David Owen


Consultants
Our team of consultants is dedicated to helping young people succeed. All of our associates have over ten years of professional experience and are considered experts in their fields. Many hold graduate degrees in education, public policy, social work, and psychology.

• Debbie Almontaser
• William Bacon
• Kristina Berger
• Jeff Birdsall
• Frances Caulfield
• Helena Duch
• Julie Geisler
• Seth Ginsberg
• Eric Graig
• Sandra Hayes
• Louis Hernandez
• Peter Kindfield
• Rebecca Koladycz
• Clinton Lacey
• Jeanette Oaks
• Nancy Rosenbaum
• Cynthia Sipe
• Nitika Tolani
• Christopher Toward
• Dario Veraldi
• Emily West

Debbie has co-designed and developed a curriculum for Columbia University entitled Re-Embracing Diversity in NYC Public Schools: Educational Outreach for Muslim Sensitivity that engages students to develop interpersonal and intercultural understanding based on respect for ethnic and religious diversity. As with her workshops, Debbie’s curricula help students to become more culturally sensitive and aware of bias and bigotry and how to combat such behaviors.

Debbie serves as chief consultant and advisor for Nickelodeon’s Nick Jr. "Muslim American" Series, and the Independent Production Fund on the Islam Project (producers of Muslims and Legacy of a Man: Prophet Muhammad PBS Productions) She was also a member of the steering committee for A Community of Many Worlds: Arab-Americans at the Museum of the City of New York. Debbie is a board member of The Dialogue Project, a board advisor for the Same Difference Interfaith Alliance, and a cofounder of Brooklyn Bridges and the September 11th Curriculum Project.
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William Bacon, Ph.D.
Bill is a psychologist and researcher with an extensive background in outcome evaluation of programs for children and adolescents. He has consulted with a variety of organizations on evaluations of youth development, mental health, and mentoring programs, and has expertise using both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies.

As Associate Vice President for Research & Evaluation at Planned Parenthood of New York City (PPNYC), he was responsible for evaluating the agency's educational and youth development programs while also helping the agency integrate evaluation into its strategic framework. He has a particular interest in systems for collecting information from younger, less literate children, developing, for example, a system of computer-based survey administration that dramatically improves participants' comprehension and interest through multi-media presentation of survey items.

Bill was previously a Senior Research Scientist at the Center for the Study of Social Work Practice, a joint program of Columbia University and the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services. He has served on the adjunct faculty of Columbia University's School of Social Work and Fordham University's College at Lincoln Center. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology from Johns Hopkins University in 1993. Bill has been working with Owen Consulting since 2001.
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Kris Berger, M.A.
Kris has worked in New York City's nonprofit sector for more than ten years and has extensive experience designing, implementing, and directing innovative programs that meet critical community needs. Most recently, Kris was the Director of Program Development at New York Cares, where she served as a member of the organizations senior management team and was responsible for directing efforts to mobilize more than 2500 volunteers each month on meaningful and impactful community service projects. Prior to joining New York Cares, Kris was the Assistant Director of Education at the New York Academy of Sciences, where her projects included a successful summer science research internship and academic enrichment program for New York City high school students.

She has developed and written many successful grant proposals; worked with public schools and community based organizations to identify and assess resource needs and to create programs that meet these needs; built sustainable public-private partnerships; designed and managed large-scale (500+ individuals) corporate volunteer events; and managed strategic planning processes.

In addition, Kris has considerable expertise in the area of volunteer program design, development, and implementation, and has worked with schools and nonprofit organizations to identify appropriate volunteer needs and develop strategies to meet these needs as well as with corporations who wish to mobilize employees to "give back" on short- or long-term projects.

In 1998, while the Director of Program Development at New York Cares, Kris created and launched the Partners in Technology Program (PITP), one of the first initiatives in New York City to address Digital Divide issues in the nonprofit and education community. During the programs first two years of operation, volunteers with technology expertise shared their knowledge and skills with more than 50 nonprofit organizations and schools to build computer labs; install computer networks; train staff and clients; and create state-of-the-art websites and databases. In 2001, the PITP was nationally replicated to six additional cities.

