Margot Abels is a Professor at Northeastern University with a joint appointment between the Human Services and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies programs. Raised in Livingston, NJ, she is the daughter of secular, left-leaning Jewish New Yorkers who came of age during the Great Depression. Her father was a clothing manufacturer in New York’s Garment District, and her mother was an independent artist who had earned a Fulbright. Raised with a social conscience and sense of independence, Abels earned degrees from Johns Hopkins University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Northeastern University. After college, she moved to New York City, where she worked in AIDS education, at an abortion clinic, as an educator for the Department of Public Health. She and her partner, Bridget, moved to Lynn in 1999, and they were the first same-sex residents of Lynn to obtain a marriage license in 2004. She served on NAGLY’s original Board of Directors and remains a community activist.