Honoring the lifetime service of Fred Goff, Datacenter employee, 1977-2010
Click on names for bios.
Allen Sin, Communications and Administrative Associate
Amie Fishman, Research Fellow
Celia Linnea Davis, Deputy Director
Lailan Sandra Huen, Research Fellow
Mary Anna C. Colwell, Major Gifts Advisor
Michael Preston, Community Fellow, Indigenous Knowledge Project
miho althea kim, Executive Director
Nat Smith, Bookkeeper
Saba Waheed, Research Director
Volunteers & Contractors
Jinee Kim Rebouh
Manjula Bhadraswamy
Tammi L. Coles
Interns
Andrew Mayersohn, Yale University, Summer Intern
Chris Moulton, MPP candidate, UCLA, summer intern
Jessie Wu, MPP candidate, UCLA, Summer Intern
Nicholas Cragoe, CSU-East Bay, Sociology Masters Program, Summer Intern
Omonigho Oiyemhonlan, Stanford University, Summer Intern
Rebecca Godefroy, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Summer Intern
Bios
Allen Sin, Communications and Administrative Associate
ext. 310 allen[at]datacenter.org
After working in the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority as an Emergency Response Team Member, Allen moved to Oakland and eventually started volunteering at DataCenter in October 2009. He studied at UC Irvine and received a BA in Psychology and Social Behavior, and Criminology, Law, & Society. Currently, Allen is a candidate for Peace Corps service in the Central Asia region. He enjoys photography, writing, traveling, running long distances, and playing music.
Amie Fishman, Research Fellow
Amie’s work for the last decade as a prisoner rights advocate and criminal defense investigator led her to pursue a master’s degree in public health (MPH) at San Francisco State University, where she explored links between community violence, trauma, health, and incarceration. She is passionate about community-based participatory research and dedicated to using research as a tool to build community power and organize for social change. Since 2001, Amie has also worked at the Catalyst Project, a center for political education and movement building that works to deepen anti-racist politics and practice among white people and support multiracial movement building. There she creates and facilitates participatory political education curriculum and organizes in support of racial and economic justice in the US and abroad. She is also deeply inspired by culinary experimentation, especially baking, candy making, and preserving, and has a secret plan to someday sing in a band.
Celia Linnea Davis, Deputy Director
ext. 305 celia[at]datacenter.org
Celia received her MLS (Master’s in Library and Information Science) from Long Island University and her BA in Sociology from UC Santa Cruz. Previously she was Assistant Research Director, General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. Celia’s role as the Deputy Representative to the United Nations for the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) of El Salvador was to involve the United Nations in mediating negotiations between the FMLN and the government of El Salvador to end the civil war. Celia is fluent in Spanish, has two children and has worked at the DataCenter for over ten years, most recently with environmental justice campaigns in the U.S. and Mexico.
Lailan Sandra Huen, Research Fellow
A graduate of Columbia University in Urban Studies and Ethnic Studies, Lailan’s work focuses on participatory action research that increases the power of grassroots communities in Oakland and the Bay Area to create progressive change. Lailan has worked at Youth In Focus, facilitating youth-led participatory action research projects for education justice, the Avenues Project at East Oakland Community High School, coordinating arts education programs, and Oakland Leaf, developing youth leadership to address interpersonal and institutional violence. She also lived in New York City, working with a range of social justice organizations on media, leadership development, and direct action projects related to immigrant rights, the prison industrial complex, labor rights, and ending violence against women of color. She is working on a Masters in Media Studies at The New School specializing in documentary video and community-based media, and is excited to integrate new media tools into participatory research processes and the grassroots dissemination of relevant information for community change.
