Adenrele Awotona

Adenrele Awotona, Ph.D.

Professor & Founding Director

Tel.: +1 617 287-7116

Email: adenrele.awotona@umb.edu

Adenrele Awotona is the founder and director of the Center. He is a former Dean of the College of Public and Community Service at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Before then, he was at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he served as the Dean of the School of Architecture.

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Grace Oyebola Adetula

Grace Oyebola Adetula, an affiliate of the Center is an International Expert on Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Youth and Children Matters. She was formerly at the Commission of African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where she was responsible for the establishment of the Drug Control and Crime Prevention Unit. She also led efforts to mainstream components of drug control and crime prevention into the various programs and activities carried out by the AU. These included, but were not limited to, resolution and management of conflict, trafficking in persons and child labor, agriculture, women’s issues, children and youth matters, money laundering, terrorism, corruption, population, health, labor and social affairs, and doping in sports. Similarly, she was responsible for formulating policies, monitoring and coordinating drug control and crime prevention programs and activities among the 53-member States of the AU. In the course of her duties, she organized, supervised or attended no less than seventy-five seminars, workshops, symposia and conferences across the globe. For example, she planned the First AU Ministerial Conference on Drug Control in Africa, which was held in Yamoussoukro, Cote D’Ivoire in May 2002; and the subsequent one that was held in Mauritius, from December 14 to 18, 2004.

Some of her recent publications/presentations include: “Preventive Drug Education Curricula in Nigerian Schools, and Life Skills Education in Schools,” (World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, 1992); “Women Trafficking, Drugs and Crime; Challenges within the context of War and Conflict” (the Third meeting of African Union Women 's Committee, Tunis - Tunisia, 24 - 25 April 2008); “The Impact of Alcohol and Drugs on The Spread of HIV/AIDS among Ex-Child Soldiers” (Workshop on HIV/AIDS and its impact on Ex-Child Soldiers/Captives in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, in Kampala, Uganda from February, 21-22 2008); “Drugs in Conflicts: The Challenges of Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) of Female Ex-child Soldiers in Africa” (Workshop on the Rehabilitation and Reintegration of female Ex-Child Soldiers/Captives in the Great Lakes Region, Kigali, Rwanda from December 6-7, 2007); and, “Women Trafficking, Drugs and Crime: Challenges for the African Parliament” (the Conference on the Popularization and Implementation of the Solemn Declaration on Gender and Equality in Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from October 10-12, 2007.)

Grace Adetula now works as a consultant on Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Children and Youth Issues with the Freedom Foundation, an NGO that focuses on Rehabilitation, Education and Empowerment of the vulnerable groups of the society.

Ghina Al-Sewaidi was originally from Iraq, born in Baghdad. She left Iraq in the 1970’s for schooling in Europe. She studied in Switzerland and the United Kingdom. She is a holder of two Bachelors of Law degrees from both the U.K. & Canada (LL.B.) and a Master in Petroleum Law (L.L.M.) from the University of Dundee in Scotland. Her educational background includes Administrative and Immigration Law. She is presently practising in Toronto (Ghina Al-Sewaidi Professional Corporation) concentrating on refugee law and protection. She is fluent in English, French and Arabic. She was Counsel for precedent setting case in the Federal Court of Appeal in Canada on the issue of “Statelessness” and the availability of protection (See: Thabet v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (C.A.), [1998] 4 F.C.21). She was educated at the following institutions: York University (Certificate in Dispute Resolution, September 2003-April 2004); Bar Admission Course (London, Ontario, called to the Bar in 1993); University of Ottawa (LL.B. Graduate, 1991); Dundee University, Scotland, UK (1988, Petroleum and Environmental Law LL.M; Diploma,1986, International and Comparative Law); University of Buckingham, England (LL.B., 1985); University of Lille, France (Diploma, 1982, French Civil Law); Concord College, Shrewsbury England (A-Levels, 1982); and Ecole Brillantmont, Lausanne, Switzerland (O-Levels).

