Conference Panelists
Jyoti Bachani
JYOTI BACHANI is an associate professor at Saint Mary’s College of California. Her research interests are in Humanizing Management by using the arts of poetry, improv, visual arts and digital story-telling. She is a founding member of the US and India Chapters of the International Humanistic Management Association. In 2012, she spent an academic year in India as a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar. She currently serves on the editorial board of Journal of Management Inquiry, is an executive member of the Western Academy of Management and the Management Spirituality and Religion interest group of the Academy of Management. Dr. Bachani had served earlier as a guest editor for the special issue of Journal of Organizational Aesthetics on Poetry for Organizing, and as editor-in-chief for the largest collection of online case-studies, Emerald Emerging Markets Case Collection. She earned her Phd at London Business School, Masters in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, an MBA and Bachelor of Science (Physics) Delhi University, India.
Christian Alejandro Bracho
CHRISTIAN ALEJANDRO BRACHO is an Associate Professor in the LaFetra College of Education at the University of La Verne, where he serves as a Faculty Diversity Liaison and Associate Chair of the Teacher Education department. A former high school teacher, he completed his PhD in International Education at New York University, examining teachers’ movements in Mexico. He was a Ahimsa Fellow in the inaugural ahimsa institute and served as curriculum facilitator in subsequent institutes of the Ahimsa Center.He is co-editor of Teachers Teaching Nonviolence, a volume produced alongside 18 K-12 teachers from all over the United States trained at the Ahimsa Center.Dr. Bracho’s recent research has been published in Politics & Policy, Educational Studies, Journal of Homosexuality, and FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education.
Jode Brexa
JODE BREXA, an Educational Specialist, facilitates Digital Storytelling projects across the globe. Over the past ten years, Jode has implemented grant-based projects using Digital Storytelling as an engaged methodology to support women and youth in discovering their authentic voices. She is an Ahimsa Fellow and an award-winning educator designing workshops and curriculum for a range of educational contexts. Currently she teaches at the Santa Fe Community College. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
More About Jode Brexa
Andrew Bridges
ANDREW BRIDGES holds Bhagwan Shantinath Lectureship in Jain Studies at California State University, Fullerton where he teaches the course "Non-violence, Animal Rights and Diet in Jainism," and helps organize the annual "Peace and Religion Symposium." He also teaches Contemporary Moral Issues for the Philosophy Department at Cal State Fullerton. Andrew Bridges has been teaching Philosophy and Religious Studies Courses in Southern California for the past 9 years. His research interests include epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics.He received his Ph.D. in Religious Studies and his MA in Philosophy from the Claremont Graduate University.
Kirby Broadnax
KIRBY BROADNAX (She/Her) is a facilitator from occupied and unceded Haudenosaunee land (Cleveland, OH) who co-creates spaces that center relationship, seek justice, and support healing. She has a master’s degree in Conflict Transformation from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Kirby is interested in community trauma healing and ways that connection to the environment, and supports our individual and collective well-being. She is co-owner of Stone & Water Collaborative, LLC, which offers conflict support to groups working to advance social justice. Kirby brings an eye for detail, curiosity, empathy, and thoughtfulness to her practice.
Danita Dodson
DANITA DODSON is the co-editor of Teachers Teaching Nonviolence (2020) in which she has also contributed a chapter. She serves as a guest editor of the Ahimsa Center Newsletter following her fellowship in the 2015 institute of the Ahimsa Center. She has published articles in various literary journals, and is the author of a forthcoming collection of poetry, Trailing the Azimuth. Combining a love of scholarship and diverse experiences, Dr. Dodson has been a Fulbright-Hays fellow in Turkey, a professor in Nicaragua, an amateur archaeologist in the Southwest, and a Spanish teacher in Appalachia. She lives in East Tennessee, where she teaches English at Walters State Community College. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Donna Hill
DONNA HILL is high-school educator committed to nonviolence and social justice. She has engaged high school students and teachers over the last 30 years at Narbonne High School and Cleveland Humanities Magnet in the Los Angeles area. Shel has been a transforma-tional master teacher and a mentor to many of her colleagues. Her teaching has been informed by the nonviolent philosophy of Gandhi, Mandela, and King.Ms. Hill was a fellow in the inaugural Ahimsa Center Institute for K-12 educators. Since then, she has participated in numerous Ahimsa events, has presented at the Center’s biannual international conferences, has contributed to the Center’s annual newsletter, and is a contributor to the recently published collection of essays, Teachers Teaching Nonviolence.She received her B.A. in English literature and M.A. in African Studies from UCLA.
