Assistant Director of Outreach and Sexual Wellness
Pronouns: They/Them
Email: tess.benser@northwestern.edu
Phone: 847.491.4618
Strengths: Context | Relator | Ideation | Empathy | Individualization
Tess Benser (they/them/theirs) is the Assistant Director of Outreach and Sexual Wellness with CARE. Tess is a trauma informed well-being, social justice, and sexuality educator. Tess has a Master of Arts degree in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where their research focused on portrayals of sexual and relationship violence in media targeted toward teens and young adults, and on the performance of masculinity in popular music and fiction.
Tess has fifteen years of experience providing education on sexual wellness and gender based violence beginning as an undergraduate peer educator with PAVE (Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment) at UW-Madison. Prior to coming to Northwestern, Tess worked as a Trauma Informed Training Program Manager in Philadelphia where they managed a team that trained social service and medical professionals on topics of trauma, identity, and interpersonal violence. They served on the Board of Directors for Your Empowered Sexuality as Social Media Chair, where they led a team creating anti-oppressive, trauma responsive, and pleasure focus sex education outreach content. From 2019 to 2023, Tess worked at West Chester University as the Assistant Director of Outreach and Engagement for the Center for Women & Gender Equity, where they chaired the Annual Gender Justice Conference for three years and worked to expand sexual health education on campus.
Tess is originally from Wisconsin, and yes, they love cheese. In their spare time, Tess enjoys trivia, singing, painting, writing fiction, and hanging out with their nibling.