Ghina’s professional memberships include the following: Past Chair for the CBAO Young Lawyers Committee (Southwest Region); Past Council Member of the Canadian Bar Association, Ontario; Vice President of the Iraqi Canadian Society of Ontario (2005); President of the Iraqi Canadian Society of Ontario (2006); President of the Iraqi Canadian Society of Ontario (2007); Present Secretary of the Canadian Arab Network (CAN); Member, AJEFO (Association Des Juristes D’Expresssion Francaise De L’Ontario); and, Member: Criminal Lawyers Association. She is a Guest lecturer at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario and, the University of Montpelier, France. She is involved in projects such as “Breaking the Cycle of Violence” dealing with problems of abuse against women in the community; “Children and the Rainbow” in cooperation with the Children Aid Society helping children arriving from war-torn countries; and, “Access, Equity and Human Rights” (AEHR) project dealing with newcomers to Canada.

Beryl Cheal's academic work includes a BA, Education, University of La Verne; MA, Early Childhood Education, University of Washington; MS, International Studies, University of Washington; International Trauma Studies Program, Columbia University. She is an educational administrator, consultant and trainer. As a former teacher she has taught Head Start, elementary school, preschool and child care staffs as well as college and university students.

Her disaster response has included: working with children after 9/11, New York City; working with Kosovo refugees, Toronto, Canada; directing a preschool system in refugee camps for the United Nations; developing emergency management plans for children’s programs, and; training preschool and public school staffs in working with children after disaster. She served in the Peace Corps in the Republic of Moldova.

Ms. Cheal has published the book Developing an Emergency Management Plan: A Workbook for Programs Working with Young Children and a series of booklets on What You Can Do With Your Children after Disasters. She also authored the DVD/Video "Helping Children Cope with Frightening Events: What You Can Do!," a staff development film, and has developed a curriculum, "Developing Programs for Young Children that Help in Healing After Disaster."

Currently she makes her home in Seattle, Washington.

Justin Dargin, an affiliate, is a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs- Harvard University, where he researches energy policy in the Persian Gulf region. Specializing in international law and energy law, he is a prolific author on energy affairs. He is a co-founder and director of the non-profit International Institute of Ideas (Interintel) which seeks to address the concerns of global energy poverty and sustainable development by providing developing communities access to inexpensive energy supplies. During his graduate legal studies, Justin interned in the legal department at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, where he advised senior staff on the implications of European Union and American law in multilateral relations. Justin was also a researcher at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where he studied Middle East gas issues, and based on his research authored, "The Dolphin Project: The Development of a Gulf Gas Initiative" (OIES Press 2008)

Justin is trilingual, fluent in Spanish, English and Arabic, and has been active in a multitude of energy issues involving Latin America and the Middle East.

Cecile de Milliano is currently a Marie Curie PhD research fellow in the Humanitarian Action and Conflict Studies Network (HUMCRICON) at the University College Dublin (UCD, Ireland). She holds a degree in Master of Science and a degree in Master of Arts in Humanitarian Action. Her master in science was completed in 2005 at the faculty of ‘Social and Behavioural Science’ at the University of Groningen. She participated in a research project for the Dutch Ministry of Education at the University of Helsinki (Finland), and therefore specialises in gender equality.

Ms. De Milliano’s strong interest in theories and concepts on natural and man-made disasters, was the reason for choosing for the masters in ‘Humanitarian Action’ (NOHA) in 2005. This international master’s degree was pursued at three different universities in the Netherlands, Ireland and South Africa and allowed her to focus on policies of humanitarian action and disaster risk reduction.

She gained practical experience through an internship at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Zimbabwe in 2006 and through a position as project manager at Streetwise Direct Dialogue - a fundraising organisation for NGOs in the Netherlands in 2007. Thereafter, over a 7 month period Ms. de Milliano performed an evaluation for a network of eleven organisations, on the definition and affects of child participation in an informal urban settlement in Ecuador.

