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Dr. D. Michael Shafer, Ph.D., President
Dr. Shafer (BA Yale, Ph.D. Harvard) is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and Director of the Rutgers Center for Global Security and Democracy. He has published widely in foreign policy and international political economy, and has taught at universities around the world. Dr. Shafer is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a 21st Century Fellow. With funding from, inter alia, the Department of State and European Union, he has managed higher education reform initiatives in the Baltic states, Central and Eastern Europe, and Lebanon.
Dr. Shafer is the founder of Global PACT, an international community development and civic engagement training program. With funding from Ford, Open Society Institute, Prudential and the United States Institute of Peace, Global PACT has worked around the world and is currently conducting programs in Brazil, Cambodia, Croatia, South Africa and Thailand.
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Mayor Meryl Frank, Vice President
Since becoming Mayor in 2000, Meryl Frank has forged what New Jersey’s leading newspaper calls "the Highland Park Model" for ethics and good government and set the standard for other municipalities in innovative methods of delivering municipal services. Mayor Frank pioneered smart growth planning with the ambitious Highland Park 2020, which focuses on creating a community that is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable. Mayor Frank was awarded the League of Municipalities' Innovation in Governance Award for HP2020 and was named the 2005 Environmental Leader of the year by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. To sustain these efforts, she has raised over $14 million from federal, state, county, private and corporate sources.
Beyond Highland Park, Meryl authored the federal Family and Medical Leave Act signed by President Clinton in January of 1993 and the New Jersey Family Leave Act signed by Governor Kean in 1989. She has served on the National Board of the Democratic National Committee's Women's Leadership Forum and is the Democratic Co-Chair of the Bipartisan Commission on the Appointment of Women. Mayor Frank is the National President of the Women's Division of the American Jewish Congress.
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Evelind Schecter, Treasurer
Treasurer, is Director, Specialized Business Support Services at Merck and Company, Inc. Born in Japan and raised in Japan, Hong Kong and the Soviet Union, she has also had a long career in international business and consulting. With over twenty five years in business management, she brings experience in computer automation and technology start-ups.
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Dr. Gabriela Ferreira, MD, Secretary
Dr. Ferreira is clinical assistant professor of medicine at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and internist at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ. Born in Mozambique, educated at Dartmouth Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, and with experience in the Cambodian refugee camps, she brings experience in community practice and the perspective of community-based medicine to the Warm Heart project.
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Ambassador Morton Abramowitz (Ret.)
Ambassador Abramowitz is a Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation. He retired in 1997 as President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and from the State Department in 1991. Ambassador Abramowitz also served recently as Acting President of the International Crisis Group - a multinational, non-governmental organization headquartered in Brussels and Washington, focusing on crisis prevention.
Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment in August 1991, he was Ambassador to Turkey. He has also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, United States Ambassador to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Negotiations in Vienna, Ambassador to Thailand, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Inter-American, East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, and Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State. He also served in Hawaii as political advisor to the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific.
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Kathryn Seigel Levine
Kathryn Seigel Levine is co-founder and partner in Forcefield Productions, a private film and video production company. She is a broadcast media professional with over 500 hours of first-run nationally syndicated television credits and has created, supervised and delivered over 2,000 episodes of daytime television programming. Among her credits are creator and executive producer, Texas Justice, executive producer, The Christopher Lowell Show, executive producer, Forgive or Forget, and producer, The Ricki Lake Show. She is a member of the Board of African Film Workshop.
