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SPEAKERS
Keynote
Marian Wright Edelman
Founder and President, Children's Defense Fund
Marian Wright Edelman, Founder and President of the Children's Defense Fund, has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life. A graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, Edelman was the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar and directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. She has received over a hundred honorary degrees and many awards including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award, a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings which include: Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change; The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours, Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors, I'm Your Child, God: Prayers for Our Children; I Can Make a Difference: A Treasury to Inspire Our Children; and The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation. She is married to Peter Edelman, a Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. They have three sons and four grandchildren.
Opening Plenary
THE BOSS
Saru Jayaraman
Co-Founder and President, ROC United
Saru Jayaraman is the Co-Founder and President of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United) and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley. After 9/11, together with displaced World Trade Center workers, she co-founded ROC, which now has more than 18,000 worker members, 200 employer partners, and several thousand consumer members in a dozen states nationwide. Saru is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She was listed in CNN’s “Top10 Visionary Women” and recognized as a Champion of Change by the White House in 2014, and a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award in 2015. Saru authored Behind the Kitchen Door (Cornell University Press, 2013), a national bestseller, and most recently Forked: A New Standard for American Dining (Oxford University Press, 2016).
David Ellwood
Professor of Political Economy, Harvard Kennedy School
David T. Ellwood, the Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy, served as Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government from July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2015. He began his appointment as Director of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy on July 1, 2016. Ellwood joined the Kennedy School faculty in 1980 and served two separate terms as the School's Academic Dean. In 1993, he was named Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) where he served as co-chair of President Clinton's Working Group on Welfare Reform, Family Support and Independence. At HHS, Ellwood played a key role in the Administration's development and implementation of critical social policy.
Recognized as one of the nation's leading scholars on poverty and welfare, Ellwood's work has been credited with significantly influencing public policy in the United States and abroad.
Beth Babcock
President and CEO, Economic Mobility Pathways (EMPath)
Elisabeth (Beth) Babcock, MCRP, Ph.D. is President and CEO of based Economic Mobility Pathways (EMPath), a Boston-based nonprofit that transforms lives by helping people move out of poverty and provides the tools for other institutions to systematically do the same. Since 2006, Beth has led the organization to become a research and innovations powerhouse consistently delivering new programmatic and public policy approaches to expedite pathways out of poverty. For almost a decade, participants have used EMPath’s Bridge to Self-Sufficiency ® and the Mobility Mentoring ® service platform to increase their incomes, secure permanent housing, attain higher education, and establish themselves in family-sustaining jobs that lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Their success has prompted more than 70 public and private organizations in the US and abroad to begin using EMPath’s tools and approaches with more than 45,000 families.
Michael Strain
Director, Economic Policy Studies,American Enterprise Institute
Michael R. Strain is the John G. Searle Scholar and director of economic policy studies at AEI. He oversees the institute’s work in economic policy, financial markets, poverty studies, technology policy, energy economics, health care policy, and related areas.
Before joining AEI, Dr. Strain worked in the Center for Economic Studies at the US Census Bureau and in the macroeconomics research group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.Dr. Strain’s own research focuses on labor economics, public finance, and social policy, and his papers have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals and policy journals such as Tax Notes and National Affairs. He is the editor of “The US Labor Market: Questions and Challenges for Public Policy and the coeditor, with Stan Veuger, of “Economic Freedom and Human Flourishing: Perspectives from Political Philosophy.” He was a member of the AEI-Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity, which published the report “Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream.”
Ronald Ferguson
Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Ronald F. Ferguson is an MIT-trained economist who focuses social science research on economic, social, and educational challenges. He has been on the faculty at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government since 1983, after full time appointments at Brandeis and Brown Universities. In 2014, he co-founded Tripod Education Partners and shifted into an adjunct role at the Kennedy School, where he remains a fellow at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy and faculty director of the university-wide Achievement Gap Initiative. Ron’s current focus as AGI director is an initiative entitled the Boston Basics that is spreading to other cities in a Basics National Network. It takes a socio-ecological saturation approach, collaborating with many partners to reach extended families with caregiving advice for infants and toddlers. In addition, Ron is co-authoring a book with journalist Tatsha Robertson on the ways that highly successful people were parented.