Kris holds a Masters Degree in Sociology of Education and Education Policy (1995) from Columbia Universitys Teachers College, and BA degrees in History and Political Science (1990) from Northwestern University.
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Jeff Birdsall, M.A.
Jeff is a consultant, educator and trainer in the areas of leadership development, non-profit management, youth programs, service-learning and residential environmental and outdoor education programs. He has led trainings, workshops and provided keynote presentations for national service programs, state commissions and non-profits throughout the country. Jeff strives to facilitate volunteers, staff and students’ personal, intellectual and spiritual development in their journeys to become effective, caring and responsible citizens and leaders in their communities. Jeff resides in Seattle, Washington and in addition to his on-going training and consulting work, currently serves as an adjunct instructor in Brown University’s Leadership Institute.

Over the past seventeen years Jeff has worked as an experiential educator and program director in a variety of learning communities including environmental education centers, outdoor leadership programs, community-based urban service-learning programs, rural residential programs, higher education institutions, and AmeriCorps projects. Recently, he directed two AmeriCorps programs, The Northwest Service Academy and The Youth Volunteer Corps, as well as co-founded a youth service program, The Wilderness Volunteer Corps.

Jeff holds a Master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies: Service-Learning from Naropa University (2003), where he helped to create a new service-learning center, and a B.S. in Environmental Education from Lesley University/Audubon Expedition Institute (1989).
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Frances Caulfield, M.S.
For over a decade, Fran has provided professional development to the New York City public school community through curriculum design and instruction, leadership training, and comprehensive educational plan development and implementation.

Fran has served in numerous capacities within the New York City Department of Education as a teacher, Assistant high school Director, and Project Coordinator for the Manhattan High School Superintendent’s office. As an educational consultant, Fran has worked to build and sustain effective school partnerships and programs supporting administrators, teachers, and students.

Her expertise and experience includes:

• Assessing professional development needs, both department-specific and school-wide; for teachers, support staff and principals/assistant principals
• Designing programs and writing curricula that support integration, and interdisciplinary instruction
• Working with New York City high schools on the development and implementation of Comprehensive Educational Plans
• Partnership building between schools and external partners
• Facilitating cabinet initiatives such as school-wide professional development plans, school tone and culture initiatives, redesigning faculty conference formats
• Personal coaching for principals, assistant principals and district personnel
• Program design
• Project management

As part of her doctoral training in child/ school psychology, Helena has worked in the New York City Public schools, foster care agencies, early intervention settings and Bellevue Hospital, providing direct services to children and families. She has expertise in the areas of psychological and educational assessment, consultation and direct intervention with children in group, individual and family therapy.

Helena has extensive experience working with Head Start and Early Head Start programs, in center-based and home-based settings. In 2000, Helena received a grant from the Federal Administration on Children, Youth and Families to conduct a two-year research study on the mental health of Hispanic Head Start Children and their families. Prior to this, she was the adult development coordinator for Columbia University Head Start and Early Head Start, developing an adult education program for Head Start parents and early childhood training modules for staff. Helena designed and taught a Child Development Associate Class for four years. She was also the mental health consultant, working with teachers, parents and children in all issues related to mental health and special needs.

As early childhood consultant for Childhope Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, Helena evaluated a training program for Community Day Care Providers developed in the favelas of the State of Rio de Janeiro. She also designed and developed a comparative research study between program Head Start and day care services in Rio de Janeiro.

Helena holds a Master’s degree in Developmental Psychology from Teacher’s College – Columbia University (1998), a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology from New York University (2000) and completed her doctoral degree in Child/School Psychology at New York University in June 2005. She is a native Spanish speaker, and is fluent in English, French, Italian, and Portuguese.
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Julie Geisler
Julie brings over fourteen years of professional development and non-profit management experience to Owen Consulting. Her expertise includes program and fiscal oversight, training and technical assistance, youth job training and workforce development programs, community service management, and team building and leadership development for corporate and non-profit professionals.

