People

mbp@mit.edu

Martha is an Urban Planner and a knowledge-based Development Economist. Her specialty is in consensus building. Ms. Bonilla studies the knowledge innovation process from invention in research through action in entrepreneurial start-ups and in innovation ecosystems generally. She holds graduate degrees in Urban Studies and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; in Economics from Colombia; in Promotion of Investment from Japan; and in Consensus Building from Switzerland. She has more than fourteen years of experience leading projects associated with urban and regional planning, innovation, and institutional capacity building.

Martha recently worked in CoLab creating experiences for students and communities in Latin America that take advantage of rapid urbanization and environmental challenges. In this work, she sought to create opportunities for low-income communities to improve their standard of living through economic development. In 2010 Martha returned to Colombia where she is currently serving as the Director of the Centro de Estudios Urbanos at the Universidad del Rosario.

Becky is a specialist in strategy, innovation and inclusive enterprise development. Her work with CoLab explores the wealth creation potential of emerging “green” markets in cities around the world. Her research focus has been in the areas of clean energy, urban food systems and sustainable waste management. She worked with Oxfam GB for over 15 years in various senior management positions, most recently as Oxfam’s Senior Advisor for Strategy and Innovation, working with the board and directors on overall organizational direction and development, and managing a portfolio of projects, primarily relating to cross-sector collaboration on climate change, renewable energy, and sustainable supply chains.

In addition to her work with CoLab, Becky is co-founder of Meteos, a non-profit company established to facilitate cross-industry dialogue and innovation with a focus on sustainability and social inclusion. Becky advises a number of NGO boards on strategy, and provides coaching and facilitation to senior executives and teams. Becky was an MIT Sloan School ELIAS Fellow in 2006-7, holds a MA in Latin American Studies from Stanford University and a post-graduate certificate in Urban Planning from University College of London. She is a Board member of Just Energy, a social enterprise supporting community-based renewable energy enterprise.

kaeufer@mit.edu

Dr. Katrin Kaeufer leads a research effort on “Banking as if People Mattered”. She conducts case studies on value-based banks and support the Global Alliance for Banking on Values in their efforts to build a global network of value-based banks. Katrin is also the research director of the Presencing Institute, a Cambridge-based network of change makers focused on advancing social technologies of transformation and change.

Kaeufer earned her MBA and Ph.D. from Witten/Herdecke University in Germany. Her dissertation on Socially Responsible Banking was published as a book in 1996. While working with peace researcher Johan Galtung, she co-founded and directed "Peace Studies Around the World," a year-long global studies program. She has consulted with a global pharmaceutical company, the World Bank, a learning network of small and mid-sized companies and non-profit organizations, as well as with the United Nations Development Program in New York. She is also a founding member of the Presencing Institute.

Deborah Kobes is a Senior Project Manager at Jobs for the Future. She helps manage JFF’s work in the green sector, including support for workforce partnerships that recruit, train, place, retain, and advance new and incumbent workers in key industry sectors. She is currently working with workforce partnerships in eight cities on the GreenWays Initiative, funded by two $8 million grants from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Prior to JFF, Deborah was the Projects Director and first staff member of the Emerald Cities Collaborative, a consortium of diverse organizations – businesses, unions, community organizations, development intermediaries, social justice advocates, research and technical assistance providers — united around the goal of “greening” our metropolitan areas in high-road ways that advance equal opportunity, shared wealth, and democracy within them. She has also consulted for CoLab in several capacities and served as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow; Brookings Research Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution; and a Research Associate at the Urban Institute as part of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Deborah received her PhD in Urban Political Economy and Governance from MIT and a B.S.E. in Civil Engineering and Architecture from Princeton University.

uyenle@mit.edu

Uyen Le is the Research Director for the California Construction Academy (CCA), which is a project of the UCLA Labor Center. At the CCA, Uyen conducts research, advises stakeholders, and develops programs on topics related to green jobs, community-based economic development, energy efficiency retrofits, apprenticeships, and project labor agreements. She is also a Research Affiliate at the Community Innovators Lab (CoLab) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Before this, Uyen worked in the Gulf Coast for a year after Hurricane Katrina as a Dan Than community development fellow, where she worked closely with Vietnamese American communities on issues related to emergency relief and long-term community development. She continues to maintain ties with Gulf Coast communities, where she believes a piece of her heart will always reside. Uyen graduated from MIT with a Master degree in City Planning, and from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor degree in Political Science.

