|   Sue Fine, Executive Director

Sue Fine has worked in education for over fifteen years.  She began her career as an elementary school teacher, and spent ten years split between teaching at the Hungerford Infant School in London and The Calhoun School in New York City.  Over the course of these years, Sue became a school-based leader focused on supporting inquiry and project based learning.  In 2002, Sue began her four year tenure at Pace University 's School of Education, first as the Director of the Teach For America Program, then as Director of the Alternative Certification Programs, and, finally, as Co-Chair of the School of Education in New York City .   At Pace, Sue focused primarily on the needs of new educators, and led the faculty's efforts to authentically connect the work of full-time teachers to their graduate studies.  Most recently, Sue has worked within one of the Network Teams in the Empowerment Schools as the Deputy Network Leader for Instruction, supporting over 20 middle and high schools in implementing the initiatives of the Department of Education.  Sue received her B.S. in Elementary Education from the University of Illinois-Champagne, M.A. in Educational Psychology: Remedial Reading and a Ph.D. in Politics and Education from Teachers College-Columbia University.

|  Jude Alfaro, Research Associate
Jude Alfaro has spent 10 years working with youth and education based
non-profits. She spent over 5 years working under different capacities at
Teach For America nationally and at the New York Regional office. As Director of Operations for Certification and Placement, Jude was responsible for finding teaching placements for over 400 teachers as well as assuring that over 1,000 teachers were following city and state regulations. Much of Jude's work has centered on teacher support, having worked extensively with alternative certification teachers through Teach For America and most recently at the School of education with Pace University. Jude earned a B.A. from Cornell University.

|  Joseph Binder, Grants Writer

Joseph Binder brings six years of not-for-profit experience to his position. Before joining UA Joseph founded and served as the Principal Strategist for Ambit Communications, a consultancy with expertise in not-for-profit fundraising, marketing, and research. Ambit's many clients included the Smithsonian Institution, New York University, the Museum of Science and Industry, Covenant House, KaBOOM!, and Two River Theater Company, among others. Previously, he served as Grants Manager for Chicago Children's Theatre, where he was instrumental in growing the company into the city's largest theatre for children and families. Joseph earned his B.A. in English from Northeastern Illinois University.

|  Marcus Davis, Office Manager
Marcus Davis brings over 8 years of experience in business and project management. He most recently held the position of Project Manager for Academy Fire Protection (AFP), where he oversaw installations for corporations on a national level. While at AFP, Marcus directly worked with large scale budgets, developed proposals, and managed sub-contractors. Prior to his project management venture, Marcus played a key role as Business Manager for the Intrepid Museum of New York City. His success as Business Manager at Intrepid found him spearheading a new museum's initiative for the Washington, DC Navy Yard Memorial in the summer of 2006. Marcus is extremely excited to be part of Urban Assembly, and enjoys playing a role in shaping the lives of youth.

|  Yvonne Ervin, Director of Development
Yvonne Ervin has worked in development in New York City for more than a decade. She held the top development positions at the Stanley Isaacs Neighborhood Center, Bailey House and Hazelden New York, and was Executive Director of the Candies Foundation. She recently joined the board of directors of Women in Development NY and was on the board of the Association of Fundraising Professionals Greater New York Chapter for six years. She is also the Executive Director of the Western Jazz Presenters Network and serves as Vice President of the Jazz Journalists Association. Before moving to New York, she was the Executive Director of the Tucson Jazz Society, the largest jazz society in the country, and was Marketing Director for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. Yvonne has held seminars on fundraising, audience development and marketing for many national conventions and was a marketing and artist career development consultant for the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the National Jazz Services Organization. She wrote a curriculum for the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and the Kennedy Center for the Arts to teach presenters the arts of presenting jazz. Trained in group facilitation methods and skilled in organizational development and planning, she holds a B.A. in Journalism and Music from the University of Arizona.