Julie’s clients have included AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve America, the National Senior Service Corps, the Central Park Conservancy, Studio in a School, Chelsea Piers, Youth Service Opportunities Project, the Catholic Network of Volunteer Service, and ETR Associates. She has conducted training sessions in topic areas such as program planning and management, staff training, time management, recruitment and retention, leadership, teambuilding, and communication. Julie has developed training manuals and evaluation resources for numerous organizations and coordinated conferences, workshops, and events nationwide.
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Seth Ginsberg
Seth is a teaching artist and curriculum developer, with over ten years of experience leading music and arts education programs for New York City public schools and community based organizations.

Seth specializes in interactive "learning through arts" projects, combining customized hands-on music programs with school curriculum to engage students with academic subjects. He also works with non-profit clients to design and lead arts programming that supports intervention, prevention, and after school services.

As a Program Manager and new teacher Mentor for LEAP (Learning through an Expanded Arts Program) Seth has created and led experiential music programs for the 92nd St. YMCA, the Central Park Conservancy, and numerous New York City public schools. He frequently runs teacher and parent workshops for the NYC Department of Education, providing curricula and techniques that foster creative and supportive interaction between adults and children through the arts.

Seth designed and led diversity workshops as part of Owen Consulting’s contract to support Mentoring USA’s B.R.A.V.E. Juliana program. The workshops employed biographical songwriting methods that helped to improve communication and build stronger mentoring relationships between pairs at program sites throughout New York City.
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Eric Graig, Ph.D.
Eric holds a Doctorate in Environmental Psychology from the City University of New York Graduate Center. With over ten years of experience designing, managing, and implementing a wide range of research studies, he brings clients an approach to evaluation that is both practical and informed by the needs of nonprofit organizations seeking to improve their effectiveness and achieve their strategic goals.

Prior to his association with Owen Consulting, Eric was the Director of Research at the Beacon of Hope House, an agency that provides residential services to people recovering from mental illness. In that capacity he led research studies on topics ranging from client outcomes to internal employee retention and satisfaction. In all this work, his focus was strategic and oriented towards developing actionable knowledge necessary for long term organizational improvement.

Prior to joining Beacon, Eric managed a range of research projects within the City University of New York system and taught research and evaluation in the Graduate Program in Applied Social Research at Queens College.
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Sandra Hayes, M.A.
Sandra is an organizational development consultant who specializes in adult learning strategies, collaborative conflict negotiation, and leadership development. Her experience includes designing, conducting and facilitating meetings and training workshops for a list of clients including the United Nations, Unicef, Reuters, Praxair, American Express, Columbia Business School, NYC Health and Hospital Corporation, Citibank, Lucent Technologies, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Pace University, New York University Metro Center, the United Federation of Teachers, the New York City Board of Education, Educators for Social Responsibility, In Motion Legal Services, the United Parents Association, the New York State Nurses Association, and a host of independent schools and nonprofit organizations.

Through the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (ICCCR) at Teachers College, Sandra is a collaborative conflict negotiation and mediation instructor. Recently, she was a member of a team whose task was to update and redesign the Basic Practicum in Conflict Resolution. Sandra also helped design and teach two advanced courses in conflict resolution through the ICCCR. She also teaches collaborative conflict resolution through the Fairleigh Dickinson University School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management.

In association with the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, Sandra facilitates leadership research activities with Ford Foundation and Advocacy Institute Leadership for Changing World awardees. She also recently designed and facilitated a Leadership Development Program for nonprofit executives as a consultant to the National Executive Service Corps (NESC). Sandra is also a certified trainer of a course entitled “The Human Element.” This human relations seminar allows individuals and teams to focus on the underlying causes of behavior that block successful performance.

Sandra’s background in training and facilitation is enhanced by extensive experience in both the corporate and nonprofit arenas. For ten years, Sandra was a human resources professional for such companies as Westinghouse Broadcasting and Cable, American Health Partners (publishers of American Health, Psychology Today, Mother Earth News, and Smart magazines), and Reader’s Digest. She also spent seven years as a coordinator and director of educational and vocational programs for the US Department of Labor’s Job Corps and for Prep for Prep (a program serving more than 2,000 talented and gifted youth). In these capacities, she conducted large individual and group sessions counseling program participants on their academic and professional options.

