Peter has been the executive director of Louisiana Progress since 2021, and has spent nearly a decade working in Louisiana politics and organizing. Over that time, he has served as a campaign manager, lobbyist, community organizer, and communications consultant. 

Since joining Louisiana Progress, Peter has led our work to pass numerous state and local laws, establish and grow our College Fellows program, and build and deepen partnerships across the advocacy and political landscape, including with the Louisiana AFL-CIO and its affiliates. Before joining our team, he worked for the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, Step Up Louisiana, and the Unanimous Jury Coalition.

Peter lives in New Orleans and enjoys spending his free time with his wife, Veronique, their daughter, Eliza, and their dog, Fiona.

Merrilee Montgomery first joined Louisiana Progress as a College Fellow in 2021 after she was inspired by the efforts and accomplishments of the advocacy community. She joined the Louisiana Progress staff in 2024 after graduating from Tulane University with a degree in international relations, homeland security, and computer science. 

Merrilee also has three years of experience in emergency recovery and response in both administrative and operational settings, has worked in research at the intersection of computer science and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and served as an intern with the Orleans Public Defenders.

With a passion for democratizing data by improving data literacy and access, Merrilee believes that companies and organizations of all sizes and missions should have access to high-quality analysis. It’s a passion she brings to her role as the Policy & Data Analyst for Louisiana Progress, where she strives to provide data-driven solutions for real problems facing Louisiana’s residents.

Merrilee spends her free time playing piano, working out, and volunteering as an EMT in New Orleans, where she currently lives.

LaToya Johnson, LMSW, is deeply committed to weaving together her diverse skills to drive meaningful change in Louisiana. Her journey has taken her through roles as a nonprofit executive director, human resources and administrative agent, anti-racist labor organizer, and clinical and forensic social worker. This unique blend of experiences fuels her work as a strategist and movement builder, dedicated to uplifting marginalized communities through strategic organizing, policy advocacy, and social justice initiatives. 

With more than 13 years of dedicated service in the nonprofit and public sectors, Toya brings to bear a wealth of expertise in management, fundraising, community and labor organizing, program development, political education, and local and state policy development and advocacy.

Dr. Angelle Bradford Rosenberg (Gelle) was born and raised in Baton Rouge. Upon returning to Louisiana after earning her bachelor’s degree at the Ohio State University, she settled back into Southeast Louisiana living. A volunteer at heart, Angelle is a formally trained cardiovascular physiologist and medical scientist with a PhD from the Tulane School of Medicine. 

Named Emerging Changemaker of the Year in 2022 for the Sierra Club, Angelle has served on the Sierra Club Delta Chapter's executive committee for more than eight years, and has led the Transit Equity Team through legislative sessions, campaign development, and the first Louisiana Transit and Planning Summit. She also helped revive the chapter’s political committee, supported volunteers, and built out their youth organizing initiative by advising HBCU students through their education, community care, and environmental awakening with the Sierra Student Coalition at Southern University. 

Along with her work with the Sierra Club, Angelle has also been a lead organizer with the Louisiana chapter of Moms Demand Action, volunteered and lobbied with Louisiana Progress, and played a lead role in partnerships with community groups and universities.

Taryn Branson, a native of West Monroe, Louisiana, is a 2003 graduate of West Monroe High School. In 2007, she graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Spanish from Louisiana Tech University. In 2011, she then obtained a Master's degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. While pursuing her Master's degree, she also obtained her teaching certification through the Louisiana Teaching Fellows, becoming a certified teacher in English/Language Arts. 

Desiring to cultivate her passions of both law and education, in 2014, Taryn then earned her Juris Doctor degree from the Southern University Law Center. Upon graduation, Taryn started her own law firm, The Law Offices of Taryn C. Branson & Associates, LLC. Her practice areas include the fields of civil rights, personal injury, criminal defense, and family law.