|   Patrick D. Fagan, Director of Business Services/Operations
Patrick Fagan has spent more than a decade in government and the nonprofit sector after having been awarded a prestigious New York City Urban Fellowship in 1995. Most recently he served as a regional network specialist for the Department of Education, earning a place in the department's inaugural management training program. Patrick has acquired additional experience in operations, project management and budgeting at the Mayor's Office of Operations, the Departments of Health and Homeless Services, and the Fund for the City of New York. He received his B.A. from Hofstra University and an M.B.A. in Finance/Management from Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business.

|   Laura Gagne, Co-Director of Student Opportunities
Laura Gagne most recently served as Youth Programs Manager at Citizens Committee for New York City , where she managed a service learning and internship program. Laura paired teachers with community based organizations to execute youth-initiated service projects, while developing the capacity of small nonprofit and grassroots organizations to implement internship programs. Laura has extensive professional development experience and has delivered numerous workshops and trainings on topics such as literacy, conflict resolution, service learning, and engaging youth in community action. She has also mentored and trained new Teach for America corps members in classroom management and culture, instructional planning and delivery, and learning theory. Entering the field of education through the Teach for America program, Laura taught first grade in New Orleans, LA and middle school in Newark , NJ. At Newark Charter School, she collaborated with other teachers to establish school-wide academic and behavior expectations, developed a comprehensive literacy curriculum and founded a track team and service club. Laura received her B.A. from Colby College and has a M.A. from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA where she completed a thesis on citizenship education in public schools.

|  Jeffrey Garrett, Achievement Coach
Jeffrey Garrett has worked in the field of education in a variety of capacities. He began his career as an undergraduate admissions officer at Dartmouth College. As a student and young professional, he taught and worked with young people in the public school system. Some of the many places he's taught include: Saint Paul, MN, Newark, NJ, White River Junction, VT, and Boston, MA. His formal classroom teaching began in East Harlem where he taught 10th grade Global History. Most recently, he taught 12th grade U.S. Government and Politics at the Urban Assembly's Bronx academy of Letters. In his time in the classroom, Jeffrey consistently served in a wide array of leadership roles including coordinator of advisory programs, and social studies department leader. He received his undergraduate degree in Government from Dartmouth College, and his Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of education in Teaching and Curriculum.

|   Yahaira Gil, Student Opportunities Manager
Yahaira Gil has over five years of experience working in the non-profit sector focusing primarily on youth and family services. Most recently, she was a case manager for Big Brothers Big Sisters NYC, providing connections to mentoring for youth in the juvenile justice system. She previously worked at the Association to Benefit Children, providing families and children the connection to social services in order to prevent entry into the NYC foster care system.Yahaira earned her B.A. from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in

Psychology and is currently pursuing her Masters in Public Administration.

|   Jon Green, Co-Network Leader / Director of Instruction
Jon Green is the Senior Instructional Coach serving Urban Assembly principals. Jon entered education as a sixth grade earth science instructor immersed in project based learning. This formative experience guided his work teaching ELA and history to second language learners for six years at Manhattan International High School . After spending two summers leading New York City Teaching Fellows as a Field Advisor, Jon became a lecturer at Pace University . Over the past three years at Pace, he has taught methods, literacy, adolescent development, and teacher researcher classes to Teach for America and New York City Teaching Fellows graduate students. This most recent position has afforded Jon the opportunity to work with teachers as a mentor at Pace High School and to consult with other schools around the city. At the moment he is working on a book of urban education case studies with a number of professors from Pace. Jon has a B.A. in English from The University of Vermont, and a M.S. in Education from The New School University.

|  Luke Janka, Achievement Coach
Luke Janka has been involved with the education of New York City's youth since 2000, as a high school English teacher. Since 2002, Luke taught at Humanities Preparatory Academy, a small alternative transfer school. While at Humanities Prep, Luke was actively involved in the school's continually successful efforts to reform New York State's standardized testing system. A trained peer mentor, Luke also led a bi-weekly professional learning community designed to improve teachers' instruction. Luke received his B.S. in Secondary English Education in 2000 from New York University's School of Education. He also received his Ed.M. in School Development from Harvard Graduate School of Education's School Leadership program in 2005, where he worked with Ted and Nancy Sizer. Luke is a National Board Certified Teacher.

