Tracy Bourke has a passion for bringing stakeholders together to create value and impact. Tracy was born in Melbourne, Australia, where she grew up in the diverse suburbs south of the city.
She graduated top of her class and went on to complete degrees in business from Melbourne University and applied finance from Monash down the road. She started her career at Ernst & Young's office in Melbourne before moving across the world to New York to join the team's innovation and digital practices. She has led projects looking at digital transformation work for a range of fortune 500 companies, and has a passion for creating accessible banking products and financial literacy.
Tracy recently completed her executive MBA at Stern, NYU, and was named by poets and quants as one of the "best and brightest" EMBAs of the year.
Carmen Avcioglu
Carmen Avcioglu was born and raised in Puerto Rico where she became a pharmacist.Looking to expand her professional and personal horizons she moved to Boston,MA during her mid-twenties. She has continued her career as a pharmacist in a number of diverse areas in the fields like Hospital,Pharmaceutical Sales, HIV Specialty Pharmacist, Home Infusion and latest as Community Pharmacist. Her biggest belief is about patient care and wellbeing. It has been a challenge to practice her career in a for profit healthcare system. Nowadays she is looking for her third Act.
Asi-Yahola Boutelle
I’ve been committed to social justice and activism my whole life, a calling nurtured by my family, my San Francisco Bay Area upbringing, and my time with Professor Sherman Teichman. I first met Sherman following the EPIIC Program in the 2002 Global Inequities Symposium, at the Global Health Inequity panel. It was here where I also met another long-time mentor of mine, Dr. Paul Farmer, after putting a fellow panelist of his who represented a pharmaceutical company in the hot seat during Q&A at the sophomoric age of 18. Following the 2002 EPIIC symposium, I became intrigued by this fascinating program and educational format, which led me to join the Sovereignty & Intervention EPIIC Colloquim the following year. Sherman would also introduce me to a beloved mentor of mine and fellow Convisero mentor, Dr. Sousan Abadian. I worked with Dr. Abadian in my junior and senior years, doing research on Indigenous Peoples in America and the use of culturally based treatment modalities to combat intergenerational trauma and oppression. I went on from Tufts to earn Master’s Degrees in Bioethics, Biomedical Sciences, and Business Administration, and I’m currently completing my fourth Master’s Degree in Public Health. I’ve researched and written on topics from Indigenous public health, to novel ways to fight antimicrobial resistance, heart disease, and global health. I’ve also published my research on the impact of climate change on kidney disease in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases. I currently work for a non-profit in Upstate New York doing community development and case management work while raising my two beautiful children. My ultimate goal is to practice clinical medicine, which I will work towards after completing my Public Health Degree.
Erica Goldstein
Erica Goldstein is a palliative medicine physician at North Shore University working within an interdisciplinary team that specializes in serious illness across a breadth of clinical conditions. She has particular interests in care coordination and accessibility, health policy and management, physician engagement, global partnerships, social medicine, and diversity and inclusion within the health field.
Her training includes medical school at NYU Langone, emergency medicine residency at McGovern Medical School (formerly known as the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston), and palliative medicine fellowship at NYU Winthrop. She took time between years in medical school to complete a Master of Public Administration degree in Health Policy and Management at the NYU Wagner School of Public Service, which developed her skills of managing and working within teams, conducting program analysis and evaluation, communicating patients’ needs to essential decision-makers and stakeholders, and understanding the business of medicine.
In the emergency department, she worked in what is often the gateway to the US healthcare system at the height of the COVID epidemic in Houston, which was one of the cities that was hardest hit. During that time, she was in the EMRA Leadership Academy and completed the Texas College of Emergency Physicians Leadership and Advocacy Fellowship. The latter, she sat in on board meetings of an organization with over 2000 members and proposed and founded the Diversity and Health Equity (DIHE) task force. These experiences provided insight to the world of organizational medicine and policy change. Within her residency training program, she also had roles as Vice Chair of Administration and Vice Chair of Community Engagement. She has written multiple pieces for the EM Resident + Policy Prescriptions Journal Club and for SheMD and was awarded the EMRA FIX Travel Scholarship to attend the FemInEM Idea Exchange (FIX) in 2020, which unfortunately was cancelled due to COVID.
She looks forward to continuing to serve patients and their families within the hospital and bolstering education around symptom management and ensuring that patients' care is aligned with their values and preferences. Down the road, she has ideas of making transparent the realities of people with serious illness to advocate on their behalf and to help others better understand what to expect when they or their loved ones fall ill.
Outside of work, Erica enjoys traveling, learning about other cultures, reading, writing, hiking, dance, music, and theater.