Finally in March 2008 Cecile de Milliano started her PhD research which aims to get a deeper understanding of the perceptions of children on their vulnerabilities and coping strategies in natural disasters.

John Ebohon, an affiliate, is a Reader in Energy, Sustainability and Development at De Montfort University in Leicester, United Kingdom.  He is also the Director of the Developing World Built Environment Research Unit at De Montfort. His teaching and research interests are in the fields of energy, sustainability and development, built environment economics and finance institutions, and the process of economic development, technology transfer, and construction multinationals.

Dr. Ebohon has published widely and contributed papers to international conferences and seminars in these fields, especially with regards to sub-Saharan Africa. He is currently supervising a number of higher degree candidates on different built environment and sustainability related topics.

Nichole Fiore was on a Fulbright Fellowship during the 2006-07 academic year in Budapest, Hungary. While in Budapest, Nichole researched the social and economic mobility of the Roma population in Hungary by looking at governmental welfare programs offered by the Hungarian government and the European Union. During the Fulbright Fellowship, Nichole was affiliated with the Hungarian-American Fulbright Commission, Central European University, and the European Roma Rights Center. In 2006, Nichole received her MA in Economics with a focus in Economic Development from Fordham University in New York. She also holds a BA in Sociology and Economics from Fordham University.

Currently, Nichole is an analyst at Abt Associates working on domestic housing and homeless issues.

Phillip Granberry

Phillip Granberry, Ph.D., Public Policy University of Massachusetts Boston
Adjunct Faculty.

Phillip Granberry is a social demographer who specializes in unauthorized immigration. He worked with various community-based organizations assisting recently arrived U.S. immigrants before earning a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2007. His dissertation, “The Formation and Effects of Social Capital among Mexican Immigrants” examined how unauthorized Mexican immigrants accumulate social capital in the United States, and how it helps explain both their economic and health outcomes.

Professor Granberry currently is working on research with newly collected data from Brazilian and Dominican immigrants in the Metropolitan Boston area. He has published several articles on demographic and economic trends among Latinos in New England and the impact of welfare and immigration policy reform on Latinos in Massachusetts. He currently teaches economics, demography, and community development courses at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Bridgewater State College.

Professor Granberry’s interest in community development springs from his previous academic experience studying theology. He holds a M.A. in Theology and a M.T.S. in Pastoral Studies from St. Meinrad School of Theology.

Shelby Grossman is a graduate of Emory University. She works with the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation in New York. Shelby spent a year working in Liberia with Global Rights, an organization that supports local human rights groups. She has reported on the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor from The Hague and on Liberia diaspora communities in the US. Her work has been published in Minnesota Christian Chronicle, Afridigital.net, and elsewhere.

She blogs about Liberian politics from www.shelbygrossman.com and can be contacted at shelbygrossman@gmail.com.

Chester Hartman, an urban planner and author, is Director of Research for the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (where he was founding Executive Director from 1989-2003) in Washington, DC, and Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Sociology, George Washington University. Prior to taking his present position, he was a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, and of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. He holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from Harvard and served on the faculty there as well as at Yale, the University of North Carolina, Cornell, the University of California-Berkeley, American University, and Columbia University.

