The ENGAGE Team serves as a central coordinating team for a network that extends throughout the United States and beyond.
ENGAGE National Office (Washington, DC)
Shintaro Doi, National Coordinator
Shintaro hails from Tokyo, Japan. While attending Georgetown University, he majored in Science, Technology, and International Affairs with a concentration in Environmental Studies. He studied abroad at CIEE-Thailand in the fall of 2005 and returned there as an intern in 2007-2008.
Since moving back to serve as a National Coordinator for ENGAGE in the summer of 2008, he has been working on building a local ENGAGE presence in Washington, DC. Currently that involves setting up a student-worker solidarity program between Georgetown University and immigrant day laborers. With Georgetown's recently launched Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, Shintaro hopes to build an experience for students that is modeled after programs like CIEE-Thailand; enabling students to learn directly from workers and organize themselves to be effective allies. He continues to deepen his commitment to connecting local organizing efforts with global movements for social justice, and is excited about supporting ENGAGE members in doing the same.
Click
here to email Shintaro (select Shintaro from the drop-down menu).
Mandy Skinner, National Coordinator
Mandy started as a National Coordinator in September 2009. She first got involved with ENGAGE in 2006, focusing on outreach to study abroad programs and ally organizations to expand the network. As an ENGAGE Board of Peers member for two years (2007-2009), she has also helped organize two annual convergences. Mandy is from the Midwest and brings experience as a student activist and community organizer, mostly around labor rights, Latin American solidarity, forest protection, and ecology and food systems education. She brings additional experience in popular education and organization building from her work with the Beehive Design Collective from 2004-2006.
Mandy graduated from Indiana University in 2003 with a double degree in Theater and Drama and Anthropology/Human Ecology. While in college, she studied abroad in Mexico through the Center for Global Education. She's returned to Mexico several times since, and has also traveled and studied in Central America and Brazil.
Click
here to email Mandy (select Mandy from the drop-down menu).
Board of Peers
The Board of Peers is a representative body of ENGAGE members responsible for advising larger-scale ENGAGE Campaigns and funding projects, as well as for helping to steer other major organizational decisions. The Board of Peers oversees organizational milestones and progress, and ensures organizational continuity and the integrity of institutional and organizational relationships.
Click here to contact the Board of Peers.
Kyra Busch (2008-2010), New Haven, CT
Kyra has been involved with ENGAGE since 2002. Having worked for a variety of NGOs, including ENGAGE, both abroad and in the United States, Kyra is excited to bring her enthusiasm and experience to the Board of Peers. Most recently, Kyra organized around issues of tribal food sovereignty for the White Earth Land Recovery Project in the White Earth Nation (in northern Minnesota), before leaving to pursue a Master's degree in Environmental Science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She is currently developing a farm-based educational curriculum for the Yale Sustainable Food Project that may be adopted by the State of Connecticut and is busy teaching students about the wonders of sun, soil, and salad.
Phil Mangis (2009-2012), Amherst, MA
Phil has been affiliated with ENGAGE since Fall 2003, when he was a student on the CIEE-Thailand study abroad program. After graduating from Beloit College in 2005, Phil returned to CIEE-Thailand to work as an intern but ended up staying for another four years! During his time in Thailand, he served as the Intern Coordinator for CIEE and worked with interns and students to develop their facilitation, group process, and social action research skills. Phil also spent one year living in the province of Kalasin developing an alternative agriculture curriculum with former SE Asia Via Campesina representative, Bamrung Kayotha. Phil is now at UMass Amherst pursing a Master's degree in Education at the Center for International Education. In the future, he would like to operate his own learning center, but in the meantime he will be looking for ways to build collaborative relationships between study abroad providers and writing about the potential of transformative education for social change.
Cash Nigro (2008-2011), Portland, OR
Cash has been a member of ENGAGE since the Fall of 2005, when she was student of the CIEE-Thailand study abroad program. She then returned to Khon Kaen as a Program Facilitator for the 2007-2008 school year. As the Northwest Co-regional Coordinator, she helped plan the Portland, Oregon leg of the 2006 Fair Trade Rice Tour and the 2008 Food Justice Tour. In 2008, Cash graduated from Portland State University with a B.A. in Anthropology. She now works with The Pangaea Project, a leadership development and social justice education program for low-income youth in the Portland area. She is also the volunteer coordinator for a day laborer empowerment and rights advocacy organization called Voz Worker's Rights Education Project. Cash's future plans include studying for her Master's degree in Social Work, working with grassroots social justice organizations, and traveling the world.
Ellen Roggeman (2008-2011), San Francisco, CA
Ellen passionately devotes her time to growing and cooking food, teaching people how to do the same, and building links between consumers and their local farmers. Along with taking produce to market for local farms, she helps cultivate the land at Alemany Farm, a 4.5 acre volunteer-run farm in San Francisco's underserved Hunter's Point neighborhood. In 2009, she founded RadicalRadish.org, organizing community food events with the goal of connecting urban residents to the excitement of the seasonal produce and farms that surround their city. During her time with ENGAGE, Ellen helped establish the San Francisco office (former ENGAGE headquarters), co-organized the Fair Trade Rice Campaign, published articles in online and print publications, and worked with communities in Thailand as a CIEE Program Facilitator. She joined the Board of Peers in 2008, where she is applying her experience as an ENGAGE staff member, general member, and study abroad ally.
Stephanie Teatro (2008-2011), Seattle, WA
Stephanie is based in Seattle, where she recently graduated from the University of Washington. She was a student on the Spring 2007 CIEE-Thailand program, and remained with the program as a Program Facilitator for the following year. While in Thailand, Stephanie worked on the early stages of the ESCR Report Project (Economic/Social/Cultural Rights), with both Thai and US students. Joining the Board upon her return home in the summer of 2008, Stephanie has been involved with several ENGAGE projects. In the summer of 2008, Stephanie worked as an intern for the Spartanburg Educators for Empowered Communities in Spartanburg, S.C., supporting local organizing started by fellow ENGAGEr and past Board member, Allyn Steele. From Seattle, she helped to organize the Food Justice Tour in fall 2008, the Urban People's Movement Exchange with Kovit Boonjear in 2008-2009, and the Anti-Oppression Workshop conducted at the 2009 ENGAGE Convergence. In Seattle, Stephanie's academic work and activism have been centered around immigration reform and labor activism.
Chris Westcott (2008-2010), New York City, NY
Chris has been involved with ENGAGE in many capacities since 2003, including serving as a National Coordinator in the ENGAGE office from 2005-2008. Chris is currently pursuing a Master's degree in International Education and Development at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York City, and is excited about taking a number of ENGAGE-related projects and ideas to academia. Chris coordinates a community internship program at Teachers College to place Columbia graduate students in paid internships with community-based organizations and Title 1 public schools in New York City. He is also involved in various community organizing efforts in New York City that are focused on affordable housing and gentrification.
Organizational Advisors
Li Misner, Technology Advisor; Webmaster/Listserv Moderator
If you have any inquiries about the ENGAGE website, click here to contact Li Misner.
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