Meg Grieve
I am a rising senior at Tufts University pursuing a degree in International Relations and Arabic. I was born in Northern California, raised for the most part in Washington, D.C., but moved around a lot between the two, having lived in 13 houses by the time I graduated high school. Not quite ready to settle in one place for college, I took a gap year to move to Rabat, Morocco where I took language classes, lived with a host family, and volunteered to teach English, until COVID hit, forcing me to return home. Having played soccer my whole life, it wasn’t until one afternoon in a back alley of Marrakech when I stumbled upon a group of kids kicking around a soccer ball that I understood the extent of the global nature of the game and its ability to bring any two humans together. Since then, I have been interested in conflict resolution and the advancement of women’s rights through sports.
On campus, I am President of the Middle East Research Group (MERG) under the IGL and serve as captain of the Tufts University Women’s Football Club. With MERG I traveled to Cyprus to conduct research on education policies for refugee children. Additionally, I helped put on symposiums on Freedom of The Press and the United States’ pullout of Afghanistan, along with smaller panels and weekly current events discussions.
I just finished a semester at the University of Jordan on a full immersion program where I took classes, explored the country, and volunteered at Squash Dreamers, an organization that provides the opportunity for young refugee girls to play squash and learn English. I am currently an Oslo Scholar, working for the Centre for Applied NonViolent Action and Strategies, completing weekly country reports and researching fundraising strategies for global pro-democracy movements. Through the scholar’s program, I was able to attend the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway this June, connecting with activists and dissidents from around the world.
I was connected with Sherman through Grace Spalding-Fecher, a recent Tufts alumni and former Trebuchet intern. I am honored to be a part of this community and excited to work with Sherman and the rest of the Trebuchet team on our many overlapping interests.
Sandenna McMaster
In 2021, I graduated from Lewis & Clark College, where I received a degree in International Relations with a concentration in the Middle East and Northern Africa region. On campus, I served as the co-chair for the 59th Lewis & Clark International Affairs Symposium: “System Shocks: Finding Clarity in a Chaotic World”. I was also an active participant in the French Club, the College Outdoors program, and the Botany club. During my studies, I had several external opportunities to conduct research projects surrounding humanitarian conflict resolution, environmental sustainability and agricultural adaptation, policy implementation and tribal conflicts in Western Africa. Originally from Alaska and a dual citizen of France and the United States, I had the chance to grow up with diverse narratives from the communities surrounding me. This instilled in me an understanding of the power of perspective, cross-cultural collaboration, and the interconnectedness of the issues our systems face today.
Through my academic and professional career, I sought every opportunity to explore the world – to interact with diverse cultures and environments. In 2016, I founded a project to finance and deliver educational supplies of over 150 children in the coastal village of Gomoa Fetteh, Ghana. In the summer of 2017, I researched and collaborated with an advocacy group in Ollantaytambo, Peru to fund the building of a primary school in the remote, mountainous village of Willoc Alto. Through these experiences, I not only continued to grow my passion for global development, but also challenged myself to see how and by what means others interact with the world around them.
After graduating, I followed my interest in conflict analysis and mitigation and began working as a research assistant in Paris, focusing on the concepts of memory, vengeance, and retributive justice in conflict. I then worked as a paralegal for the International Arbitration team at Bird & Bird LLP, focusing on Middle Eastern and North African arbitral cases. Here, I have gained the necessary technical knowledge on international law, and the mechanisms at work behind international negotiations, treaties, and relations.
Throughout my travels and the different places I have lived, I have been able to keep my connection to my hometown of Palmer, Alaska strong through my favorites hobbies: climbing (both on rock and ice), hiking, snowboarding, and backpacking.
Meeting through a mutual friend, I have had the pleasure and privilege to get to know Sherman Teichman, and in turn, this incredible community he has created. Joining the Trebuchet fills me with both a sense of great pride and of greater responsibility; it serves not only as a network of inspiring global actors, but a wholly necessary conduit for multidisciplinary connections and collaborations that ignite innovative projects for a prosperous future.
Shaharris Beh
Shaharris is the founder and Supreme Commander (actual title) of NeedList.ORG, a tech charity that helps shelters get free groceries delivered weekly.
Recently, during the 2021 pandemic, he helped launch Taco Bell in Malaysia as Head of Marketing and Technology; as of November 2023, there are 22 outlets.