Morning Session
Using Science to Fight Childhood Poverty
Wayne Ysaguirre
President and CEO, Nurtury
President and CEO of Nurtury since 2007, has served the agency over 20 years in multiple roles. Since 1878, Nurtury’s goal is to close the opportunity gap between children from low‐income families and their middle‐class peers, ensuring that every child in its care will enter school ready to succeed. As New England’s first and largest non‐profit early education provider, its achievements over the last century are benchmarks in the evolution of early care and education in the U.S. Through its collaborative and catalytic efforts, Nurtury has played an integral role in shaping public early education policy to raise standards in the field nationally and locally. It currently serves over 1,100 children and their families at five early education centers and 120 family child care sites.
Dana Charles McCoy
Assistant Professor of Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Dana Charles McCoy is an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Her work focuses on understanding the ways that poverty-related risk factors in children's home, school, and neighborhood environments affect the development of their cognitive and socioemotional skills in early childhood. She is also interested in the development, refinement, and evaluation of early intervention programs designed to promote positive development and resilience in young children, particularly in terms of their self-regulation and executive function. McCoy's research is centered in both domestic and international contexts, including Brazil, Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia. She has a particular interest in interdisciplinary theory, causal methodology, and ecologically valid measurement.
Nicki Ruiz de Luzuriaga
VP of Institutional Advancement, EMPath
Nicki Ruiz de Luzuriaga is the Vice President of Institutional Advancement at Economic Mobility Pathways (EMPath), an organization that transforms people’s lives by helping them move out of poverty, and provides other institutions with the tools to systematically do the same. Nicki has worked at EMPath since 2009, focusing on children’s and family issues, with a particular interest in the interdependence of family members in moving out of poverty. She led the development of EMPath’s intergenerational model, The Intergen Project, and co-authored a brief on the theory and practice of intergenerational antipoverty efforts. Before joining EMPath, she developed children’s programming at various for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and became very interested in how poverty affects children and youth.
Jocelyn Bonnes Bowne
Director of Research, Mass Dept of Early Education and Care (EEC)
Jocelyn Bonnes Bowne is the Director of Research and Preschool Expansion Grant Administration at the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care (EEC). Dr. Bowne manages the grant administration and evaluation of prekindergarten programs funded by a Federal Preschool Expansion Grant and serves as the Project Director for a Child Care Development Block Grant Implementation Evaluation and Research Planning Grant. Prior to her employment by EEC, she was a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, supporting research-practitioner collaborations to co-design and test innovative strategies for improving child outcomes.
Melanie Berry
Director of Innovation Strategies, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard
As Director of Innovation Strategies at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, Melanie Berry provides strategic leadership around the incubation of promising new programs as part of the Center’s innovation pipeline. Melanie is part of the team that developed Frontiers of Innovation’s model for program development and evaluation, the IDEAS Impact Framework. She is also clinical scientist with the Stress Neurobiology and Prevention Laboratory at the University of Oregon. Melanie obtained a doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the PGSP-Stanford Psy.D. Consortium and has extensive experience serving children and families.
Cross-Sector Strategies for Affordable Housing
With deep experience in both the public and private sectors, Maurice Jones took the helm as LISC's fourth president & CEO in September 2016. Immediately prior to joining LISC, he served as the secretary of commerce for the Commonwealth of Virginia, where he managed 13 state agencies focused on the economic needs in his native state. He previously served as deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) overseeing operations for the agency and its 8,900 staff members. Prior to that he was commissioner of Virginia’s Department of Social Services and deputy chief of staff to former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.
Keren Horn
Associate Professor of Economics, UMass Boston
Keren Horn is Associate Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts Boston. Her research seeks to inform policies that will help cities become places of opportunity for people at both ends of the socio-economic spectrum. She studies whether housing policies, particularly through the provision of support for low-income households, can break patterns of economic and racial segregation and lead to increased opportunities for low income children. Professor Horn received her PhD in Policy from New York University, with a focus on Urban Economics. Her work has been published in Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Housing Economics, Urban Studies and Housing Policy Debate.
