Advocate for LGBTQ Youth, speaker, and writer. Her focus is advocacy in medical institutions to address LGBTQ healthcare disparities.
Greater Boston PFLAG 2023 Cornerstone of Equality Award recipient for her advocacy for LGBTQ+ Youth to address healthcare disparities and for her work as a support group facilitator and helpline volunteer.
Awarded Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition Marcia and Ken Garber Award for Dedication to The Trans* Community 2018.
Organizer and moderator First Event Conference Family and Youth Program, Medical, and Mental Health sessions (2016-2023).
Served on the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth and on the Board of Directors of Greater Boston PFLAG for six years.
Steering Committee for Freedom for All Massachusetts in the initiative to pass the 2016 Massachusetts Transgender Public Accommodations legislation. Community organizer for public education for Question 3 on the Massachusetts 2018 Ballot — the first-ever statewide vote to uphold transgender protections.
2019-Present MIT Alumni Association Legislative Advocacy Advisory Committee. Worked with the MIT Washington DC office and MIT Alumni Association on legislative advocacy in Washington, DC.
2018 Poet Laureate of Everett High School through a Mass Poetry and Mass Cultural Council grant. Taught incarcerated men in the PEN New England program. Co-founded and taught a weekly poetry course in the Concord Massachusetts Correctional Institution.
Since completing her MFA in Creative Writing at Lesley University, her poetry has appeared in literary journals such as The Massachusetts Review, Connotation Press and Feminist Studies. She has completed residencies at Ragdale, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Hedgebrook.
Between 2000 and 2006 Athena Edmonds founded and managed Zoe Capital, a fund whose principal investment focus was seed stage software start-ups. Before that, she founded and served as Managing and General Partner of Fayerweather, LP, and venture partner at First Light Capital, and Walnut Venture Associates.
Apart from her MFA, Athena Edmonds holds a BS degree from MIT in Materials Science and Engineering, a BS from the Sloan School of Management, and a Certificate of Post-Graduate studies in Materials Science from the University of Cambridge in England.
Born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece, she is married, has four children, and lives in the Boston area.
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