Most of his professional life was spent as founder and CEO of HackerNest, a global nonprofit that produced 1200+ tech events (hackathons, tech socials, innovation trainings, job fairs, etc.) in 65+ cities with partners including the US/UK/Canadian governments, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Stanford, Harvard, Dove, Deloitte, Grindr, Airbnb, banks, law firms, and hundreds others. He raised ~$4m in sponsorship and was a prolific speaker, advisor, and consultant for numerous public and private sector organizations. In 2016, he received the Institute for Global Leadership's Boryana Damyanova Award for Corporate Social Responsibility for his work on HackerNest.
Past career blips include:
- founding a VC-backed tech startup alongside a web development firm to fund it and a coworking space to house it
- working with the UNDP on HIV/AIDS
- copywriting for DDB
- private equity financial analysis for Centaur Capital Partners
- voice acting for cartoons
At Tufts, he was a member of the EPIIC 2001-2 colloquium on Global Inequities, the Chair of the TCU Judiciary, a member of the International Relations Director's Leadership Council, a campus resident advisor, and a women's self-defense instructor.
Trivia: Shaharris was the "before and after" guy in a Head & Shoulders commercial, went to 11 schools in 10 years, and used to build and donate computers to shelters as a hobby.
Ayan Ahmed Holmberg
Ayan Ahmed Holmberg is from Mogadishu, Somalia.
She started working for UNICEF during the civil war in Somalia. She relocated to Nairobi where she worked for UNDP Somalia War Torn Societies project, The BBC, UN HABITAT in South Sudan, INGO Progressive Interventions in Somaliland & Steadman Research Group. All of this work in the horn of Africa was realized while raising three kids and relocating to Khartoum, Islamabad, Boston, Addis Ababa etc. Ayan currently lives in the Boston area and works at Beth Israel Lahey Health.
John Barrengos
John feels blessed for his spouse, Kate Knopp, whose patience for his energy is almost without limit. Their hearts are filled with their children, Acadia and Eliot. John still manages to do some singing and strives to embrace and remain grumpy about the aging process.
On the professional side, after working as a commercial banker to schools, hospitals, and non-profits, John began his career serving independent schools in 1990, when he served as development director at his alma mater, Moses Brown School (RI). John served as Associate Director of CITYterm, an experiential semester program at The Masters School (NY), as director of summer programs and leadership education at Miss Porter's School (CT), and as Head of School at The Independent Day School, a PK-8th grade day school in CT. At IDS, he strengthened educational design through increased collaborative teaching and substantiated assessment practices and he refinanced and renovated the campus. Since 2013, John has served as Director of Admission & Financial Aid at the Putney School (VT), one of the most progressive boarding schools in the U.S..
John has been invested in service to non-profits, most especially schools. John currently serves as a trustee for the Small Boarding Schools Association and for High Meadow Farm (NH); his former board service includes boarding and day schools, national educational, and local arts organizations. John earned his Ed. D. in Organizations and Leadership from Columbia University Teachers College.
Jeff Golden
My dream is to one day be a Czech parachutist or a Haitian human rights activist (per Sherm’s email ;)). In the meanwhile, though, I have followed my passion and my heart, and I have been richly rewarded. Not always the way I hoped. OK, basically never the way I hoped. But with lots of joy and beauty and magic on the one hand, and also lots of pain and heartbreak and more magic on the other.
I’ve spent a good portion of the last twelve years researching and writing a book, and have been richly rewarded. It won the Grand Prize at the Nautilus Book Awards this year. Previous winners include the Dalai Lama, Barbara Kingsolver, and Thich Nhat Hanh.
Reclaiming the Sacred is a vital asset for anyone concerned about the global climate disaster or the vast environmental destruction being caused by humans worldwide. This book explores the cultural and psychological underpinnings of the materialism that are driving much of this destruction.
The book explores the psychology of happiness--those factors that really do contribute to human well-being—far more than money and possessions—and it explores the psychology of money--the ways that money nonetheless hooks so many of us. It explores the immense costs of materialism, in particular global warming, and it points the way beyond materialism, toward healthy and integrated relationships with ourselves, each other, and nature.
But it’s also so much more than that—a deep dive into love and belonging and spirit. I highly recommend it! :)
Fodder for conversation: No more flying for me. Two intentional communities. Founding a community organization in response to the murder of an incarcerated mentally ill black man by corrections officers in a state prison very close to home. Vegan. Finding my birth mother when I was 38. A wonderful romance spanning four continents, then a 16-year marriage, and then a painful implosion and divorce. Two luminous children. The greenest USGBC building in New York state. A truck converted to run on vegetable oil. A lost hiker trekking solo in the Amazon. A high school teacher. School bus driver.
Marni Chanoff
Dr. Marni Chanoff, Founder and CEO of Joy In Health, is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and Mclean Hospital, and she practices and teaches Integrative Psychiatry.