Sandra is an Adult Learning and Leadership doctoral candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she earned a Master of Arts degree in Organizational Psychology.
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Louis Hernandez, M. Ed.
Louis has been working with at risk adolescents and their families for over twenty-five years. He has worked in a broad range of educational, counseling, and youth development settings, including the New York City public school system, Bellevue Hospital, and the New York City Outward Bound Center.

For the past thirteen years, Louis has served as a building-wide school guidance counselor in NYC public schools, where he works with at-risk adolescents and their families. He provides individual, group, and family counseling, networks with community resources, facilitates workshops for parents and teachers, conducts after school programs, and manages extensive crisis intervention services.

Louis has an extensive background in adventure-based and experiential youth programming. Over the years he has designed, coordinated and led numerous adventure education programs for inner-city at-risk adolescents, including ten-day bicycle tours in Massachusetts and the Delaware Water Gap. He incorporates his counseling/teaching skills in an after school rock-climbing program, as well as "Healthy Options," a martial-arts-based youth development program. Louis has also trained teachers in experiential education as part of an Outward Bound/UFT professional development program. In addition to experience-based learning, Hernandez's teaching and therapeutic methodology incorporates diagnostic, holistic, and behavioral approaches.

Hernandez's credentials include training in RET, behavior modification, 12 Step, conflict mediation, trauma counseling, family systems, and experiential education. He holds a Masters in Bilingual Special Education from Fordham University with a focus in teaching emotionally handicapped, socially maladjusted and learning disabled students. He attained a second Masters in Educational Guidance and a post degree in Marriage and Family Counseling with a concentration in alcoholism and chemical dependency. Louis is currently completing a doctoral dissertation in group counseling.
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Peter Kindfield, Ph.D.
Peter has been involved with helping both children and adults learn as they engage in purposeful activity for over 25 years. He has worked with universities, colleges, corporations, and K-12 public schools. Peter holds a Doctorate in Science Education (1996) from the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Education. Peter was a co-founder of LURNIX, a computer training company, and later a Director of Education at NeXT Computer. In these roles he developed innovative courses through which adult students learned systems administration as they set up their companies networks.

As a professor of Education at Brooklyn College/CUNY's School of Education, Peter worked with scientists and educators to design courses that supported pre- and in-service service teachers learning how to teach science as they engaged in their own scientific inquires and designed their own curriculum units.

While working as the Lead Science Staff Developer for Community School District Two in Manhattan, Peter helped design and implement a professional development program focused on facilitating teachers designing and implementing project-based curriculum supported by a community of practice.

Peter's unique blend of experiences in corporate and public education settings leaves him well qualified to bridge the gap between private and public sectors through learning programs that emphasize learning while engaging in meaningful work.
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Rebecca Koladycz, MA
Rebecca is an evaluation consultant with over ten years of experience conducting evaluations and carrying out social research. She has considerable experience training staff in designing and implementing monitoring and evaluation plans, as well as experience writing and editing evaluation reports and presenting findings to various stakeholders. Her expertise is in qualitative and quantitative research methods, including designing evaluations, developing surveys, conducting observations and individual and focus group interviews, and performing statistical analyses. She is a strong advocate of a participatory, utilization-focused approach to program evaluation.

Rebecca has extensive knowledge of international adolescent sexual and reproductive health programs, youth development issues, teen pregnancy prevention programs, and national education initiatives. She currently serves as Senior Evaluation Officer at International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region, where she provides evaluation technical assistance in sexual and reproductive health programs throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

As a Research Associate with Metis Associates, she was the project manager and principal evaluator of numerous grant-funded programs in public elementary and middle schools, including family literacy, conflict resolution and violence prevention, bilingual education, parent involvement, arts education, and after school youth development programs in New York City and nationally. Prior to that, she was the Evaluation Manager for the Monroe Council on Teen Pregnancy, where she developed and initiated procedures for evaluating local teen pregnancy prevention programs in Rochester, New York, and coordinated efforts of Council members, evaluation consultants, pregnancy prevention staff, Community Organizers, and others on research issues. She has also conducted research in Tamil Nadu, India, on marriage patterns, household composition and the changing nature of the caste system.