Empowering Labor: Jobs, Training, and Organizing
Pavlina Tcherneva
Associate Professor of Economics, Bard College
Pavlina R. Tcherneva is an associate professor of economics and director of the economics program at Bard College. Tcherneva conducts research in the fields of modern monetary theory and public policy. She frequently speaks at Central Banks around the world and has collaborated with policymakers from different countries on developing and evaluating various job-creation programs. Tcherneva is a two-time recipient of a grant from the Institute for New Economic Thinking for her research on the impact of alternative fiscal policies on unemployment, income distribution, and public goods provisioning. Learn more about the job guarantee.
Aaron Gornstein
President and CEO, Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH)
Aaron Gornstein became the President and CEO of POAH, Inc. in June 2015. He provides overall leadership and oversight of the organization, including strategic planning, financial management, supervision of the executive team, and external relations and partnerships. From 2012-2015, Gornstein served as undersecretary for the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), under former Governor Deval Patrick, where he greatly expanded rental assistance and homeless prevention programs, reformed and improved state public housing, and launched a comprehensive supportive housing initiative. Prior to that, he served as executive director of Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA) for 21 years, where he spearheaded passage of state and federal legislation, launched innovation programs, and helped to form numerous coalitions.
David Luberoff, Deputy Director of the Joint Center, is a member of the Center’s senior management team, he is responsible for external relations, institutional advancement, and educational outreach. He is also a Lecturer on Sociology at Harvard University, where he developed and co-teaches an undergraduate General Education course on “Reinventing (and Reimagining) Boston: The Changing American City.” Before joining the Center in 2016, he was Senior Project Advisor to the Boston Area Research Initiative at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a Visiting Professor of Practice at Northeastern University’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. He has also been Executive Director of Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS); Associate Director of HKS’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government; and editor of The Tab, which was greater Boston’s largest group of weekly newspapers. He is the co-author (with Alan Altshuler) of Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment (Brooking Institution Press), which was named 2003’s best book on urban politics by the American Political Science Association’s urban section.
David Luberoff
Deputy Director, Joint Center For Housing Studies
Natalicia Tracy
Executive Director, Brazilian Worker Center
Dr. Natalicia Tracy has been Executive Director of Boston’s Brazilian Worker Center (BWC) since May 2010. She was one of the leaders in the campaign to pass Massachusetts’ 2014 Domestic Worker Bill of Rights. She and her team are now pursuing a similar campaign in Connecticut. Natalicia holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Boston University, and is Lecturer in Sociology and Resident Scholar at the Labor Resource Center, at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is the co-author of Invisible No More: Organizing Domestic Workers in Massachusetts and Beyond (2014), and other publications on immigration and labor issues. Among her many awards, she was named one of the nation’s 2013 Petra Fellows, recognizing unsung heroes in the struggle for social justice. In 2014, she received the Richard L. Fontera Memorial Award, for her commitment to education and the ideals of democracy and social justice, from the Dubin Labor Education Center at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. In 2015, she was named one of the nation’s 25 most significant Black women labor leaders in the “And Still I Rise Project” of the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC.
John "Jack" Trumpbour
Research Director, Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School
John Trumpbour serves as Research Director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. He is the author of Selling Hollywood to the World: U.S. and European Struggles for Mastery of the Global Film Industry,1920–1950 (Cambridge University Press, 2002), which won the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians. In Winter 2007, he served as guest editor of The Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal for its special issue on "The Crisis in Workplace Governance." He wrote "Margaret Thatcher, the Thatcherite Intellectuals and the fate of Keynes" for the special issue on Thatcher's legacy for the Industrial Relations Journal (May 2014). Along with Eric Hobsbawm, he contributed essays for new editions of V.G. Kiernan's books, America: From White Settlement to World Hegemony (2015) as well as for The Lords of Human Kind: European Attitudes To Other Cultures in the Imperial Age (2015). He is a core faculty member in the Harvard Trade Union Program, which provides training for labor leaders around the world.