She completed residency at Harvard’s MGH/McLean Psychiatry Training Program, receiving the Mel Kayce Award for Excellence in Psychotherapy. She attended the University of Miami School of Medicine, where she graduated with research distinction and was honored as the most distinguished graduate in psychiatry.
She trained in ketamine assisted psychotherapy (KAP) with The Ketamine Training Center.
She completed her Ayurvedic studies at the Kripalu School of Ayurveda. and is certified as a culinary coach by Harvard’s Institute of Lifestyle Medicine.
She also completed fellowships at The MGH Center for Psychoanalytic Studies and Harvard University Health Services. Following her training, she joined the clinical faculty at McLean Hospital as Psychiatrist-in-Charge of the Schizophrenia and Bipolar Program. She then served as an Ellenhorn PACT Team Psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer.
She has been in private practice and consulting for several years and is now thrilled to be building Joy In Health, which she founded to inspire and empower people to work towards their health goals with support from a collaborative clinical team.
Jay Schnitzer
Jay J. Schnitzer is Senior Vice President, Corporate Chief Engineer, and Chief Medical Officer at The MITRE Corporation. As an M.D. board certified pediatric surgeon, Jay led early studies of pulmonary developmental anomalies. With a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, coupled with field experience in international and domestic disaster medical response, he co-led a national effort of over 1,000 private sector organizations to discover solutions to the current COVID-19 pandemic, building on his experience leading the Defense Sciences Office of DARPA.
As CMO he leads MITRE’s corporate and national initiatives in health and biological sciences, building coalitions leveraging the best talent across the nation in these areas. He created and directs two signature “moonshots”: 1) the Oncology–Standard Health Record moonshot to use electronic clinical data to derive clinical trial endpoints with the goal of reducing risk, cost, and length of time required for clinical trial execution (https://health.mitre.org/mcode/); and 2) the Quantum Information Science (QIS) moonshot to create major advances in quantum computing, sensing, and communications based solely on photons as quantum bits (https://www.mitre.org/quantum-moonshot). He co-led an assessment of NOAA scientific integrity policies and procedures as applied to Karl T, et al.: Possible Artifacts of Data Biases in the Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus, Science, 2015
(https://www.mitre.org/publications/technical-papers/assessment-of-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration). He led the writing and editing of the Integrated Report for the Independent Assessment performed in response to Section 201 of Veterans Choice Act in 2015, which became the blueprint for the VA MISSION Act of 2018, and organized and facilitated the associated Blue Ribbon Panel, which unanimously endorsed the Report (https://www.va.gov/opa/choiceact/documents/assessments/integrated_report.pdf). He co-chaired (with Dr. John D. Halamka, President of Mayo Clinic Platform) the COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition, https://c19hcc.org, which delivered products that were implemented and improved Covid outcomes in four areas: the COVID-19 supply chain, social policies (e.g., criteria for implementing non-pharmaceutical interventions), discovering novel data-driven clinical insights for therapeutics, and using technology to successfully harness the power of a large, pro-bono consortium of over 1,000 private sector organizations (COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition - Impact Report (c19hcc.org).
As CTO he directed MITRE’s independent internal research and development (R&D) program and oversees development of MITRE's corporate technology strategy, to 1) ensure a world-class internal R&D effort across multiple technology disciplines that supports the entire corporation; 2) deliver capabilities directly to government that will transform outcomes in six key federally-sponsored areas: healthcare, national security, aviation and transportation, commerce, veterans affairs, and cybersecurity; and 3) return value to the nation by transferring innovations to industry (Research Overview | The MITRE Corporation).
Before joining MITRE, Dr. Schnitzer was the Director of the Defense Sciences Office (DSO) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he led a team of 20 program managers and 70 support staff and oversaw research and development across multiple domains, from life sciences and biomedical research to quantum physics, including materials science, advanced mathematics, and engineering. He also expanded the portfolio of new programs, improved staff morale, and managed an annual budget of $460 million.
Formerly, Dr. Schnitzer led medical and clinical teams as chief medical officer at Boston Scientific Corporation. He provided medical and clinical oversight of the entire product lifecycle, including clinical trials for all medical devices manufactured by four business divisions: endoscopy, urology/women's health, neurovascular, and neuromodulation. He provided medical and clinical leadership that supported the successful sale of a $1 billion medical device division (neurovascular); oversaw and led the design and successful initiation of two new pre-market neuromodulation medical device clinical trials (an international trial for deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease and a US trial for occipital nerve stimulation for migraine); and championed successful acquisition and integration of a new business opportunity for first ever medical device therapy for asthma, including a successful clinical trial portfolio.
