Catherine LaSota is the current Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Social Difference and the former Assistant Director of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University, and served as the inaugural Development Director for Electric Literature. She is founder of the monthly LIC Reading Series in Long Island City, NY, and her writing on literature, parenthood, and women’s rights appears in Vice, Catapult, and Literary Hub, among other publications. She has an MFA from Parsons School of Design and volunteers as a workshop leader for the NY Writers Coalition, which offers free writing workshops to underserved communities in New York City. An avid SCUBA diver and classically trained French horn player and singer, Catherine is also the proud mother of two young children.