Director, Risk Management and Regulatory Compliance
@ Syracuse University

Michaele DeHart is the director of risk management and regulatory compliance with Syracuse University and board secretary for Orange Insurance Company, LLC. She is responsible for assisting leadership in implementing an overall approach to risk financing based on the results of risk assessments, research, and analysis of business processes around the organization. Prior to joining Syracuse University in 2003, she was employed by Progressive Insurance, where she worked in personal lines claims. Michaele holds a BA in liberal arts from Syracuse University.

Associate Vice President & Director, Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public and Community Service
@ Syracuse University

Pamela Kirwin Heintz is the founding director (1994) of the Mary Ann Shaw Center for Public and Community Service (Shaw Center) and associate vice president for engagement at Syracuse University (SU). As part of academic affairs, the Shaw Center collaborates with multiple campus, community, and higher education stakeholders to develop and sustain complex reciprocal partnerships that meet the learning outcomes/research goals of the academy and the needs of the community.
Under Pamela’s direction, Syracuse University was nationally designated with Carnegie’s Community Engagement Classification in Curricular and Outreach – Partnerships in 2006. Syracuse University has been recognized on the President’s Higher Education Honor Roll with Distinction for Community Service and received one of three Presidential Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll Special Focus Area Awards. She is a founding member of the New York Campus Compact, the state affiliate for higher education’s national coalition, Campus Compact.

Pamela has experience as an elected and appointed public official. She received her Master’s in Public Administration from the Maxwell School for Citizenship and Public Policy at Syracuse University.

Director, Risk Management
@ University of LaVerne

Alex Soto is the Director of Risk Management for the University of La Verne. He is responsible for the mission of the Risk Management Department which is to reduce exposures to fortuitous losses to the greatest extent possible and to reduce the unanticipated financial impact of those losses to the University, its employees, students, and visitors. The Office of Risk Management is a resource to the University in the areas of general risk management (risk identification and control), loss prevention and control, claims management, and risk transfer through purchasing insurance and contractual agreements. He is also a part-time professional ski patroller involved in mountain rescue and certified in risk management in the snow sports industry. Alex holds a BA in Economics and Business from Westmont College and an MBA from Azusa Pacific University.

 Director for Environmental Health, Safety & Risk Management
@ CSU Monterey Bay

Amy Thomas is the Director for Environmental Health, Safety & Risk Management at California State University, Monterey Bay and has a Master’s of Public Administration. She has over 25 years of experience with safety in higher education including: risk and insurance management, occupational safety, environmental health, business continuity, emergency management, and crime prevention.

Founder and Co-Director
@ Omprakash

Willy Oppenheim is an educator, a researcher, and the leader of a social enterprise that works to facilitate relationships, dialogue, and learning between change agents around the world. Willy came up with the initial idea for Omprakash (www.omprakash.org) at the age of eighteen, after serving as a volunteer English teacher in northern India in 2004. The organization began as a platform connecting volunteers with social impact organizations, and has evolved to include a crowdfunding platform and an online learning ecosystem (Omprakash EdGE) that helps students grapple with the complexity of crossing differences of culture and power with the intention of ‘doing good.’ Willy attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he completed a self-designed major in religion, education, and anthropology, and went on to earn his doctorate in Education as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. His Ph.D. research focused on demand for girls’ schooling in rural Pakistan. His broader research interests concern the ways in which ideas and norms pertaining to justice and ‘development’ are produced and contested through formal and informal processes of education. Willy has worked in classrooms in the United States, India, Pakistan, and China, and in the wilderness as a faculty member at the National Outdoor Leadership School. He lives in Seattle and teaches intermittently at the University of Washington alongside his ongoing leadership of Omprakash. Willy strives to live by Kahlil Gibran’s maxim that ‘work is love made visible,’ but when he is not working, Willy also enjoys rock climbing, telemark skiing, poetry, flyfishing, playing guitar, and baking bread.