His books include: Mandate for Change: Policies and Leadership for 2009 and Beyond (Lexington Books, forthcoming Jan. 2009); Housing Urban America (Aldine, 1973; rev. ed 1980); The World of the Urban Working Class (Harvard Univ. Press, 1973); Yerba Buena: Land Grab and Community Resistance in San Francisco (Glide, 1974); Housing and Social Policy (Prentice-Hall, 1975); Displacement: How to Fight It (National Housing Law Project, 1982); America’s Housing Crisis: What Is To Be Done? (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983); The Transformation of San Francisco (Rowman and Allanheld, 1984); Critical Perspectives on Housing (Temple University Press, 1986); Winning America: Ideas & Leadership for the 1990s (South End Press, 1988); Housing Issues of the 1990s (Praeger, 1989); Paradigms Lost: The Post Cold War Era (Pluto, 1992); Double Exposure: Poverty and Race in America (M.E. Sharpe, 1997); Challenges to Equality: Poverty & Race in America (M.E. Sharpe, 2001); Between Eminence & Notoriety: Four Decades of Radical Urban Planning (Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy Research, 2002); City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco (University of California Press, 2002); A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda (Temple University Press, 2006); Poverty & Race in America: The Emerging Agendas (Lexington Books, 2006); There Is No Such Thing As a Natural Disaster: Race, Class and Hurricane Katrina (Routledge, 2006); and, Pathways to Hope: An Agenda for Justice, Peace and the Environment (in preparation, Lexington Books, 2008).

His articles have appeared in The Nation, Social Work, Virginia Law Review, Journal of the American Planning Association, University of Wisconsin Law Review, Progressive Architecture, The Utne Reader, The Village Voice, Encyclopedia of Social Work, Social Policy, Society, Dissent, Mother Jones, Planning, Yale Law Journal, Journal of Housing, The Progressive, Land Economics, The Gerontologist, Shelterforce, Clearinghouse Review, The Urban Lawyer, Journal of Urban Affairs, Public Welfare, Vanderbilt Law Review, Social Work, Journal of Public Health Policy, Seton Hall Law Review, Housing Policy Debate, University of North Carolina Law Review, The Encyclopedia of Housing, Civil Rights Journal, The Journal of Negro Education, Souls, and numerous other academic and popular journals and newspapers.

Dr. Hartman is the founder and former Chair of the Planners Network, a national organization of progressive urban and rural planners and community organizers.

He serves/has served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Negro Education, Journal of Urban Affairs, Housing Policy Debate, Urban Affairs Quarterly, Housing Studies, and is a former Board member/Secretary of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

He has been a consultant to numerous public and private agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Stanford Research Institute, Arthur D. Little, California Rural Legal Assistance, the Urban Coalition, the California Department of Housing and Community Development, and the Legal Aid Society of New York.

Mahmood Hosseini was born in 22 December 1960 in Kashan, Iran. He started his academic studies in 1978 in the Civil Engineering Department of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Tehran, where he got his M.Sc. Degree in Structural Engineering in 1986. He continued his studies and got his Ph.D. degree from the Islamic Azad University (IAU) in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering in 1991, as the first Ph.D. graduate from an Iranian university in the ‘engineering field’. He joined academia in the same year and started teaching and researching in the field of Earthquake Engineering and related areas, including Lifeline Earthquake Engineering and Earthquake Risk Management. He was at Cornell University, USA, from June 2001 to September 2002 where he spent his sabbatical leave and taught two courses..

He has authored or co-authored more than 130 conference papers, around 30 journal papers, about 10 research reports, and 5 books, monographs, and conference proceedings. He is presently an associate professor in the International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES), and a Board Member for several scientific journals, including the International Journal, Seismology and Earthquake Engineering (JSEE), published quarterly by the IIEES. He is also a member of several Engineering Associations and Societies to which he has been serving as the vice-director, treasurer, or board member.

In addition to his academic assignments, he has been engaged in ‘engineering work’ since 1984, as either design engineer or technical inspector, and has the experience of working as the Project Manager in one of the regional programs of the UNDP in Central and South East Asia with regards to Disaster Risk Reduction.

Eileen McHenry is the Executive Director of Romanian Children’s Relief. During her 12 year tenure, RCR has been awarded two USAID grants and was selected as the “Best Practice in Foster Care” at the Romanian National Child Welfare Conference in 2003.