Rebecca holds a master of arts in social anthropology from the University of Rochester and is fluent in Spanish.
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Clinton Lacey
Clinton has worked as a program director, teacher, trainer and facilitator for young people and their families for over twelve years. Since 1992, Clinton has concentrated his efforts on the creation, development and supervision of programming and services for youth in crisis.

As the Associate Executive Director of Friends of Island Academy, a transitional/aftercare program for youth exiting the criminal and juvenile justice system, Clinton focuses his efforts on programmatic design and management of such service areas as employment, education, counseling, mentoring, conflict resolution, and youth/peer leadership training.

Clinton has served as a presenter at numerous conferences including Fordham University's Annual Manhattan Child and Adolescent Services Committee Conference, the Mentoring Symposium 2000, and the Youth Leadership Forum. He has served as a guest lecturer at several educational institutions, including Hunter College, Pace University and New York University. He has also facilitated training workshops for numerous community-based organizations such as The Door, Urban Youth Alliance and Covenant House. Clinton is also a graduate of the Columbia University Business School Institute for Not-for-Profit Management.
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Jeanette Oaks, M.S.W., C.S.W.
Jeanette has been helping disadvantaged youth and families in both direct service and administrative capacities for more than ten years. She has worked as a clinical psychotherapist and consultant for social service agencies, educational organizations, and the New York City Public school system. Her expertise includes counseling, workforce development, violence prevention, professional development, and cultural diversity education.

As a senior counselor at Metropolitan Corporate Academy, Jeanette oversees all counseling services, violence prevention programming, strategic educational planning, and the school summer internship program. She leads professional development workshops and team meetings with teachers and the administrative staff, in areas such as college and career planning, classroom management and issues that pertain to child abuse and neglect. For the past two years Jeanette has been the Lead Teacher for the 9th and 10th grade teams, providing assistance to teachers with academic, parent involvement, and college and career planning. In 2003 Jeanette successfully led MCA’s Needs Assessment Committee, a collaborative initiative designed to assist the school with community and organizational partnership development.

Over the last six years, Jeanette’s expertise in career and workforce development has helped her successfully train and place student interns at Goldman Sachs, Fleet Bank, BCAT, YWCA, Junior Achievement, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Board of Education, Prospect Park Alliance, Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, and Harlem-based Drum T.V.

Jeanette has also designed and led effective Violence Prevention and Cultural Diversity curricula for Mentoring USA’s B.R.A.V.E. Juliana initiative. The interactive curriculum educates adult and youth participants about diversity and tolerance, teaches problem solving skills, and helps foster stronger, effective mentoring relationships amongst pairs.

Jeanette holds a Masters Degree in Social Work from Yeshiva University, where her research and training focused on African American and Caribbean families.
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Nancy Rosenbaum, Ed.M.
Nancy is a consultant who has over ten years of combined experience in educational program design, research and evaluation planning, curriculum development, as well as educational counseling. She currently works part-time as a Counselor and Lecturer at Kingsborough Community College (CUNY) where she provides a variety of support services to academically at-risk students.

Most recently, Nancy served as the Director of Research, Evaluation, and Curriculum for the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship—an international youth organization that uses entrepreneurship education to empower low-income youth. Under her stewardship, NFTE launched a multi-year evaluation study with Harvard University to assess the educational impacts of NFTE program participation. She also led NFTE through a comprehensive “Theory of Change” planning process to help the organization clarify its goals and program models. As well, she managed the revision and redesign of NFTE’s core curriculum materials, which resulted in NFTE being recognized by the Association for Educational Publishers with a 2002 Golden Lamp Award in the Books category.