Mary Anna C. Colwell, Major Gifts Advisor
Mary Anna received her Ph.D. in Sociology from University of California, Berkeley in Sociology after completing her undergraduate degree at Vassar College and her M.A. at San Francisco State University. Her doctoral dissertation was on “Philanthropic Foundations and Public Policy: The Political Role of Foundations.” She has also written widely on the peace movement. She held teaching positions at U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Davis, and University of San Francisco. Long active in the philanthropic world, she has served as a consultant to grant-makers and donors, and was senior development officer at the Sierra Club. Her past board memberships include Agape Foundation, Capp Street Foundation, Urban Policy Research Institute (Los Angeles) and Northern California SANE. She was one of the founding members and President of the San Francisco Catholic Interracial Council. As Executive Director of LARAS Fund, a private philanthropic foundation disposing of $4 million in assets, Mary Anna gave the first grant the DataCenter received. Shortly after, she began her 10 years of service on our board and more recently, since 2002, has volunteered in our Development Department.
Michael Preston, Community Fellow, Indigenous Knowledge Project
Michael Preston is a young, emerging leader of the Winnemem Wintu tribe. He joined DC as a project partner and intern in 2006. He is leading the three-year Winnemem Wintu Sacred Sites Oral Documentation Project in northern California. Michael was the first in DC’s pilot internship program designed to deepen youth research skills and experience non-profit professional development. After a full year of gaining hands-on research support, collaborative strategizing, and mentoring as a program intern, Michael is now DataCenter’s first Community Fellow under Indigenous Knowledge Project. The project’s research agenda, from shaping questions to interpreting answers, is entirely driven by Michael with the tribe having full ownership. Says Michael, “DC’s unique social justice perspective and commitment to honoring community expertise and experiences has allowed me to craft a project that will truly highlight the voices of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and demonstrate the incredible power and knowledge the community holds, while at the same time building my own research skills.”
miho althea kim, Executive Director
ext. 302 miho[at]datacenter.org
Miho is passionate about capacity-building and empowerment: she created programs to teach children and others what she knew, ranging from swimming, piano, to political education in her community since age 13 – and has created numerous academic and political programs and curriculi in Japan, Korea and the United States. Since joining the DataCenter in 2003, Miho helped develop ‘Research Justice’ as DataCenter’s theory of social change, and integrated ‘research’ capacity-building, grounded in popular education approaches, into a larger liberation framework,. As practioner of non-profit leadership committed to social justice values in 501©3, Miho oversees DataCenter’s Shared Leadership Model. As a ‘denationalized’ zainichi Corean woman from apartheid Japan, Miho has facilitated trans-Pacific solidarity for over a decade for cultural sovereignty – and developed the Indigenous Knowledge Project at DataCenter in 2008. In 2008, Miho received the Women’s Human Rights Award in Japan for organizing against state violence against women and colonized communities in Japan.
Nat Smith, Bookkeeper
Nat Smith is a light-skinned Black queer gender variant nerd. Nat loves camping, comix, wildlife, speculative fiction, and mathematical equations, and is proof that none of these things is antithetical to the hood. Nat is an anti-capitalist bookkeeper who only takes on radical non-profits and working class and/or social justice-minded individuals as clients. Nat has been known to associate with such dangerous organizations as Critical Resistance, Trans/Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project and Laney Community College. Nat is doggedly pursuing a degree in wildlife biology/zoology and is hard at work on an anthology entitled Captive Genders, about trans and gender variant communities and the prison industrial complex (PIC), forthcoming next Spring from AK Press. Nat once made a short film about family and identity that has shown in 16 film festivals worldwide. It is now collecting dust. Nat believes that the struggle for liberation, while not involving the election of Obama must be present in all of the work/living that Nat does. You will find Nat championing piracy and challenging military intervention while at the wildlife hospital and casually dropping the “pic abolition” bomb while in line for spicy boneless buffalo wings at Lucky.
Saba Waheed, Research Director
ext. 315 saba[at]datacenter.org
Prior to joining the DataCenter staff in August 2004, Saba worked at the Urban Justice Center in New York City where she helped to build a Research & Policy Initiative that linked community-based, participatory research and organizing. She received an MA in Anthropology from Columbia University. She brings over eight years of experience in leading and facilitating community-based research projects in collaboration with local and national community groups and alliances and in particular, ways to popularize methods and analysis. In addition to her work at DataCenter, she is also an editor for SAMAR Magazine and producer for the show “Flip the Script” on KPFK.
