Brown Leadership Institute Faculty

Brown Leadership Institute: Leadership Development for High School Students

Robin Rose, Associate Dean for Summer and Continuing Studies and Director of Leadership Programs, has a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and has been employed by Brown for 27 years, having served in the counseling center and as the chief student affairs officer, Dean of Student Life. She directed the Brown Outdoor Leadership Training (BOLT) program for 15 years. Dean Rose has a national reputation among outdoor and leadership educators and has served as a consultant to many programs across the country. She enjoys backpacking, canoeing, gardening, snorkeling and working with and learning from young people.

Brown Environmental Leadership Lab

Lexi Weintraub has served as a research assistant in laboratories at Brown University, SUNY-Stony Brook, and the University of Chicago, and conducted field research in coastal Rhode Island, Maine, Washington and Costa Rica. Her research has included estuarine ecology, salt marshes, tropical plants, and kelp. Additionally, she has worked at the Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, and studies biodiversity in Panama at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Currently, Lexi taught Science at the Frances Parker High School in Chicago and is currently working on a Junior project related to bicycle power and issues of sustainability. This is her fifth summer with BELL. She has a B.A. in biology from Brown University.

Claire Santoro is a senior in Environmental Studies and Economics at Brown University. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Claire has worked as a teaching assistant in the Center for Environmental Studies at Brown, and she studied ecology and sustainable development in Botswana during the spring of 2008. Her work abroad included an analysis of solar energy as a method of energy security and rural development in southern Africa. She is currently finishing her senior year with a research thesis investigating the "rebound effect" of Energy Star appliances, trying to figure out whether energy efficiency leads to an increase in residential energy consumption. 

Kevin Kenji O’Brien is a senior in Environmental Health major at Brown University. Hailing from Davis, California, Kevin taught 8th grade chemistry the last two summers with the Breakthrough Collaborative and he plans to teach high school science after graduation. Kevin is also an Eagle Scout and enjoys backpacking, playing board games, and capture the flag.

Kevin Currey
Kevin Currey is a senior Environmental Studies major at Yale University. He was an instructor at BELL in 2007, and a student at the inaugural sessions of both BELL I and BELL II in 2002 and 2003.  His academic interests include environmental policy and the social science of development and conservation.  Last summer, he conducted research in Alaska on the impacts of oil and gas development on Native communities.  He is an Emergency Medical Technician and enjoys backpacking.    

Kurt Teichert is a Lecturer in Environmental Studies and Manager of Environmental Stewardship Initiatives at Brown University. He teaches courses and advises students on Sustainable Design and Environmental Stewardship. In 1990, Brown established an environmental education and advocacy initiative that links student research and education efforts with university operations to implement programs that reduce the negative environmental impacts. Kurt came to Brown in 1992 to support that initiative. He is a LEED Accredited Professional and has been involved in research, design and construction of high performance educational facilities for 20 years. Teichert serves as a Stakeholder in the Rhode Island Greenhouse Gas Initiative to develop and implement a state climate action plan. Prior to coming to Brown, Kurt served as Research Associate and Facilities Manager at New Alchemy Institute. He holds an M.Sc. in Resource Economics from Oregon State University and a B.A. from Franklin and Marshall College.

Documentary Film for Social Change: Production & Theory

Tanya Sleiman is a San Francisco-based documentary filmmaker.  Tanya's portrait of an Iraqi refugee family premiered in June 2009 at Stanford University where she earned her MFA in Documentary Film and Video.  Her short documentary "If No War?" exploring a woman's resilience in the face of a WW II tragedy can be seen in film festivals in the US and Canada.  Tanya has trained in film/video arts with award-winning faculty at Stanford University, New York University, Maine Media Workshops, and The New School.  In 2008, Tanya was selected as a Fellow to The Flaherty Documentary Film Seminar on the theme "The Age of Migration" as well as a Symposium scholar to the 35th Annual Telluride Film Festival.  Tanya brings to her filmmaking an expertise in Middle East Studies and International Education, and is fluent in Arabic and Spanish.  A former US Fulbright Scholar to Syria, she embraces the documentary medium for its ability to cross borders through storytelling.  

Edrex Fontanilla
Edrex Fontanilla is a new media artist, digital art lecturer, and multimedia instructional technologist based in Providence, RI.  He trained as a classical musician at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, studied digital art as an undergraduate student at Brown University, and multimedia composition through Brown's graduate computer music program. Edrex has shown his video art, digital prints, and interactive sculptures locally and abroad, including the Boston CyberArts Festival, the Tampa Museum of Art, SIGGRAPH, and other international venues.  Edrex currently collaborates with neuroscientist Robert Goldschmidt on a series  of video art sculptures that explore materiality, continuity, and the limits and assumptions in viewers' perception.  Through the presentation of the 'falsely real,' Edrex and Robert explore the various unstable ontological states between video, sculpture, and installation. Edrex currently teaches digital art at Brown University and the Community College of Rhode Island.

Leadership & Conflict Resolution

Molly Wallace is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at Brown University, specializing in the sub-fields of international relations and political theory.  Her dissertation focuses on the potential of nonviolent action in international politics, and she has recently returned from Sri Lanka where she was conducting field research on nonviolent intervention in violent conflict.  Before coming to Brown, Molly spent four years working at conflict resolution-related NGOs in Washington, DC.  She holds a BA in Peace & Conflict Studies from Mount Holyoke College and is currently a volunteer mediator at the Community Mediation Center of Rhode Island. 

