Alyssa Best helps people identify their dream careers and provides them with the tools to achieve their goals.

As a career coach, trainer, and speaker, she offers guidance and skills on topics related to career and professional development to build leadership for social change. She has mentored and worked with emerging leaders at Wider Opportunities for Women, the Center for Progressive Leadership, and the Institute for Women’s Leadership at Rutgers University. She also conducts outreach and manages training programs for The OpEd Project.

She has trained hundreds of people on career and leadership issues through national conferences, community-based programs, professional development workshops, and the university classroom. She previously served as Chair of the Professional Development Series for WIN (Women’s Information Network). She has been nominated four years in a row (2008-2011) for WIN’s Young Women of Achievement Awards. She holds a Master of Arts in Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Mary Washington College.

Her writing has appeared in scholarly and mainstream media, including The Huffington Post. She contributes to a group blog on career issues: LYJ: Love Your Job, Love Your Life.

She and her husband, Joshua Harkavy, owner of Red Onion Records & Books, live in historic Hyattsville, MD with their beloved cat, Bumpers. In her free time, Alyssa enjoys yoga, trying her hand at vegetable gardening, and watching re-runs of “Frasier.”