied the intersection of religion, ethics, and politics.

John was elected President of the Harvard Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists (H.A.S.H.), the Harvard graduate student Humanist community, in 2009 and will continue to serve as President until he graduates in 2010.  In addition to running the graduate Humanist community, John worked as Greg Epstein’s intern in the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University and gained a valuable behind-the-scenes view of Humanist chaplaincy.  He was hired in the summer of 2009 as the first Harvard Humanist Community Organizing Fellow at the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard and is building a coalition of atheist organizations in the Greater Boston area.  For more on John Figdor, check out his profile at the Humanist Chaplaincy.  He is particularly interested in both advocacy for the rights of nontheists and building meaningful communities for the nonreligious.

Joe Foley (board member since 2006)
Palo Alto, CA
[joe AT secularstudents DOT org]

Joe Foley is a doctoral candidate in genetics at Stanford University and co-founder of Atheists, Humanists, and Agnostics (AHA!) at Stanford. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Minnesota in 2007, with a B.S. in biology and a minor in music. He first became involved with the freethought movement as an officer of the University of Minnesota Atheists and Humanists (since renamed Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists - CASH), and led the group as co-chair from 2004 to 2006, during which time CASH successfully secured annual funding from student fees, began the process of applying for nonprofit tax exemption, and held many widely publicized events including its own conference. Joe also served the Secular Coalition for America as Treasurer from 2006 through 2007.

Outside of his work in the freethought movement, Joe has found plenty of other ways to keep himself busy. He was a Student Senator in his university government and a member of his college's Student Board, as well as a commissioner in the university's All-Campus Elections. He also plays the violin in ensembles of various sizes.

Matthew LaClair (board member since 2008) 
Kearny, NJ 
[matthew AT secularstudents DOT org]

Matthew LaClair has been dedicated to political and social issues since he was in his freshman year at Kearney High School. He has worn protest buttons and T-shirts to school, helped in political campaigns for local and national positions, and done many things at his school which show his dedication to these issues. He has made a choice not to stand for the flag salute, and as a result been not only challenged by administrators, but taunted by students and administrators alike.

His main action however, did not involve the flag salute. This issue started in September of 2007, when his teacher was preaching his religion during class. He told the students that if they reject the Lord's salvation, they belonged in hell. He also dismissed the theory of evolution and the big bang theory, saying that they are not scientific. He made other statements that were terrible, and Matthew did something about it, acquiring a lot of press in the process.  The Board of Education breached a term of their agreement, but instead of entering litigation, Matthew helped remedy the situation by inviting three speakers to speak to the students about these subjects. Dr. Charles Liu, an astrophysicist and associate at the Hayden Planetarium in NYC, Dr. Kenneth Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University and the lead witness in the Dover trial, and Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State have all agreed to conduct these assemblies. The administration refused to pay any speaker anything, so they all agreed to speak for free.

The story has generated five articles and two editorials in the New York Times, along with a flurry of local print, television and radio coverage, and appearances on Anderson Cooper 360, Air America, Brian Lehrer, BBC international radio and several others. He has also been awarded the James Madison Religious Liberty Award from the Center for Inquiry, the Ethical Hero Award from the American Ethical Union, the Ethical Humanist Award from the New York Society for Ethical Culture and several others.

 

Shelley Mountjoy (board member since 2009)
Lorton, VA
[shelley AT secularstudents DOT org]

Shelley Mountjoy is a graduate student at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA where she serves as the Chair of the campus assembly within the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GAPSA). Shelley became involved in the atheist movement in 2005 with the Rational Response Squad; she is currently a moderator on the site.  In 2007, Shelley founded a secular group on campus which received University recognition the following year; she is currently the President of that group.  She is also an Alumni Advisor for the United Secular Alliance at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Shelley is the Vice President of Outreach for Virginia Freethought Renaissance (VFR).  VFR is a statewide secular communication effort intended to help publicize events of interest to the secular community.  In 2009, Shelley formed District of Columbia Atheists, Incorporated with the synergistic talents of two close friends.  This representative democracy is the first formal atheist organization in the nation's capital.  In 2010, Shelley became Coordinator of the Northern Virginia Chapter of Washington Area Secular Humanists (WASH).

However, among her involvement, Shelley is best known in the DC area as the Organizer of Beltway Atheists - a 650 member social atheist community.  Holding this position since July of 2008, Shelley has tripled activity, increased membership 70%, and created a Charitable Works Committee to integrate philanthropy into existing events.  She formed the Beltway Atheists Alliance - a coalition of eight local groups - to increase cooperation between existing groups on shared interests of state-church separation and secular community.

Shelley lives in Central Virginia with her cat, Sarah, and dog, Junior.

 

Ashley Paramore (board member since 2008) 
Columbus, OH
[ashley AT secularstudents DOT org]

Having grown up in a small conservative community, Ashley Paramore found it very difficult to find other freethinkers. When she finally found out that there were more people with the same views as she had, she grew excited and immediately wanted to find community.

Although she has only been exposed to the freethought community for a few years, she has been very active. Though she is no longer affiliated with them, she started working with the Rational Response Squad in March of 2007 by starting a chapter in Columbus, Ohio. With this she was able to bring together atheists/freethinkers/humanists and give them a sense of community, along with an opportunity to take part in activism involving separation of church and state issues.

She is consistently trying to work with other groups and networking in order to bring freethinkers together, and accomplish various goals. While doing this she has started another group (Omnipresent Atheists), helped Ohio State's Students for Freethought get free speakers, attended the Atheist Alliance International Conference in Washington, D.C., and became a volunteer for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.