Earlier, Dr. Schnitzer held a staff appointment at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) as an attending pediatric surgeon, with a joint appointment at the Shriners Burns Hospital, and was a faculty member at Harvard Medical School. His research focus included: 1) studying the developmental molecular biology of abnormal lung growth and maturation in a mechanistic search for novel prenatal therapeutics for congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) as an NIH-funded investigator, and 2) exploring the interface between healthcare simulation and medical disaster preparedness and mass casualty response—a logical combination of his engineering background coupled with field experience in international and disaster medicine. At the MGH, he was the site miner for the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT). He supervised a six-member medical response team at Ground Zero for two weeks following the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, treating FDNY, NYPD, and Iron workers so that they were able to conduct continuous uninterrupted 24-hour search and rescue operations following the destruction of the twin towers. Subsequently, he led a mobile operating room surgical team for US response to the Bam, Iran earthquake in December 2003. In the laboratory, he demonstrated efficacy of prenatal glucocorticoid therapy to improve lung maturation in animal models of congenital diaphragmatic hernia.
Other credentials include: board certification (and recertification) in general surgery and pediatric surgery; Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (FAAP); provider and instructor in Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS), Advanced Burn Life Support (ABLS), and Advanced Trauma Operative Management (ATOM); and provider in Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS). Memberships in national and international societies include, among others, the American Surgical Association, Association for Academic Surgery, American Pediatric Surgical Association, Surgical Biology Club I, Boston Surgical Society, American Burn Association, New England Surgical Society, and the British Association of Pediatric Surgeons.
Dr. Schnitzer was born in Springfield, Massachusetts and attended public schools in Springfield and Longmeadow, MA, graduating from Longmeadow High School as class valedictorian and an Eagle Scout. In 1973, he graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts with a B.S. in chemical engineering (high distinction). In 1983 he received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an M.D. (cum laude) from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Schnitzer completed his residency training program in general surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston (1983-1988), one year performing trauma surgery in the Gaza Strip (1988-1989), and a fellowship in pediatric surgery at Children’s Hospital, Boston (1989-1991). His awards and honors include: the WPI Salisbury Prize Award in chemical engineering, the Von L. Meyer and Sydney Farber Awards from Children’s Hospital Boston, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security FEMA Under Secretary’s Award, the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Outstanding Achievement, the MITRE President’s Award, the WashingtonExec Pinnacle Awards 2020 Healthcare Industry Executive of the Year, and the 2023 FCW Fed100 Award.
He is married to Sara Roy, and they live in Boston, MA with their daughters Annie and Jess.
Alfonso Enriquez
Alfonso is a technologist with a passion for innovation. His collegiate journey at Tufts University was notably marked by his involvement with the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) and BUILD: Guatemala. These experiences deeply ingrained in him the transformative power of entrepreneurship and cooperative development, shaping his professional ethos.
One of the most cherished moments from his time in Guatemala was not solely the collective progress but also the lighter, human interactions—such as the humorous attempts at teaching children the Spanish pronunciation of "Google."
Alfonso's academic endeavors extended beyond the classroom, with research focused on the economic development and social entrepreneurship in Mexican rural communities and Cuba, underscoring his commitment to sustainable change. It was during his time with EPIIC that his interest in computer science began to crystallize, especially at the nexus of ethics and artificial intelligence in warfare.
After graduation and a significant period in the non-profit sector, Alfonso underwent a profound career transformation. He harnessed his entrepreneurial drive within the tech industry, founding Beam—a startup designed to revolutionize the telemedicine landscape by enabling doctors to launch their digital practices.
As a software engineer at Justworks, Alfonso is currently streamlining the process for small businesses to manage international workforces. His role is a harmonious blend of his belief in technology as a catalyst for good, promoting growth and opportunity.
Looking to the future, Alfonso is not only planning a life with his fiancée, Alexandra Flores-Quilty, but also a career trajectory where he can leverage the leadership lessons from the IGL. He aspires to be a responsible leader in the tech industry, guiding innovation while ensuring that technology acts as a conduit for positive societal transformation.
Walker Dieckmann
Walker Dieckmann is startup executive with a passion for building and leading high-performing teams to achieve extraordinary results. He is presently a Senior Director of Operations for Next Gen Fulfillment at Instacart, leading a team focused on supply chain innovation. Walker joined Instacart in 2014 as employee #42, and over the past decade has been privileged to play a role in building and scaling the Operations organization; developing and executing playbooks that are used across the business today; and working with teams across the country to deliver exceptional experiences to shoppers, customers, and partners.
