Cecilia Lero has been a trainer with the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) since 2008. She has over a decade of experience as a civil society activist and congressional staffer in the Philippines where she focused on issues related to human rights, economic justice, and democratic reform. She has conducted dozens of trainings in community organizing and community-building activities and has helped many local leaders and key decision makers bring local democracy together, facilitated coalitions, and assisted in campaign development. In 2021, she was an Adjunct Instructor at New York University for the course “Waging Non-violent conflict: Organizing for Social change”. She recently co-edited the book, The Radical Right: Politics of Hate on the Margins of Global Capital (Brill). Cecilia completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of São Paulo (Brazil) and holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame (USA) and a B.A. in Politics from New York University (USA).