Afternoon Session I
Using Tech to Create An Inclusive Society
Veronica Creech
Chief Programs Officer, EveryoneOn
Veronica Creech is Chief Programs Officer of EveryoneOn, leveraging more than 15 years experience leading public and nonprofit social enterprise initiatives. Most recently, she led global partnership outreach and engagement for First Book, where she oversaw sector, partnership, and member growth doubling engagement year over year. She also brings directly relevant broadband and connectivity experience from her time at the City of Wilson, N.C., where she served as Director of Human Relations. During her tenure, the city built its own broadband program and under Veronica’s leadership the city created stellar citizen buy in for the effort which laid a solid foundation for high adoption rates in the program’s first year.
Todd Baker
Managing Principal, Broadmoor Consulting LLC
Todd H. Baker is a nationally recognized authority on financial services strategy and the development of innovative solutions to the financial challenges of low-income working Americans. After a career spent driving strategic change in large banking organizations and leading high-profile M&A and capital-raising transactions, Mr. Baker has focused his research at M-RCBG on the financial volatility challenges facing low-income working Americans and the emergence of superior, scalable alternatives to payday loans and other high-cost borrowings through innovative financial technology. Mr. Baker is currently the Managing Principal of Broadmoor Consulting LLC, a financial services consulting firm.
William Isaac
Open Society Fellow
William Isaac, a political scientist, is investigating the rapidly expanding use of predictive software in policing and judicial risk assessment, and the implications of that expansion for human rights and the exercise of democracy. He is developing a framework for performing a data audit for predictive tools which will explore how biases affect different stages of data’s life cycle. A statistical consultant for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group’s policing team, his research has appeared in scholarly journals such as Science and Nature and in news sites such as USA Today and the New York Times.
Jason Ewas
Director of the Mayor's Economic Mobility Lab, City of Boston
Jason Ewas is the Director of the Mayor’s Economic Mobility Lab at the City of Boston, which is currently in a year-long planning process funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The Lab will work across City departments and agencies to advance economic mobility for Boston residents by analyzing existing policies and programs, highlighting and expanding what works, and creating innovative, scalable solutions that build pathways to a strong and diverse middle class. In a prior role at the City, he led the Mayor’s employee ownership initiative, worked on several projects and policies to promote upward economic mobility for Boston residents, and used data to better understand and improve processes in City government.
Holistic Support to Build Healthy Communities
Ivys Fernández-Pastrana
Program Manager, Boston Medical Center
Ivys Fernández-Pastrana, JD is originally from Puerto Rico and a lawyer by training. She is currently the Program Manager for the Pediatric Navigation Program at Boston Medical Center where she works along a team of Family Navigators and Community Health Advocates in the Department of Pediatrics. Previously she worked as Family Navigator for over 7 years assisting families whose children were diagnosed with autism. Her background working in the fields of special education, autism spectrum disorders and family supports include working with parents and families to help them to navigate and
access community resources as well as governmental entitlements and benefits..
Erica Guimaraes
Program Coordinator, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Erica Guimaraes is a program coordinator in the Office of Community Health Workers at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, where she assists in promoting best practices for CHW integration into health care and public health teams. She also supports implementation of CHW certification in MA, including developing processes for CHW training program approval. Prior to joining DPH, Erica worked for 11 years in the Community Health Worker field, in the roles of a CHW, CHW
supervisor and CHW program manager, at community based organizations and clinical settings. Erica holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology.
Mariel Mendez
Community Health Specialist, The Family Van
As the Community Health Specialist for the Family Van, Mariel works to understand the intersection of poverty and healthcare in order to create new partnerships and collaborations to meet the needs of the communities served. Mariel is working to develop strategies to offer community members an easy way to find the resources they need within their communities. Mariel also leads new programs aimed at combatting the consequences of high prevalence of chronic disease in Roxbury, Dorchester and East Boston. Mariel has worked both nationally and internationally looking at the impacts of poverty on both physical and mental health. Her work with Save the Children Dominican Republic and in Brazil focused on immigration and poverty on mental health. Her work at the NYC Department of Health led to the implementation of a partnership between health insurances and public housing agencies to improve housing for asthma care among children living in the Bronx. Her work with the New Jersey SNAP-Ed led to county-wide policies to combat food insecurities, all while helping small business owners implement a public health driven business model.