Nancy has worked locally and internationally on a variety of youth development initiatives. From 1998-1999 she oversaw the management of a New York Citywide summer internship program that connected local high school and college students with paid internships at new media firms. In 1998, she had the opportunity to travel to Croatia where she served as a counselor at an international peace camp for Balkan children. She also worked as a Group Leader with World Learning’s Summer Abroad program in France for American high school students.

Nancy began her career in documentary video production. She served as an Associate Producer on the PBS series, Vote for Me: Politics in America, which received numerous awards including an Emmy, a Peabody, as well as an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for broadcast journalism.

In June 2000, Nancy earned a Master’s degree in Education from Harvard University where she concentrated in Adolescent Risk and Prevention studies. She graduated from Haverford College in 1993 with a Bachelor’s degree in English literature (honors). She is a graduate of the Coro Leadership New York program for mid-career professionals and has completed professional development training with the New York City Outward Bound Center. In all of her work, Nancy has maintained a commitment to helping people connect to resources, ideas, and opportunities that can positively affect their sense of hope and possibility for the future.
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Cynthia Sipe, Ph.D.
Cindy is an independent consultant who works with non-profit organizations and school districts to evaluate programs and reform efforts. Through the application of rigorous research methods, she assists program operators to assess the quality and effectiveness of their programs and improve service delivery to youth participants. She has conducted extensive research on mentoring programs, authoring or co-authoring several reports including: Mentoring School-Age Children: Relationship Development in Community-Based and School-Based Programs; Mentoring: A Synthesis of P/PV's Research: 1988-1995; Mentoring Adolescents: What Have We Learned?; and two evaluation reports on the Digital Heroes Campaign, an electronic mentoring program. She is a member of MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership's Task Force on Accountability; works with local mentoring programs on evaluation issues; conducts independent evaluations of mentoring and other youth development programs; and frequently conducts presentations and workshops on mentoring research and evaluation.

In addition to research on mentoring programs, Cindy is a Senior Research Consultant affiliated with Youth Development Strategies, Inc. (www.YDSI.org), a national non-profit research, evaluation and technical assistance organization that helps communities improve long-term outcomes for their youth. YDSI is currently assisting several youth-serving agencies across the country with a data-driven organizational change process guided by the Community Action Framework for Youth Development. Cindy served as part of the team that developed this framework, conducting literature reviews and secondary data analysis to document evidence supporting the framework. She was a major contributor to the resulting publication: Finding Out What Matters to Youth: Testing Key Links in a Community Action Framework for Youth Development.

During her tenure with Public/Private Ventures, Cindy was the principal investigator for an evaluation of the San Francisco Beacons Initiative, which focused on using schools to provide after-school programming and social services to youth and families residing in poor neighborhoods. From 1996 through 1999, she directed the research on one of P/PV’s primary demonstration projects Community Change for Youth Development (CCYD) and co-authored Support for Youth: A Profile of Three Communities.

Cindy was a member of P/PV's research department from 1986 to 1993; spent two years as Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Assessment and Policy Development (CAPD); and rejoined P/PV in Summer 1995. While at CAPD, Cindy was responsible for analyses of (and co-authoring a report on) the effects of school-within-school programs on the academic performance of ninth graders in the Philadelphia public schools. She was also the principal investigator of a study of school-based services for adolescent parents and their children and co-author of two reports on this research.

During her initial term with P/PV, as Director of Quantitative Research, Cindy was responsible for the design and for overall management of longitudinal research projects–including the random assignment impact study of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America. She oversaw P/PV's Adult/Youth Relationships Demonstration Project; coordinated the extensive research conducted in conjunction with the Summer Training and Education Program (STEP) demonstration, serving as primary author on four STEP research reports; and served as project director on P/PV's evaluation of the Campus Partners in Learning program, a mentoring project that paired at-risk middle school youth with college students.