In 2017, Taryn joined Governor John Bel Edwards’ administration as a program consultant in the Governor’s Office on Women’s Policy. In this role, she reviewed legislation and policies and their effects on Louisiana’s women. Taryn currently maintains her own private practice as an attorney specializing in family law and personal injury matters.

Taryn currently resides in Baton Rouge where she is active in her community and volunteers with several organizations. She is the founder of The Queen Esther Academy and a member of the Louisiana State Bar Association, the Louis A. Martinet Legal Society, the Baton Rouge Chapter of NAACP, Louisiana Progress, 10,000 Women of Louisiana, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

If you can’t find Taryn in Baton Rouge, you may find her in the friendly skies as her hobbies include traveling and meeting people of different cultures and backgrounds. She also enjoys volunteering in her community, reading, attending sporting events, and horseback riding.

David Brown is a biologist and attorney, originally from New Orleans. While pursuing his master’s degree in botany and environmental studies at Louisiana State University, he helped launch the LSU chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) and the Cannabis Action Network of Louisiana (CANoLA). David went on to complete his JD at Vermont Law School. While enrolled there, he spent a semester in practice as a legal intern doing lobbying and legal work on Capitol Hill for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP). 

In 2004, David returned to Louisiana to begin working at a small firm in Baton Rouge handling plaintiff-side environmental and criminal defense cases. From October, 2009 until May, 2013, David served as an assistant prosecutor for the City of Baton Rouge and maintained his own private practice.  

David has been a lobbyist at the Louisiana state Capitol for more than 20 years and is a co-founder of WHYR, Baton Rouge Community Radio. At the Beginning of 2013, David shifted part of his practice to Washington state where he lives part time and advocates for that state's legal adult-use Cannabis program. He currently runs a law practice in both states, heads or helps with a handful of medical Cannabis companies, and lobbies for wider progressive policy reform.

Lady Carlson has been organizing with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) since 1991. She began her organizing career as a leader in the Triangle Interfaith Project in Southeast Texas when it was in the Sponsoring Committee stage. A native of Port Arthur, TX, her first organizing assignment was with The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) in Houston. She went on to serve as a Senior Organizer with Dallas Area Faith (DAI) and the Lead Organizer with Allied Communities of Tarrant (ACT) in Fort Worth.

Lady grew up on the segregated West Side of Port Arthur in the early 1950s.  She is a widow and has three children and seven grandchildren. Her paternal grandfather grew up in the Jim Crow area of Shreveport, known as “bloody Caddo” because of the number of Blacks lynched during that period. She does this work partly out of her passion to leave a legacy to her children of a more just society than the one she, her grandparents, and parents were born into.  

Part of IAF’s goal is to identify and train local talent in communities and Ms. Carlson is a direct product of that effort. Over the past 30 years, first as a leader and then as an organizer, she has worked in various areas of Texas and Louisiana to create broad-based institutions where families learn to act together on their own behalf across race, denomination, socio-economic status, gender, geography, and all the lines that separate communities.  

In 2004 Ms. Carlson moved to Alexandria, LA, as the Senior Organizer for Northern and Central Louisiana Interfaith. She is now the Lead Organizer of the Westside Sponsoring Committee, which covers an area that includes Iberville, West Baton Rouge, and Pointe Coupee Parishes. 

Dr. Melissa Flournoy is a former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, founded the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations (LANO), and the Louisiana Budget Project. She was also the executive director of the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute and the Louisiana State Director of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. 

Dr. Flournoy has served on numerous boards and commissions, and is a lifelong advocate for women and children. She is currently an adjunct professor in political science at LSU.

Sherry S. Guarisco is a recognized child advocate, having most recently managed the Louisiana Partnership for Children and Families, a statewide advocacy organization, where she led the development of the Platform for Children, a comprehensive guide to the needs of Louisiana’s children. 

In 2015, Guarisco served on Governor John Bel Edwards’ Transition Team for Children and Families, and in 2017 served on East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome’s Transition Team for Human Services, focusing on children’s issues. From 2006-2010, Sherry served as the first Director of the Division of Child Care & Early Childhood Education, Department of Social Services (now DCFS).