Aditi worked with the Community Innovators Lab as a NOLA Fellow from 2009 to 2010. She was partnered with Broad Community Connections (BCC), a non-profit dedicated to revitalizing Broad Street, a historic business corridor in New Orleans. Although assigned to complete a market study for a proposed grocery store, Aditi was drawn to the people of Broad, who are passionate about the health and future of their community. She worked with business owners, non-profits, and other locals to vision and produce Who's On Broad?, a digital storytelling project about Broad Street with an interactive web-based map and live exhibition, all of which is featured on CoLab Radio. (Meanwhile, her grocery store market study helped result in a $15,000 grant for BCC to improve fresh food access on Broad Street through the J.P. Morgan Chase Community Development Competition.)

She is now a regular blogger and curator for CoLab Radio. Most recently, she organized the International Street Chair Pop-Up Show, an interactive civic art project with forty different people around the world through the blog. Aditi holds a B.S. in Urban Studies from Cornell University and is completed her Masters in City Planning at MIT in May 2010. She is committed to using different media tools to help organizations and individuals share their stories and inform community development.

hinrich.mercker@gmx.de

Hinrich Mercker is director of the Development Policy Forum (Dialogue, Event Design and Event Management) in Berlin, which is part of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). He also works as a certified management coach in cooperation with coachhouse®. Hinrich participated in 2006/2007 in the international leadership programme Emerging Leaders Innovate Across Sectors (ELIAS), which has been initiated by the MIT/Cambridge.

Since 2006 he is designing and implementing training programmes and workshops on Change Management and Leadership Development. 2005 and 2006 he advised the Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank on the evaluation of World Bank support for client training.

Between 1997 and 2002, Hinrich lectured at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, part of Berlin's Free University as well as at the University of Potsdam's Department of Economics and Social Sciences. Prior to that Hinrich worked for the German Foundation for International Development (DSE), where he headed the Public Administration Promotion Centre. His focus at DSE included environmental administration, local government, diplomatic services and schools of administration. He developed and conducted advanced training and dialog programs for executives from Asia, Africa and Central Asia, including a multi-year program with the Vietnamese Environmental Ministry in Hanoi.

In 1988 Hinrich earned a university degree in Protestant Theology from Georg-August-University in Göttingen (Germany), and he also studied at Serampore College in West Bengal (India). In 1990 Hinrich completed a postgraduate training program at the German Development Institute (DIE).

Wenda Tai served as the inaugural Managing Director of Emerald Cities Collaborative, a consortium of unions, labor groups, community organizations, social justice advocates, businesses, local government officials, development intermediaries research and technical assistance providers united around the goal of “greening” our cities in high-road ways that advance equal opportunity, shared wealth, and democracy for all involved. She built the infrastructure of the national organization, managed the business processes, and oversaw the administrative and financial protocols and policies. She transitioned to a consulting role over the last year and helped to pilot ECC’s capacity building program – developing technical assistance and training resources to enable local Emerald Cities members’ implementation of ECC’s mission. Prior to Emerald Cities, she worked in higher education helping interdisciplinary programs and initiatives move from start-up to institution-building stage. Her work focuses on developing best practices for capacity building, resource management and sustainable growth. Wenda also worked for the Massachusetts Port Authority as senior policy analyst on strategic land use planning at the airport and revenue-enhancing business arrangements for the airport and the seaport. Wenda began her career in grassroots advocacy, community organizing and union drives in New York City. Wenda has a BA in linguistics from Barnard College, Columbia University; and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Thomasina is the Founder and Director of the Sankofa Legacy Fund, a new initiative that leverages resources to realize individual, organizational and collective potential, and transform lives within underserved Black communities. With a primary focus on three program areas – personal transformation, civic engagement and economic sufficiency – one of the guiding principles of Sankofa is that many of the answers to challenges facing local communities lie within the communities themselves.

Prior to Sankofa, Thomasina was a Program Officer at the Ford Foundation where she designed and implemented philanthropic investment strategies to develop civic infrastructure and the capacity of youth, communities of color and other underrepresented groups to participate in shaping the decisions that impact their lives. During her six-year tenure at Ford, (the second largest private foundation in the U.S.), Thomasina made more than $42 million in grants. She was also a leader in the philanthropic sector, and was elected to serve as a member of the Steering Committee of the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation, and as a member of the Social Justice Infrastructure Funders Group.

Thomasina is an attorney licensed in the State of Florida. Before entering philanthropy, she was recognized as one of theTop 250 Lawyers in South Florida, where she had a successful private practice focused on business disputes, employment law, public finance and government relations, as well as voting and civil rights. Thomasina became a partner in one of Florida’s major full-service law firms in a record three years, and made history four years later by starting Miami’s first Black-owned law firm with a primarily corporate clientele.

Thomasina was also very active in civic and community affairs, for which she was recognized by the Miami-Dade County Commission with a day named in her honor. She has a B.A. in Black Studies and Political Science from Mount Holyoke College, and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.