Through strategic partnerships and well-developed volunteer programs, RCR leverages its $250,000 annual income to support and mentor 22 Romanian staff and 400 volunteers serving more than 500 children in foster care, institutions, and those with special needs.

Ms. McHenry joined RCR as a volunteer after adopting her oldest daughter from Romania in 1990. She took over as part time paid Executive Director in 1998. She has also worked in Special Education since 1993, first as a trained Parent Advocate for Special Education in New York State. Later she served as Chairman of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council for the Northborough-Southborough (MA) school district. For three years she coordinated the “Understanding our Differences,” special education interactive training and awareness program for 4th grade students, teachers and parents.

Jane O’Brien Friederichs is Dean of Social Sciences and Professional Studies at MassBay Community College in Wellesley Massachusetts. She also currently serves as Regional Representative for the Northeastern region of OMEP. Her doctorate, in Comparative and International Education from the University of London, and was a study of the impact on Hong Kong school children of the socio-political changes involved in decolonization with out independence.

Her career as an educator has been in four institutions of higher education in four different societies. Each of these experiences contributed, from different cultural perspectives, to an appreciation for the essential relationship between the nature of the community and the quality of life of its members.

Originally from Boston MA, her teaching career began at the Chinese Universe of Hong Kong where she served as faculty in the Department Education. Six years in Hong Kong was an immersion in a complex and effective community – a community sustained by shared values and a willingness to cooperate to overcome obstacles. Following four years in Germany as faculty in Educational Psychology with the University of Maryland, she served as faculty and later administrator at Richmond International University in London. Richmond is an institution which is truly multicultural and international. Students from over 100 countries, with no national group in the majority, led to reflections on methods of building community and of sustaining the valuable elements the community. Dr. O’Brien Friederichs has presented at numerous international conferences and published on the intercultural and multicultural classroom, technology and culture, and well as the impact of socio-political change on schools.

Katherashala Ravi is the Dean of Academics at the JSPM’s Babasaheb Naik College of Engineering, Pusad, Dist.Yavatmal, which is affiliated with the Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University, Maharastra, India.

He earned a Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering with a specialization in Structures from Kakatiya Universty, Andhra Pradesh, in 1985; a Master's degree in Housing from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, in 1988; and a Ph.D. from the Department of Architecture and Planning at the University of Roorkee, Uttaranchal state, India, in 2000.

His fields of technical expertise include estimating and costing; building, planning, design and drawing; building construction; transportation engineering; sustainable community-based planning; post-disaster reconstruction; and structural design methods.

In public and community service, Prof. Ravi is the ex-president of the Rotary Club of Pusad and ex-president of the Theosophical Society of India, Pusad Lodge. He has also served as an educator/coordinator and steering committee member of National Seminars for teaching staff and students.

Russell K. Schutt

Russell K. Schutt, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where he has also served as Chair and Graduate Program Director and where he received the 2007 Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Service.

Since 1990, he has also been a Lecturer on Sociology in the Department of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, where he conducts research on mental health services and psychiatric disability. His primary research foci are organizations and work, mental health services, and legal processes; he is also an expert on the application of social science research methods. His research on organizations and work has focused on subjective reactions to work and the organization of work in settings ranging from mental health, public health and public welfare agencies to homeless shelters, vocational rehabilitation programs and the construction trades.

His research in mental health services has examined the effects of the social environment on neurocognition, the housing preferences of homeless mentally ill persons and their correspondence to clinician preferences, and influences on housing loss. He is the author of a leading social science research methods text, Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research, now in its 5th edition, and three coauthored derivative versions for other disciplines. He is also author of Organization in a Changing Environment: The Unionization of Welfare Employees, coeditor of The Organizational Response to Social Problems, and coauthor of Responding to the Homeless: Policy and Practice. In addition, he has authored and coauthored more than 50 journal articles and book chapters on homelessness, mental health, organizations, law, and teaching research methods.