Chrasandra Reeves
Managing Director of Programs, Health Leads New England
At the Boston Public Health Commission, Chrasandra worked as a Senior Program Coordinator assisting women and children in the City of Boston and spreading awareness about Infant mortality. Most recently, she served at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital as a Liaison. She is co-author of a published article addressing cancer disparities with the Division of Public Health Practice at Harvard School of Public Health. She continued her work in nonprofit organizations by working with seniors and disabled adults as a Program Director.
Creating Results-Driven Criminal Justice Reform
Danielle Cerny
Assistant Director, Government Performance Lab
Danielle Cerny is an Assistant Director with the Government Performance Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School. Danielle leads a team helping Rhode Island state agencies use performance data to inform procurement, budget and programmatic decisions, and enable rigorous evaluation of management and policy reforms. Before joining the Rhode Island team, Danielle was the Social Innovation Finance Manager for Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Administration and Finance (ANF); structuring, contracting for, and managing the state’s three pay for success (PFS) initiatives.
Jon Feinman
Executive Director and Founder, InnerCity Weightlifting
As founder and executive director of InnerCity Weightlifting (ICW), Jon is focused on aligning the vision, strategy, culture and growth of ICW to increase economic mobility and social inclusion for young people at the highest-risk for violence; all while shifting perceptions, so that the factors that lead to segregated pockets of violence fade away changing the course for future generations. Building upon his experience with AmeriCorps and as a personal trainer, Jon received his MBA from Babson College in 2010 where he launched ICW.
Yotam Zeira
Director of External Affairs, Roca
Yotam Zeira joined Roca in 2015 as a Harvard Law School Public Service Fellow, and as of 2016 serves as Roca’s Director of External Affairs. A lawyer, teacher, tour guide and intelligence officer by training, Yotam has worked with youth in various capacities, including tutor, group facilitator, tour leader and curriculum planner. Eager to have a greater social impact he studied law, clerked for the Deputy Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court and has worked as an Assistant Attorney General at the Israeli Ministry of Justice. Yotam holds a Masters of Laws (LL.M.) Degree from Harvard Law School, and a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) Degree and Teaching Certificate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Edward J. Dolan
Commissioner, Massachusetts Probation Service
Edward J. Dolan was appointed Commissioner of the Massachusetts Probation Service in June 2013. He previously served as the Commissioner of the Department of Youth Services (DYS) where he had held various positions since 1997, including Deputy Commissioner and Director of Classification. He was also Chief Operating Officer at Massachusetts Half Way Houses, Inc., and a Forensic Manager for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. Commissioner Dolan has also served as the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Parole Board and its Director of Research, Planning and Systems Development.
Afternoon Session II
Tackling Poverty in Immigrant Communities
Alex Houston
Program Operations Manager, Enroot
Alex Houston started at Enroot as a volunteer tutor for multiple students before joining the team as the Development and Operations Coordinator. Alex was promoted to Program Operations and Development Manager, leading volunteer recruitment and training, grant-writing, marketing, and general operations. Alex joined Enroot after completing two years of National Service as an AmeriCorps. She supported families in the Cambridge-Somerville area as the Financial Stability Fellow at LIFT-Boston by providing assistance in applying to public benefits, like health insurance and food assistance. She spent the previous year working with 9th grade students at the Burke High School as a City Year Boston Corps member.
Sabrina Terry
Senior Strategist, Economic Policy Project, ORAL at UnidosUS
Sabrina Terry is Project Manager of the Wealth Building Initiative at Unidos U.S. which seeks to advance financial and economic inclusion of Latino immigrants through integrated financial capability and legal services programs. Prior to her current position, she was Manager of Community and Economic Development at Unidos, and was part of NAACP in its economics department.