Outside of his day job, Walker enjoys sharing transferable learnings from his career with startups and nonprofits. He serves as an advisor to Sella, a marketplace for secondhand items, and Ujamaa Africa, an NGO with a mission to eliminate gender-based violence in Africa.
Walker is a native of Northampton, Massachusetts and a graduate of Emerson college. Prior to Instacart he did stints in radio (Emerson’s beloved WERS Boston) and Hollywood (the Gersh Agency), and held multiple roles at Mopro, a startup helping SMBs build their business online. He is a perpetually aspiring musician and an erstwhile athlete. He lives in Fairfield, CT with his fiancée Emalee and their son Oliver.
Leslie Puth
Leslie Puth has spent her professional career in financial services, first in the investment banking sector and more recently working in the field of financial inclusion. She has also been deeply involved with various community-based and arts organizations in New York City.
Leslie worked for eleven years in trading and sales for several global financial institutions; the last several years were spent managing the NY-based sales desk at a French investment bank. By the early 90’s, Leslie and husband David had been living in Brooklyn for several years, where they were raising their two young children. At this point, Leslie decided to leave the banking sector and actively engage with several non-profit organizations in Brooklyn. This allowed her to spend more time with David and their growing family of three children, and to focus on issues about which she cared passionately, including poverty alleviation, education for all, and public parks.
She spent over 15 years working in this sector as an active volunteer with several organizations in various capacities, including as a fundraiser and board member. In 2008, with a new home base in Boston thanks to David’s professional career and their youngest child in high school, Leslie decided to explore earning a master’s degree at the Fletcher School. This was driven by her desire to pivot to a 3rd career and focus on microfinance and financial inclusion. She floated this idea to Sherman, who was highly encouraging and introduced her to the Dean of the Fletcher School, Stephen Bosworth. The rest is history, as they say! Leslie earned her degree at Fletcher in 2011 and worked for over eight years as a Senior Director at Accion, a global non-profit that advances financial inclusion. She also joined Fletcher’s board of advisors in 2012 and currently serves as chair of that board. Leslie has also stayed very connected to her love of art and her love for Brooklyn, having served since 2008 on the Brooklyn Museum Board of Trustee and as a founding member of AllinBklyn, a giving circle that provides funding to small nonprofits in Brooklyn.
Leslie holds a Master’s degree in development economics from the Fletcher School, an MBA from NYU Stern School, and a BA in economics and French from Wellesley College.
Michael Paris
Mike is a founder and the managing partner of Nystrom Beckman & Paris, LLP, a leading Boston-based litigation boutique. Since its inception nearly twenty years ago, NBP has been on the cutting edge of complex litigation throughout the country. Whether it is unravelling complex financial frauds, conducting intricate investigations, trying high profile cases, or litigating cases of first impression, NBP provides top notch representation often against the largest firms in the country.
Mike is a seasoned trial lawyer with over three decades of experience litigating virtually all types of matters from antitrust to white collar criminal defense. He had represented business, institutions and individuals in complex financial fraud recovery efforts, shareholder derivative actions, employment litigation, investment banking and hedge fund disputes, complex tort matters, and white-collar criminal investigations. These cases often involve unique legal issues, complex statutes, and unchartered claims. Mike has argued before the United States Court of Appeals, the Delaware Supreme Court, and various other appellate courts. In addition to his trial work, Mike regularly counsels senior management on litigation avoidance, compliance and internal investigations, business strategies and employment issues.
• Lead counsel to the largest group of victims in one of the nation’s largest Ponzi schemes, recovering $50 million for clients.
• Trial counsel in connection with a multi-million-dollar scheme involving pre-IPO shares of Facebook, which was featured on the television show, American Greed.
• Litigated an eight-figure insurance coverage dispute against one of the nation’s largest insurance carriers.
• Lead counsel for a New England based defense contractor in a multi-year Department of Justice investigation relating to violations of the Arms Export Control Act, resulting in no criminal charges against the Company.
• Won a “bet the company” commercial dispute for a financial services company after a multi-day arbitration.
• Successfully represented boutique investment banks in numerous litigations concerning breach of investment banking agreements and recovering millions of dollars for clients.
• Co-lead counsel in a shareholder derivative suit alleging breach of fiduciary duty against fund manager, resulting in a stipulated judgment in excess of $20 million.
• Successfully defended a Massachusetts state agency against claims for violating the U.S. base closure laws.
• Persuaded the Delaware Supreme Court to reinstate a $500,000,000 claim that had been dismissed prior to NBP’s retention.