Associate Director, James Madison Center for Civic Engagement
@ James Madison University

Dr. Carah Ong Whaley is Associate Director of the James Madison Center for Civic Engagement at James Madison University where she works in partnership with students, faculty, staff, and community partners to embed civic learning and democratic engagement across campus through curricular and co-curricular programming.

Carah has developed innovative pedagogy melding scholarship and experiential learning to teach courses on civic engagement, campaigns and elections, and state and local politics. At the heart of her research interests is a desire to understand and illuminate how the interactions of political actors and institutions structure public access and participation in policy- and decision-making processes. Her dissertation explored the politics of cleaning up the environmental contamination that resulted from the testing, development, and production of nuclear weapons, with a focus on the role of community-based groups in developing expertise and engaging the public in policy- and decision-making processes.

Carah has previously worked at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and in the Governing America in a Global Era (GAGE) program at the Miller Center for Public Affairs. From 1999-2012, she worked as a research and program director for non-governmental organizations on nuclear and security issues and traveled around the world to engage with communities on these issues.

Carah holds a PhD in American Government and an MA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. Recent research and publications include American Government: Roots and Reform (co-authored chapters with Dr. Larry Sabato on Political Parties, Campaigns, Elections and Voting, and The Media). With Dr. Walter Heinecke, she is co-editing a new book series on “Research in Global Civic Engagement” (Forthcoming, Information Age Press).

Newman Civic Fellow
@ James Madison University

Aaliyah McLean is a Community Engagement and Outreach Fellow at the James Madison Center for Civic Engagement. She is a fourth-year student studying Media Arts and Design with a concentration in Journalism at James Madison University. Along with her major, she double minors in both Sociology and Political Communication. In addition to her studies, Aaliyah is the President of the Student Government Association at JMU and a Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellow. She was the Revitalizing President of Women of Color in 2017 and 2018, a Spring 2018 Initiate of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated ®, and a council member on the Women of Madison Council. In her free time, Aaliyah loves to watch movies, shop locally, and spend time outside.

Democracy Fellow
@ James Madison University

Ethan Gardner is the Virginia State Politics Fellow for the James Madison Center for Civic Engagement. He is a Senior majoring in Political Science with minors in Public Policy and Administration and Honors Interdisciplinary Studies. In addition to his work with the Center, he is Chair of the Legislative Affairs Committee for the JMU Student Government Association and a Brother of the Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity.

Program Planner/Doctoral Student, Ed.D. Program Development
@ University of South Florida

Dustin Krein, M.Ed., is a Program Planner in the Office of Community Engagement and Partnerships (OCEP) at the University of South Florida. His work in OCEP contributes to stronger ties with Tampa Bay community organizations and has been recognized as such. In April 2019, Dustin received the Community Hall of Fame Award from The Skills Center, a nonprofit in Tampa’s Uptown committed to youth development. Mr. Krein serves in a key role facilitating partnerships with organizations, serves as liaison with the College of Education, oversees the office’s Community-Based Federal Work-Study program and serves on multiple community boards as a representative of the University. Additionally, he is a doctoral student at USF, pursuing an Ed.D. in Program Development with an emphasis in Educational Innovation to strengthen and advance his knowledge and expertise for student success in higher education. Dustin is currently investigating the relationship between male student success and community-based practices for his dissertation.

Director of Field and Clinical Education
@ University of South Florida

Laura Sabella serves as the Director of Field and Clinical Education since 2019. She has served as a visiting instructor and as the Coordinator for Secondary Clinical Experiences in the College of Education since 2016. An educator with more than 25 years of experience, Dr. Sabella’s research examines the role of new and pre-service teachers as they support adolescents on the autism spectrum in the English Language Arts classroom. Her research interests also include understanding how teacher candidates negotiate the transition from student to secondary content teacher, the intersection of student exceptionality and final internships, the role of the university supervisor in the field, and partnerships in secondary schools. She is currently working on a project to understand the importance of teacher candidates serving underserved children through tutoring.