Sherry also served as CEO of Prevent Child Abuse Louisiana and Louisiana CASA Association, served on the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet Advisory Board, is a member of the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge, and also serves on the boards of Louisiana CASA Association, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, and the Federation of Greater Baton Rouge Civic Associations. She lives in Baton Rouge with her husband, former state Senator Tony Guarisco.

Darrell Hunt is a political consultant who has been engaged with public policies and politics since 1974. In 2005, he founded Louisiana Progress with the support and collaboration of five strong, dynamic women—Mara Cohen, Maxine Cormier, Nancy Craig, Marry Bennett-Lindsey, and Mary Lee Orr.

Alice graduated from Louisiana State University in 2014 with a degree in political science and a minor in economics. She became interested in advocacy after spending the summer of 2013 interning on Capitol Hill. Upon graduation, Alice returned to her native Mobile, Alabama, and worked as an intern at both a local non-profit and a political consulting firm, before becoming a public relations coordinator at Xante Corporation, an international manufacturer of digital print solutions. Through these experiences, she gained invaluable experience in fundraising, event planning, and copywriting. 

In 2016, Alice returned to the Baton Rouge area to work in the Apprenticeship Division at the Louisiana Workforce Commission. In this role, she was responsible for supporting the growth of the state’s registered apprenticeship program through grant writing, technical assistance, and community outreach. In 2018, she joined the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) as the Louisiana Grassroots Manager, where she was tasked with developing and implementing a volunteer leadership program and grassroots campaigns for the organization’s local, state, and federal legislative priorities. She was promoted to Louisiana Government Relations Director in 2022. Since then, she has been responsible for lobbying local and state elected officials on issues related to tobacco control, cancer research and prevention, and access to health care.

Amy Mercieca, a native of Shreveport, Louisiana, earned her MPH in health policy from Tulane University in 2017 in order to pursue her desire to focus on issues that ultimately improve population health and health equity across Louisiana. Since then, she has worked as Operation Restoration's Policy Director, advocating for criminal justice reform, and as a legislative aide for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, advocating for women's health in Louisiana.  Amy is currently pursuing a doctorate in Health Policy at Tulane’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.      

Prior to pursuing her MPH, Amy had a 20-year career in IT and professional services in the US, UK, and Australia. She has extensive experience in driving change through IT delivery by excelling in strong relationship management and an attention to technical details. She also holds an MBA from the University of Edinburgh.

After a 32-year career in corporate America in managerial and executive positions with Cities Services Company, Occidental Petroleum, Amoco Business Services, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and IBM Business Consulting Services, Ambrose Sims retired to Louisiana in 2005. 

In 2007, Ambrose was named to the position of Parish Manager for West Feliciana Parish. Serving as the first Black parish manager, he was responsible for managing all aspects of parish government, including budget preparations, financial analysis, operational infrastructure, and policy and procedures. Ambrose left that position after four years and then co-founded the West Feliciana Democratic Party in 2013, where he served as the group’s first Chairperson. In 2015, he was one of the principles in establishing the West Feliciana Parish NAACP, where he currently holds the position of president.

He and his wife have been married for 49 years, and they are the proud parents of two daughters, Ashli, who resides in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Amber, who lives in New Orleans.

Alfreda Tillman Bester is the principal attorney with Tillman Bester & Associates, LLC, a law firm located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Ms. Bester previously served as Special Counsel for Human Services at Southern University Law Center’s Vulnerable Communities & Peoples Initiative, and as an Adjunct Law Professor. 

Alfreda is also the Host of “Perspective,” a weekly public interest radio show that airs every Tuesday and Saturday at 5:30 p.m. on WTQT 106.1 fm (www.wtqt.org) in Baton Rouge. She is a former Louisiana Secretary of Labor and is the former General Counsel for the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP. 

Ms. Bester is a cum laude graduate of Southern University Law Center, holds a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from McNeese State University, and a B.S. in Human Resources from the University of Southern Mississippi.