Lauren Dunne Astley's Parents to Testify on Beacon Hill

Malcolm Astley and Mary Dunne will appear before legislators on Beacon Hill Tuesday as part of their continuing efforts to prevent teen dating violence, which claimed their daughter's life in 2011.

Astley and Dunne are the parents of Lauren Dunne Astley, a Wayland teenager murdered by her ex-boyfriend in the summer of 2011. Nathaniel Fujita is currently serving a sentence of life without parole for her murder.

According to a press release, Astley and Dunne will be testifying during a hearing on three health/sex education bills "that aim to mandate sexual education and violence prevention programs in Massachusetts’s schools."

Following their daughter's death, Astley and Dunne established the Lauren Dunne Astley Memorial Fund, which seeks, among other things, "to promote dynamic educational programs, particularly those in the areas of the development of healthy teen relationships."

The 10 a.m. legislative hearing is sponsored by the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Education, which is chaired by Sen. Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz and Rep. Alice Peisch (D-Wellesley). Peisch represents precinct 4 of Wayland.

According to the press release, additional individuals expected to testify in the hearing include:

Dr. Elizabeth K. Englander, Ph.D. - Professor of Psychology and Founder and Director of the Aggression Reduction Center at Bridgewater State University
 
Dr. Emily F. Rothman, Ph.D.  Associate Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health; with a secondary appointment in the Department of Pediatrics, Boston University School of Medicine
 
Dan Lebowitz - Executive Director of the Center for Sports and Society, Northeastern University and Leader in the Mentors in Violence Prevention program
 
Helen Riess, M.D. - Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Empathy and Relational Science Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Co-founder of Empathetics