Sabrineh Ardalan
Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Sabrineh Ardalan is assistant director at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program. At the clinic, Ardalan supervises and trains law students working on applications for asylum and other humanitarian protections, as well as appellate litigation and policy advocacy. She has authored amicus briefs submitted to the Board of Immigration Appeals, as well as to the federal district courts and circuit courts of appeal on cutting edge issues in U.S. asylum law. She also oversees and collaborates closely with the clinic’s social work staff. She teaches courses on immigration and refugee law and advocacy and on trauma, refugees, and the law.
Big Ideas in Solving Local Poverty
Jared Arnett
Executive Director, SOAR Kentucky
A native of eastern Kentucky, Jared has a heart for the people of the region and for the businesses of eastern Kentucky. In November of 2014, he began his new role as the Founding Executive Director for Shaping Our Appalachian Region, Inc. (SOAR), a special initiative launched by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear (D) and Congressman Hal Rogers (R) in 2013. SOAR’s mission is to expand job creation, enhance regional opportunity, innovation, and identity, improve the quality of life, and support all those working to achieve these goals in Appalachian Kentucky. Prior to taking his post at SOAR, Arnett was leading the 530 member Southeast Kentucky Chamber of Commerce as President/CEO.
Sharon Lee
Executive Director, Low Income Housing Institute
Sharon Lee is the founding Executive Director of the Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI), a non-profit organization based in Seattle founded in 1991. LIHI develops and operates housing for low-income and homeless people and provides supportive service programs to assist tenants in maintaining stable housing and increasing self-sufficiency. Sharon oversees a staff of
180 engaged in housing development, management, advocacy and supportive services. LIHI staff has developed over 4,000 units of rental and homeownership housing in Washington State. LIHI owns over 2,000 units serving individuals, families, seniors, homeless people and those with special needs. LIHI’s housing has won national and local awards for design excellence and environmental sustainability.
Maria Guadalupe Gonzalo Mendez
Senior Staff and Leader, Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Lupe Gonzalo is a senior staff member and leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). Ms. Gonzalo is a farmworker herself, with over 12 years of experience working in the fields of Florida. As part of the Fair Food Program, Ms. Gonzalo and her colleagues conduct worker-to-worker education sessions on human rights in the fields on all farms participating in the Program. Ms. Gonzalo’s work at the CIW includes hosting daily radio shows on the CIW’s low-power community FM radio station, leading the weekly women’s group meetings, receiving complaints of abuses in the fields, managing wage theft claims, and investigating cases of sexual violence and modern-day slavery. Finally, Ms. Gonzalo represents the CIW at a national level, speaking publicly on the challenges faced by farmworkers in Florida, both during major demonstrations with thousands of consumers and in dozens of presentations throughout the year.
Andrew Frishman (left)
Co-Executive Director - Big Picture Learning
In the spring of 2002 Andrew heard a student describe his unique transformational learning experiences at The Met High School in Providence, RI, the “mother ship” of the Big Picture Learning Network. That fall, Andrew joined the Met as an Advisor (Teacher), working with a 9th grade advisory group through to their graduation in 2006. He then moved to CA to support the development of the Met Sacramento High School, worked with its first graduating class, and became the school’s first “Learning Through Internship Coordinator.” Andrew has assisted with the expansion of the Big Picture Network in a variety of capacities, including supporting the launch of innovative schools across the US and internationally. Along the way he has melded experiences from an MAT, an administrative credential focused on urban schools, and a Health Leadership Program, into a belief that student-centered education is a crucial determinant of both individual life outcomes as well as community well-being. He completed the Education Leadership Program (EdLD) at Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Harvard Kennedy School, and Harvard Business School and joined the leadership team of Big Picture Learning in 2013.
Chris Castro (right)
Junior, Leominster Center for Excellence
Currently a junior at the Leominster Center for Excellence, Chris Castro and his family moved to Leominster from the Bronx in 2009, when he was 8. Hunger and housing instability are challenges that surfaced in Chris’ life, but by no means have they defined him. It is amidst these difficult periods in his life that he developed his passion for writing through spoken word, poetry, prose and song. This compassionate and driven young man is compelled to make connections wherever he goes, and to understand people’s experiences in the hopes of enriching himself and those around him.