• Won seven-figure settlements on behalf of a major vendor in the retail industry in connection with breach of supply agreements by two national retailers.
• Successfully defended major cell-tower company in a widely publicized real estate dispute.
• Lead trial counsel for enterprise software company in theft of trade secret case resulting in permanent injunction against former employee from working for competition or using proprietary information.
• Trial counsel for the world’s former number three ranked tennis player, in a jury trial of first impression that garnered international media attention involving allegations that a contaminated multivitamin caused a positive steroid test.
• Successfully defended the MBTA, the commuter rail, and Amtrak in numerous catastrophic accident cases.
Mike’s white collar defense experience also includes defending companies in connection with two of New England’s largest health care investigations, the nation’s first investigation of “asset search companies,” and advising companies on issues relating to the Transportation Security Administration, Homeland Security, and the Trading with the Enemy Act. He has also represented numerous banks in connection with grand jury subpoena issues, successfully defended the CEO of a federal credit union in a bank bribery case, a manufacturer in a criminal antitrust action, and has represented numerous individuals and corporations in grand jury investigations involving Medicare fraud, academia research improprieties, the Big Dig, tax evasion and fraud matters. In addition, Mike has significant health care fraud litigation experience, defending qui tam and False Claims Act cases.
Mike has also represented families of victims of some of Massachusetts’ most notorious crimes, including as lead trial counsel in an action brought against the American Automobile Association in a case of first impression regarding the duty of AAA to provide emergency road services and AAA’s advertising practices; the family of one of Boston’s most notorious murders this century, in a case against the owner of the gun from whom the assailant took the murder weapon, and numerous victims of Ponzi schemes and other financial frauds.
Mike has served on the boards of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, The Volunteer Lawyers Project, and The Brown Rudnick Charitable Foundation, a subsidiary of the Brown Rudnick Center for Public Interest, which Mike conceived and founded while a partner there. His public service work earned him the prestigious “Adams Pro Bono Publico Award” from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Mike currently serves on the board of the Maimonides School, where he chairs the Investment Committee. He is an avid Boston sports fan and spent a decade coaching Little League Baseball and Softball. Mike also serves as a judge of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Mock Trial Program. He has been recognized as a “Super Lawyer,” is listed in Outstanding Lawyers of America, and has been “AV” rated by Martindale Hubbell for nearly 20 years.
A 1990 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law, Mike received a B.S. in political science, magna cum laude, from American University. Prior to founding Nystrom Beckman & Paris LLP, Mike was a partner at the international law firm of Brown Rudnick LLP, where he practiced civil and criminal litigation.
Ilhan Avcioglu
Ilhan Avcioglu is a teacher and advocate of civics and human rights education currently residing in Andover, Massachusetts.
Ilhan was born in Chicago, Illinois and traveled to the Middle East many times early in life. This led to an interest in international politics and American University, earning a degree in International Studies. After a brief time in the field of law, he returned to the east coast for graduate school and attended Northeastern and Tufts Universities where he began taking classes with Sherman at the Experimental College (The Underworld of U.S. Foreign Policy and History of the Middle East). He also was a part of the EPIIC International Symposiums at Tufts University of 1991 (Confronting Political and Social Evil). Following graduation, he returned to Chicago to begin his teaching career, at both the high school and college levels.
Ilhan has advocated for a more prominent role for civics education at the public school level. He believes that citizens must be aware and knowledgeable about their government in order to successfully participate. He was part of a Chicago Public Schools group that collected data and provided it to the Illinois State legislature which in 2015 passed a law requiring public schools to provide at least a semester of civics education.
Since returning to Massachusetts in 2017, he has been actively promoting civics education and ethnic studies, both at Andover High School and in Boston Public Schools where he was a part of a Civics Teacher Leader Cohort with Facing History and Ourselves.
Maria Figueroa Kupcu
Maria is a senior advisor to boards and executive teams on strategic communications, stakeholder engagement, crisis and reputation. She draws on decades of experience reconciling public, private, investor and NGO positions in the arenas of environmental sustainability, climate risk and social impact.
Through her work, Maria helps clients to define and communicate ambitious leadership programs -- and to transform the decision-making, organizational culture and operational structures that enable these programs to succeed.
Her work has included: PepsiCo’s ambitious global Performance with Purpose effort, led by former CEO Indra K. Nooyi; Bloomberg Philanthropy’s pioneering work in climate finance and decarbonization ambition; the PwC-initiated CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion and many more.