Yasmiene Mabrouk
YASMIENE MABROUK (M.A., Conflict Transformation) has been practicing restorative justice for over six years. Through Stone & Water Collaborative, LLC, Yasmiene and her colleagues offer conflict coaching workshops. They believe we should all have the tools to handle conflicts better. As a community organizer, Yasmiene works with people, facilitates conversations with survivors of sexual violence, and explores alternatives to the criminal justice system that would better meet the survivors’ needs, and help build strong relationships.Yasmiene has intensive training in nonvolent communication, an important skill in the work toward restorative justice. They served as a mediator for the Conflict Resolution Center, Santa Cruz County.
Tazeen Rashid
TAZEEN RASHID is an AP/IB Economics teacher, with a special focus on Ethics in Economics, at Suncoast Community High School. Tazeen has received the Regional Economics Education Leadership Award in 2020, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching Economics, and Teachers for Equity fellowship. In 2011 Tazeen received a fellowship to participate in the Journeys of Nonviolence program offered by the Ahimsa Center at Cal Poly Pomona. She authored a chapter in a book, Teachers Teaching Nonviolence (2020). Currently, she is leading the Teachers for Equity(T4E) Initiative in her school. Tazeen has a Master of Science in Social Policy from the London School of Economics and a Bachelors in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi, India. She has considerable experience in curriculum development at the grassroots level and has served as a teacher-trainer in Bangladesh.
Yehuda Silverman
YEHUDA SILVERMAN is a peacebuilding academic who specializes in the intrapersonal dynamics of peace and conflict prevention. Yehuda has a PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution with a concentration in International Peace from Nova Southeastern University (NSU), and is a certified facilitator in Kingian Nonviolence, Conflict Reconciliation, and Intercultural Dialogue.Dr. Silverman is a Global Solutions Sustainability Challenge Coach for IREX and is implementing interfaith dialogue and arts-based initiatives as a recipient of KAICIID Fellowship and Singapore International Foundation Arts for Good Fellowship. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at Ursuline College, he developed and taught the course, Intrapersonal Peace and Conflict Prevention.
Anand Sreekumar
ANAND SREEKUMAR is an M.Phil research scholar at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He holds a Masters in development studies from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India. He has published articles in periodicals such as the Economic and Political Weekly. His latest book chapter on Gandhian Sentimental Cosmopolitanism will be published in December by World Scientific. A recipient of Junior Research Fellowship and DAAD scholarships, his research interests lie at the intersection of religion, Gandhian philosophy, international security and ethics. Besides his academic interests, he also likes to dabble in carnatic music, piano and poetry.
Vikas Srivastava
VIKAS SRIVASTAVA is a 2007 Ahimsa Fellow. He holds a BA in Sociology from UC San Diego and MA in Education from Harvard University. He specializes in educational design, culture, and curriculum with an emphasis on nonviolence, creative confidence, entrepreneurial mind-set and sustainability. He has worked in public, private and charter schools as a teacher, councelor, and administrator as well as in nonprofit and business sectors as a consultant and coordinator. He is a contributing author to the book, Teachers Teaching Nonviolence (2020). Currently, he serves in the Human Relations department as “Employee Relations and Mindfulness” liason at the Legacy Early College (pk-12 public charter school) in Greenville, South Carolina. You can get updates through Third Eye Praxis on FaceBook and sign up for his newsletter.
David Thomas
DAVID THOMAS is a Gandhian scholar, an activist, an author, and a social entrepreneur based in Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu, India. After working in the Information Technology industry in Europe and India for more than two decades, David dedicated himself to the development & empowerment of women through his organization, India Nirman Sangh (INS), which currently serve more than 6000 women in India’s poorest villages in Palani hills and work with farmers to improve methods for cultivating crops.The INS received the best NGO award from the Government of Tamil Nadu, and David was recognized with the Distinguished Alumnus Award by IIT, Kanpur where he had studied engineering. Through this work David rediscovered the significance of Gandhi’s thought leading him to establish Gandhi Centre for Values in Vadakavunchi, near Kodaikanal in 2016. David has authored a novel Rear Entrance (2010).