Cindy holds a B.A. from Carleton College and an M.A. from Indiana University; she earned her Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University in 1985.
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Nitika Tolani, Ph.D
Nitika holds a B.A. in English and a B.S. in Psychology from Santa Clara University, as well as an M.A. in Applied Psychology from Columbia University, where her research and training focused on the critical role of public policy in shaping the lives of low-income families. She earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology (with a concentration in International Education Policy) from Columbia University in 2007. In addition to her doctoral work, Nitika was a Graduate Research Fellow at the National Center for Children and Families (NCCF), co-directed by Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Ph.D. and Sharon Lynn Kagan, Ed.D.

Over the past 10 years, Nitika has participated in large-scale qualitative and quantitative studies at every level, including grantwriting and budget development, research design and implementation, management of data collection activities, and synthesis and publication of results. She has taken numerous classes in advanced research methods and statistics, including psychological assessment, applied econometrics (e.g. cost -benefit analyses), latent structure analysis and hierarchical linear modeling, in order to learn to investigate the complex processes of child development through empirical research. In addition, her professional experiences at The World Bank, UNICEF-India and Metis Associates, an independent educational consulting organization, have provided her with significant project management and supervisory experience.

Christopher Toward
Chris has more than thirteen years of experience helping nonprofit organizations and businesses develop and improve programs, fundraising, marketing and communications.

Most recently Chris completed a disaster-planning guide for a network of 400 Lutheran schools, parishes and social service agencies in the New York City area. The guide is currently being reviewed for national adoption by thousands of Lutheran institutions. Before this project, Chris served as director of New York Cares September 11th disaster recovery program. In this capacity, he was responsible for the public outreach that provided more than 8,000 volunteers to serve at Ground Zero and citywide. Chris also coordinated the assistance provided to 50 social service and government agencies.

At the Philanthropic Resource Center, Chris served as Director of Marketing and Client Relations, managing service to twenty Fortune 500 corporate philanthropy programs, including AT&T, Verizon, Lucent Technologies, Citigroup and Fleet. His previous work at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) allowed Toward to provide hundreds of nonprofit and grantmaking organizations with guidance on charitable programs and philanthropic trends. He spearheaded development of five fundraising products and marketed them to colleges, universities and corporate philanthropy departments nationwide. He has published numerous articles on philanthropy, as well as three editions of Details, an annual guide to corporate charitable giving programs used by thousands of fundraisers and grant makers.

Chris' market promotion activities have also extended abroad as well. At the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a federal agency, Chris worked on trade investment missions to India, Sri Lanka and El Salvador. He subsequently served with the Foreign Commercial Service at the U.S. Embassy in Paris, promoting American business opportunities in France.

Chris' experience in international affairs also includes work at the Council on Foreign Relations and the United States House of Representatives. He received a BA in International Relations from the University of San Diego and did his graduate work in International Economic Policy at the American University's School of International Service in Washington, DC.
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Dario Veraldi
Dario has been teaching adventure education to at-risk youth since 1992. With a background in environmental science, Dario worked in the Education Department of the Central Park Conservancy teaching urban park ecology before moving into experiential education. Dario was instrumental in developing the Park's adventure-based youth programs, including Ascent, a multi-day climbing and leadership program for at-risk adolescents.

Trained by Project Adventure, Dario's professional experience has included program and facility management, consulting, professional development, course design and instruction, and years of direct service work with youth from under-served communities. Dario is also a certified Wilderness First Responder and New York State Licensed Rock Climbing Guide. A native Argentine, Dario is bilingual, and has climbed extensively in Patagonia as well as the North Eastern United States.
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Emily West, M.A.
Emily is a senior evaluation consultant with over 10 years of research and evaluation experience within the social service and educational sectors. Emily has extensive experience with survey design, conducting focus groups & administering surveys, performing advanced data analysis, writing reports & presenting findings, as well as providing needs assessments to clients regarding how best to organize, collect and present program and participant data.

Emily’s professional and academic background covers a broad array of research areas including youth development (teen pregnancy prevention and juvenile delinquency), education (after-school programs, evaluation of summer school in the New York City public school system, use of technology in the classroom, etc.) and crime policy (prisoner re-entry, reducing recidivism, restorative justice, and crime prevention).