Previously, Maria was a Partner at Brunswick Group, a global critical issues and financial situations advisory firm. Over 15 years, she helped establish and grow Brunswick’s Business & Society practice and launched four related offers: ESG, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Foundations and Nonprofits and Stakeholder Engagement. For six years, she was concurrently head of Brunswick’s New York office, the second largest in the global network. In this role, she led a team of over 200 client-facing and business services professionals and held numerous roles in the firm’s senior management team, including as founding co-chair of the U.S. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and as head of the New York Office’s Incident Management Response Team through the Covid-19 pandemic. As a senior global client relationship manager, Maria helped guide the firm’s approach to scaling client relationship management best practices. She is an avid mentor and an active teacher of her profession.
Maria began her career at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) contributing what became the Sustainable Development Goals. During this time, she used her grassroots organizing skills to mobilize Youth for Habitat II -- a global youth coalition that influenced international policy on youth economic development and entrepreneurship. The group continues today.
She is an experienced opinion researcher, learning the craft as Director of International Political and Corporate Campaigns for Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates (PSB). Here, she supported presidential and parliamentary races in the U.S., Ukraine, South Korea, and Zimbabwe. She has worked extensively with leaders to craft research-driven winning messages and strategies that build public support.
Maria graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School and Tufts University, where she was Chair of the Board of the Institute for Global Leadership from 2019-2022 and a board member since 2012. She also serves on the board of the Turkish Philanthropy Fund. In 2002, Maria and her husband founded Double Knot, the premier gallery of tribal carpets and textiles in New York City. She is the mother of two teens and loves to travel, cook and research her family history through its varied multi-cultural roots that include Italian, Filippino and Polish heritage.
Mary Kurey
Prior to starting my corporate career, I attended the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a minor in French. In 1984, I spent a year studying in Paris (Sorbonne) and have been a life-long Francophile. My career was spent with the same firm, under a variety of different names (Hewitt Associates, Aon-Hewitt and Alight).
I worked in Employee Benefits & HR Business Outsourcing providing consulting and management support to several global S&P 500 clients. I lead teams to set up and deliver systems and administration services for 401(k) retirement plans and later payroll services, corporate health plans, and compensation plans.
Throughout my career, I gravitated to the role of (and was assigned to clients as the) “problem solver.”. I was akin to Winston Wolfe (played by Harvey Keitel) in the movie Pulp Fiction. As “the cleaner,” I gathered the facts, collaborated with my team, and got the plan in motion. And, in the process, cleaned up the mess. Client relationships and employee relations get ugly when an implementation or a paycheck error isn’t quickly addressed and fixed.
I met my husband of 24 years, Peter, on a bicycle club ride in 1996. It was a Halloween ride that started on Shades of Death Road in New Jersey. (This is not a joke.) We started dating and realized that we both loved bicycling as well as cross-country skiing. We took up fly fishing together, which has taken us on many adventures, like fishing with an indigenous family on the tundra in northern Alaska, steelhead fishing in British Columbia and trout fishing in Montana. The rest, as they say, is history.
After over 30 years with my nose to the corporate grindstone, my nose was getting worn out as well as my enthusiasm for corporate life. Peter was feeling the same way, and we decided it was time to concentrate on doing what we loved most: Nordic skiing, bicycling, fly fishing, gardening and birding. We left suburbia in New Jersey and moved to Bozeman, Montana. It was like being thrown into the deep end of the pool in freezing water—in a good, invigorating way. Bozeman is an outdoor paradise as well as being a university town (Montana State University). Bozeman ticked off all of our outdoor boxes as well as being a cultural center for southwest Montana—really! While I enjoyed my career working in data and logic (and still do), what does it mean if you can’t connect it meaningfully to culture and how we live or want to live? I’m grateful for my lengthy career with the same firm and our retired life in Bozeman.
Ryan Svetanoff
Ryan Svetanoff is a Chemical Technician for the Chemistry Undergraduate Preparations Laboratory at Purdue University. In this role, he collaborates with professors, course coordinators, and head teaching assistants to provide impactful educational experiences for more than 5,000 students every year. Ryan provides services to not only ensure current teaching objectives are met in the laboratory setting, but also to allow instructors to have the freedom to develop new experiments to further grow their courses. Ryan oversees more than 100 teaching assistants every year, serving as a role model for them exemplified by the recognition he received with the Professional Achievement Award from the Purdue College of Science in just two years of his early career. Ryan received his BS in Chemistry from Purdue University on a full ride through the Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship, MS in Management, cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, and a MS in Kinesiology from Indiana University.
Ryan also had a role in the Pugwash ecosystem where he was the President of the Purdue University chapter during his undergraduate studies. Through this involvement is how he and his sister Rachel met Sherman, keeping in touch today.