Web designer for the ABCPFV website, Meagan Shirlen, is a local freelance photographer and returning student of Multimedia Arts and Sciences at UNC Asheville. Since returning to school for a career change from the biological sciences, she has interned with Lark Books and WNC Magazine, and become a photographic contributer with WNC Magazine.

Passionate about the importance of non-profit social services, Meagan's former two-year experience volunteering as a crisis counselor with the Orange County Rape Crisis center in Chapel Hill, NC led her to ultimately choose the Asheville-Buncombe Coalition for the Prevention of Family Violence as a client for a school project.

This project for the fall 2008 Senior Capstone course (MMAS 438), with professor Curt Cloninger, required completion of a design job for a local business or individual client. In her research on potential clients, Meagan was excited to find the joining of local non-profits and activists across a wide spectrum of fields in the ABCPFV. The multi-faceted coalition has been working together to prevent family violence since 2005. She felt that building a new website for the ABCPFV would be a good way to support the goals of this wonderful organization while completing work for her school project.

Meagan looks forward to finishing her studies at UNC Asheville and returning to the workforce in the summer of 2009.