DATE: Thursday, April 9th, 2026
TIME: 8:00 PM
LOCATION: Zoom (Registration Link Below)

REGISTER HERE

For LGBTQ+ professionals, the current political climate has made something that was never simple feel even more fraught. This panel gathers alumni navigating that reality as employees, managers, lawyers, advocates, and human beings to share their experiences and insights. Topics will span workplace rights and legal protections, the shifting terrain of DEI, and the quieter question of how to keep going with integrity and purpose when the ground keeps moving. This is a space for honest conversation among people who get it.

We want to hear from you before we even begin.

If you have a question you’d like the panel to address — about your rights, your workplace, or simply how others are coping — submit it in advance and we’ll do our best to weave it into the conversation. And if you have an experience of your own you’d like to share with the group, we welcome that too. Your voice doesn’t have to wait for the event to matter here.

Please note that all panelists are speaking from their own personal and professional experience. The views expressed by panelists are their own and do not represent those of their employers, nor of Cornell University.

Panelist Bios:
Heather Lovecloud (she/they) is an Executive MS candidate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and currently serves as a Talent & Culture Program Manager at Samsung Electronics America, focused on ERGs, engagement, and inclusive workplace systems. As a queer HR practitioner, they navigate the tension between shifting legal protections, organizational risk, and the need for authentic employee support. They bring a systems lens to advancing equity—turning employee voice and policy into sustainable, business-aligned change.

Malikah Fulton is a healthcare and compliance attorney whose work sits at the intersection of law, identity, and institutional accountability. A Brooklyn-based Philadelphian by way of Cornell, she brings to this conversation a practitioner’s understanding of how legal frameworks shape — and sometimes fail — the people they’re meant to protect. Her work with LGBT Bar NY and the Metropolitan Black Bar Association reflects a longstanding commitment to strengthening the systems that support LGBTQ+ and Black legal professionals from the inside out. For her, the law is not just a set of rules to navigate but a structure worth fighting to improve — especially when the terrain keeps shifting.

Brandon Jernigan is an Executive Vice President at a financial services firm who has built a career at the intersection of leadership and identity, where the two have never been fully separable. He comes to this conversation with a deep belief in the dignity of career advancement, that LGBTQ+ professionals deserve the full opportunity to grow, lead, and be seen doing so. For him, visibility in senior leadership is one of the most concrete things an organization can offer the people coming up behind them.