|  Elizabeth Kelly, Director of Research & Evaluation
Elizabeth Kelly has worked in the field of education for over 20 years and is driven by her own experience as a child growing up in New York City. After working as a classroom teacher in the 1980's, she studied cognitive development so she could understand more about how people learn and how people teach. Elizabeth has taken her knowledge and skills from developmental psychology to her work in a variety of settings to help people and organizations (like a school, a firehouse, or an office) as they learn and change all the time. Elizabeth earned her B.A. in Religion and Political Science from New York University and her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from The Graduate Center at the City University of New York. She is a member of the American Evaluation Association, the Society for Research in Child Development, and the American Educational Research Association.

|   Chris Maestro, Student Opportunities Manager
Chris Maestro has worked within the field of education for the past ten years. Chris started as a global history teacher at the High School for Enterprise , Business, and Technology (EBT) in Brooklyn. For two years he taught high school history while assuming many other responsibilities at the school, including coordinator of student activities, debate coach and senior class advisor. He left to join Learning Leaders, an organization that recruits and trains NYC public school volunteers. Chris was responsible for managing the volunteer program of District 29 in Brooklyn and District 32 in Queens. A desire to again work one-on-one with students led Chris to pursue an opportunity in the South Bronx. Chris became a community coordinator and global history teacher at Banana Kelly High School , a small New Visions high school in Hunts Point.Following a short stint abroad, Chris returned to NYC and assumed his most recent role as Director of the LEAD After School Program in the Parkchester / Castle Hill area of the Bronx . He supervised an energetic and creative staff of teaching artists and managed an after school program of over 150 teens that included a thriving dance program, internship program, poetry, and hip hop classes at the Bronx DJ Academy. Chris received his B.A. from Binghamton University and is currently pursuing a Masters in Socially Responsible Business and Sustainable Communities.

|   Devoynne Prophet, Executive Assistant
Devoynne Prophet brings many years of administrative experience in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors to her role at the Urban Assembly. Most recently, she was administrative assistant to the head of school at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School . For the past three years she has volunteered as a reading and language arts teacher to elementary school students and a mentor to teens at an after-school program in Harlem . Devoynne is currently pursuing a double major in Sociology and English at Herbert H. Lehman College , CUNY, where she was invited to join the Lehman Scholars Honor Program.

|  Juan Carlos Rodriguez, Information and Technology Manager
Juan Carlos Rodriguez joins Urban Assembly after traveling and working with the federal government for 2 years. During this time, he used state of the art technologies to work on criminal cases for prosecution on the state, federal, and international levels. All of his work with the federal government is confidential and highly classified. Previous to this position, Juan Carlos was Business Manager at The CityKids Foundation; a non-profit arts organization serving young people ages 13 to 19. As Business Manager he created and executed event budgets, managed relations with contractors and vendors, created and coordinated all production and special projects related activities, as well as coordinated all interdepartmental logistics. Juan Carlos holds a B.A. in Criminal Justice and a minor in Theater from John Jay College for Criminal Justice. He will be returning to John Jay this winter to continue his M.A. in Public Administration.

|   Sharon Slate, Director of Finance and Administration
Sharon Slate has worked in the nonprofit sector for many years. During 12 years as Director of Finance and Personnel at the CityKids Foundation, she created annual budgets and accounting and cash management systems, managed payroll, grants, and contracts receivable, oversaw annual audits, and managed all financial and administrative functions, improving fiscal and operational efficiency dramatically. Sharon earned her B.A. from Columbia .

|   Perrin Wicks, Co-Director of Student Opportunities
Perrin Wicks has over a dozen years' experience in capacity building, philanthropy, and youth development program management. Most recently, she was a senior consultant for Community Resource Exchange, providing management assistance to nonprofit and community-based organizations serving poor people with HIV/AIDS. Her previous posts include two years as the Program Associate for Youth Development at the Ford Foundation and three years delivering theater education programming to New York City public schools. Perrin holds a master's degree in Public Administration with a concentration in Public and Nonprofit Management from NYU, and a B.A. from Yale.