Alison Trope was born in 1968 in Los Angeles, California. She received her Ph.D. in Critical Studies from USC in 1999. Currently, Trope is a clinical professor at USC and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at the School for Communication. Trope's courses focus on a range of topics including gender, popular culture, fashion, entertainment, and identity. She is also the director of the Critical Media Project, a free media literacy web resource focused on representations of race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, and more. Trope is the author of "Stardust Monuments: The Saving and Selling of Hollywood," published in 2012. In 2016, Trope was diagnosed with stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer. However, this could not stop Trope from her work, as she continued to teach her full class load while receiving chemotherapy treatments, ultimately conquering her disease 2 years later. Today, Trope, through her intellect, leadership, and passion, inspires her students to question the status-quo and create meaningful change. She has been the fuel, which has not only powered the engine of this project, but has fueled 18 students to come together, to speak up, and to call out systemic inequalities.