His recent research projects include a National Cancer Institute-funded study of community health workers’ orientations to cancer clinical trials, co-directing a multi-method investigation of case management in the Massachusetts Women’s Health Network program, leading a large expert panel charged with improving that program, and studying long-term effects of housing experiences among persons with chronic mental illness. His recent scholarly articles have focused on the impact of housing, vocational, and service options on the functioning of persons diagnosed as severely mentally ill and on the housing preferences and recommendations of homeless persons and service personnel. He has also studied decision making in juvenile justice and in union admissions, processes of organizational change; media representations of mental illness; and HIV/AIDS prevention.

Russell Schutt completed his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Sociology of Social Control Training Program at Yale University.

Patric R. Spence (Ph.D) is Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University. His research focuses crisis and risk communication, examining audience perceptions of risk and emergency messages produced by emergency management, organizations, government and news agencies. Specifically, looking at how these messages motivate various publics to take action in light of perceived threats during the lifecycle of a crisis. Other research examines how the physical and psychological needs of underserved populations are handled in the context of public health events and disasters; industry response, and the role of new media in disaster preparation, response and recovery. He has written widely on the issues of race and class surrounding Hurricane Katrina and issues of gender and information seeking in disasters.
His research has recently been cited in the National Consensus Statement on Integrating Racially and Ethnically Diverse Communities into Public Health Emergency Preparedness, released by the Office of Minority Health, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He also works closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Recent work has been published in Communication Research Reports, Journal of Applied Communication Research, Journal of Black Studies, the Howard Journal of Communication, Journal of Modern Applied Statistical Methods, the Journal of Emergency Management, Journal of Radio and Audio Media, Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, and Sociological Spectrum. Recent book chapters can be found in Through the Eye of Katrina: Social Justice in the United States (Carolina Academic Press), Minority Resiliency and the Legacy of Disaster (Forthcoming, Edwin Mellen Press) and Interracial Communication: Contexts, Communities, and Choices (Forthcoming, Kendal/Hunt).

He is available for media contact or consulting, and can be reached at patric.spence@wmich.edu

Asgedet Stefanos

Asgedet Stefanos is currently a Director of Community Studies Program (Online BA Degree Completion), and also the Human Services Program at the College of Public and Community Service. Professor Stefanos’ teaching, professional service, and scholarship are in the fields of education and African Studies, including with each a specialized focus on women’s issues.

Professor Stefanos received her Doctorate degree in Educational Planning and Social Policy from Harvard University. She is an Associate Professor in Critical Education and African Studies in the College of Public and Community Service, at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. At UMB, since 1989, she has been teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses, focused on education and development; gender and national politics; race, class, ethnicity and culture. She has developed and taught over 25 courses during her career at UMB. She has played a leading role in developing curricula within CPCS, including the Training and Development Concentration. Since 1993, she has also been affiliated with the Women Studies Department in the College of Liberal Arts, including teaching an online course, Educating Women: Cross Cultural Perspectives. She has also taught at Harvard University, Northeastern University and Smith College. At UMB, she has been honored often by students and the University for her outstanding mentoring and teaching.

Her professional activities include numerous presentations, colloquia, and consultations, nationally and internationally, in her fields of interest. Most recently, she was an invited presenter/participant at the Oxford University Roundtable on Women’s Rights and Freedoms. Dr. Stefanos is the author of articles, journals, and book chapters focused on gender equity and nationalism, women and economic development, and multi-cultural education. Her article Women and Education in Eritrea: A Historical and Contemporary Analysis, which was originally published by Harvard Educational Review in 1996 was subsequently included in a book — International Education in the Millennium: Towards Access, Equity and Quality, eds., Benjamin Piper, Sarah Dryden-Peterson, Yong-Suk Kim, in, Harvard Education Press, 2006. The editors believe that this chapter adds to the book’s mission to provide ‘new contributions’ to ‘enhance ‘the research on international education in developing countries’ and ‘the current literature and policy debates about educational development.’