Volunteers & Contractors
Jinee Kim Rebouh
Type of work that she enjoys the most are ones that allow her to get people together for social change. This includes coordinating events (like she is doing for DataCenter), putting on demonstrations, hooking up with other politically-minded mamas, and providing workshops to spread information and knowledge. She has more than fifteen years of experience working in educational settings for youth and young adults in nonprofits, higher education, and political organizations. Her political framework is that of global justice and supporting people’s struggle for sovereignty. Most of her time is currently, pleasantly occupied by her 3 year-old, 7 month-old, and husband.
Manjula Bhadraswamy
Manjula received her master’s in Economics from SF State University (2007). After her graduation, she worked as an intern scholar at UCSF. She was involved in Health policy and Health research studies. She worked with a health economist on electronic health records. Before coming to United States, she worked as a lecturer in India. She taught economics to undergraduate students. At present, she is volunteering at DataCenter, working on a housing research project.
Tammi L. Coles
Tammi L. Coles is a professional writer and trainer with more than 16 years of progressively responsible leadership in small- and mid-size organizations serving the public interest. Tammi has worn several hats in the nonprofit sector: moving from HIV educator for a regional LGBT health initiative to director of development for a national criminal justice advocacy group. As the owner of Archer Targeted Communication, Tammi currently creates marketing successes for her small business and nonprofit clients. Her long-time friend and our board member Neil Tangri recruited her to the DataCenter to revitalize our website and raise the visibility of the DataCenter’s research and tools among a new generation of web-savvy activists.
Interns
Andrew Mayersohn
Andrew is a rising senior at Yale University majoring in political science. He is also the treasurer of Students for a New American Politics, a student-run political action committee. Andrew’s interests also include central Asia, libraries and bookstores, his home state of Massachusetts, blues and classical piano, and public policy. In his spare time, he writes angry letters to the editor and does crossword puzzles.
Chris Moulton
Chris Moulton is currently a Master’s in Public Policy candidate at UCLA and plans to graduate in 2011. He earned a Bachelor of Arts at UC Berkeley in both Philosophy and Political Science. Before moving to Los Angeles to earn is graduate degree, Chris worked in several non-profits in San Francisco dealing with public interest law and legal assistance to low-income Californians. His interests include labor, non-profit management, and the intersection of policy and the law. In his free time, Chris likes bike touring, basketball, and exploring LA cafes.
Jessie Wu
Jessie is an MPP candidate at University of California, Los Angeles. She has a Bachelor Degree in Economics from Sun Yat-Sen University in mainland China. In addition to working as a research intern at Data Center, Jessie has also worked as research assistants both for government projects and think tanks. Jessie has interests in international development. She sees her work at Data Center as a way to leverage her analytical skills in helping under-represented groups. Jessie loves traveling and getting together with her friends in her spare time.
Nicholas G. Cragoe
Nick received his BA in Sociology from Beloit College in 2008, and immediately following graduation, he promptly got married and moved to California. After working for a year as an Administrative Assistant to a medical office in Sacramento, Nick moved to Hayward, and is currently enrolled in the MA program at CSU East Bay, where he is writing his thesis on institutional engagement in the university community. In addition to providing research support to the Datacenter team, Nick is also the Research Director for a small consulting firm, Peregrine Research Group, and is doggedly nipping at the heels of a career in university teaching. He is a social justice fiend, Ultimate Frisbee enthusiast, avid reader, sometime artist, incurable know-it-all, and a geek. Nick lives in Hayward with his wife and two cats.
Rebecca Godefroy
Rebecca will be graduating in December from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo with a Bachelors in political science and an emphasis in statistics, after which she hopes to relocate to the bay area. In addition to her work at DataCenter, this summer she is also working on receiving certification in SAS, a statistical software program, and working on her senior project, a meta-analysis of studies that investigate prison education’s effect on recidivism. When not engaged in academic pursuits, she enjoys reading, traveling, and visiting with friends.