Leadership & Corporate Responsibility

Geoffrey Kirkman is deputy director and a Watson fellow at the Watson Institute. He teaches an undergraduate course on social entrepreneurship at Brown. He was previously managing director of the International Technologies Group at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. From 1998 to 2002, he was the founder and managing director of the Information Technologies Group at Harvard's Center for International Development. He has been a Visiting Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab, a consultant to the UNDP Human Development Report and a contributor to the United Nations ICT Task Force. He is president and founder of the not-for-profit Sports for Development Foundation, which works with professional Latin American baseball players to harness their fame and goodwill for social and economic development in their countries of origin. Kirkman is also a fellow emeritus at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School. Kirkman has professional experience in more than 30 countries worldwide, with a particular emphasis on Latin America. He previously also worked for the World Bank in Mexico City and Washington, D.C., and the United States Information Agency in Spain. He received his MPP from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and his AB, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in international relations and Hispanic studies from Brown University.

Leadership & Global Engagement

Joshua Otlin has nine years experience teaching Civics, American History, World History, Economics, and Ethics, most recently at Hudson High School in Massachusetts. There, in addition to teaching, he manages experiential service-learning projects and is a teacher-leader in an innovative democratic school governance program. Joshua's work extends beyond his classroom as a consultant, author, presenter, and teacher-trainer in the US and in former communist countries in eastern Europe.   He has won awards from numerous organizations, most recently from the Harvard Club of Boston.  He has a B.S. in Political Science from Middlebury College and a M.A. in Political Science from Northeastern University as a James Madison Fellow. This is Joshua's fifth year teaching Leadership and Global Engagement.

Todd Wallingford has taught high school Civics and US History for fifteen years, most recently at Hudson High School in Massachusetts. Todd's work incorporating service-learning have helped propel the district to earn national recognition for its leadership in citizenship and character education. He has also guided the institution of a school-wide democratic decision-making model, and has spoken at state and national conferences on this work. Todd has won a service-learning teacher-leader award from the Massachusetts Department of Education and a John Adams teaching fellowship through the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 2005, he traveled to Russia as a Civics Mosaic fellow, studying models of citizenship education in this fledgling democracy. Todd has an MA in education from Harvard University.

Leadership & Global Health

Cate Oswald currently works at Partners In Health, an international health nonprofit focused on providing the highest possible standard of healthcare to the poor, as a research coordinator for projects in Haiti and throughout Latin America. Cate has experience working on issues of social justice and equality locally in Rhode Island and Massachusetts through homeless rights initiatives, especially in access to nutrition, housing, and health care. Internationally, Cate has worked in Sub Saharan Africa, South America, and the South Pacific on projects aimed to understand the social context of disease while working alongside communities to improve health outcomes. She holds a Masters in Public Health in International Health and is a 2004 graduate of Brown University with a B.A. in International Development Studies. While at Brown, Cate was involved in numerous leadership development programs, including working with middle school and high school students on health education.

Amara Ezeamama currently works at the Health Effects Institute, a non-profit organization that supports impartial scientific research aimed at elucidating the human health effects of air pollution. Amara holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from Brown University and has conducted research on the morbidity consequences of polyparasitic helminth infection in children using data from Leyte, The Philippines.  She has co-taught Burden of Disease in Developing Countries – a course geared towards Brown University undergraduates. 

Leadership for Social Change

Nora Houseman has more than five years experience in leadership training throughout the world. For the past three years, Nora has been teaching middle school students at the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland, CA. Nora received her B.A. at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. and earned a California teaching credential at CalStateTeach. She currently teaches at KIPP Summit Academy in the Bay area.

Nell Hirschmann-Levy
Nell Hirschmann-Levy has been organizing around social justice issues for more than ten years. She spent nearly five of those years working as a union organizer for a healthcare workers' union in Oakland, California. Nell has been committed to working with and developing the leadership of young people in global movements. She is currently a social studies teacher at Urban Academy High School in New York City, a school committed to inquiry-based and experiential learning.

Leadership & the Civil Rights Movement: A Case Study in Social Activism

Branice McKenzie is currently a member of the vocal faculty at Oakland School for the Arts. She graduated from Brown in '74 with a B.A. in Psychology. She received her M.A. in music education from New York University in '78. Her career has included everything from jazz to theater to songwriting. Some of her credits include critically acclaimed performances at the Newport and Umbria Jazz Festivals. On the theatrical stage she has created roles in “Shades of Harlem”, “Sing Sister Sing” and “Jazz Alley”. As a composer and musical director, she has penned a range of music including her latest work, “This World Is Mine: A Musical Revue for Children”. She is a recipient of the Meet The Composer grant from New York State and most recently made her directorial debut with the World Premier of “Celebrate Kwanzaa” at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. She has toured with musical greats, such as Harry Belafonte, Gregory Hines, Roberta Flack, and has performed throughout the US, Europe, Africa and Asia. Ms. McKenzie was invited to Russia to perform at Moscow’s premier jazz club, "Le Club" and at the historic Tchaikovsky Hall. She just completed a Royal Command Performance in Morocco. This is her third summer with the Institute.

TBD –co-instructor

Women & Leadership

Kisa Takesue is an Associate Dean of Student Life and the Third World Center Coordinator at Brown University. Her current duties include: co-coordination of Orientation; providing services to students of color; supporting the crisis management and non-academic disciplinary system; and developing educational programming. Kisa previously worked as a community-based social worker providing supportive services to teen parents.  She has extensive experience working with teens and young adults on leadership issues and is particularly interested in how gender and culture informs our understanding of power and authority. Kisa has an A.B in American Civilization, specializing in Asian American Studies from Brown University and a Master's degree in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin.  She grew up in Hawai’i and Massachusetts.