Contact Information

• E-Mail: asgedet.stefanos@umb.edu

Diana Suskind, Ed.D, is an Associate Professor in Early Childhood at Fitchburg State College in Fitchburg, Massachusetts and a RIE Associate (Resources for Infant Educarers). In 1979, she received a Doctorate in Early Childhood Education from the University of Illinois. She has been an Associate Professor of Education at Cal State LA and the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Diana has been both a practitioner and consultant for early childhood at schools; infant care centers and communities in Nepal, Thailand, Israel, Germany, Nigeria, Cape town, Romania and the U.S. She has studied with the late Magda Gerber, founder of RIE, at the Emmi Pikler Institute in Budapest, Hungary and has brought the RIE approach around the world. During the summer of 2003 Dr Suskind was a Fulbright Senior Specialist for New Zealand early childhood community. Summer 2004, Dr Suskind lectured and consulted at the Wenzhou Medical School /Taizhou Hospital, Linhai, China and at the Shanghai Children’s Hospital and Xinhua Hospital, Shanghai Second Medical University. She created Parent-n-Me Classes at the Shanghai Pedong New Area Care Hospital for Mother and Children.

Again as Fulbright Senior Scholar in 2005, the University of Udine, Udine, Italy, sponsored Suskind. Fall 2006 Diana spent her sabbatical in Nepal “Helping Hands Nepal” Katmandu and Khandbari (Sabbatical) Co-author of “Baby Dancing”, donated 1000 English/Nepali version to Nepali young children in rural Nepal. Dr Suskind introduced learning centers for the Nepali children in elementary school settings and at HEMS School, Kathmandu, Nepal (summer 2008) witnessed HEMS Parliament, created HEMS Olympics and the first Parent-toddler class at HEMS School

Dr Suskind was the keynote presenter at FAEYC Annual Conference in Fairbanks, Alaska (2002) and for the Infant Toddler Specialist of Indiana (ITSI, 2007). She received the Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient, Onondaga Community College, Syracuse, New York (Humanities 1966).

Website: http://falcon.fsc.edu/~dsuskind/

Jennifer Brunson has been a contributing member of CRSCAD since July, 2008 as a research assistant. She will graduate from the University of Massachusetts, Boston in the spring of 2010 with a B.A. in Political Science. Prior to her work with CRSCAD, Jennifer volunteered with St. Augustine Health Campus, in Cleveland Ohio, a non-profit care center for seniors and adults with chronic illness.

Jennifer is working with CRSCAD's Director, Professor Adenrele Awotona in the areas of Research, Marketing and Public Relations. She also creates, publishes and distributes CRSCAD's electronic newsletter. She is the main point of contact for the Center as well as the International Conference: Rebuilding Sustainable Communities with the Elderly and Disabled People after Disasters.

Contact Information: Jennifer.Brunson001@umb.edu or CRSCAD@umb.edu.

Mike Rugutt recently graduated from the University of Massachusetts-Boston's College of Liberal Arts with a concentration in Criminal Justice. He is responsible for providing research assistance at CRSCAD. His duties include the following: Conducting original research and literature review; Managing large amounts of data and conducting analyses; Synthesizing findings and reporting results; and, performing a variety of duties ranging from administrative support to assistance with meetings, workshops, conferences and research.

Contact Information: Mike.Rugutt@umb.edu or CRSCAD@umb.edu.

Rachael Wilcox

Administrative Assistant

Rachael Wilcox is the new Administrative Assistant for The Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities after Disasters (CRSCAD). Rachael graduated from Wells College with a B.A. in Art History, and has attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She has worked in the Administrative field for various companies in the Boston area including Fidelity, First Marblehead, Educational Consultants of New England, and Temple Israel. Please feel free to contact Rachael if you have any questions regarding this organization or its programs.

Contact Information: Rachael.Wilcox@umb.edu