Nadia Telsey
Nadia Telsey pioneered the field of verbal and emotional (as opposed to solely physical) self-defense, beginning with the cofounding of the feminist Center for Anti-Violence Education in Brooklyn in 1970. She has taught self-defense to thousands of students in the U.S. and abroad, including for seventeen years at the University of Oregon, where her class has been the subject of research on the efficacy of the approach. Her work against gender-based violence included many years serving on the Oregon Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force and has influenced a generation of self-defense instructors both in the U.S. and around the world.
