Meet the Team
Staff & Board

The ILI is a community of staff, associates, advisors, and stewards living and working throughout the United States. We strive to behave as a liberatory organization in alignment with our mission and values.  

Shared Stewardship

  • Advisors

    ILI Advisors are leaders, thinkers and activists in areas related to the work of the ILI, informing our research and impact agenda, and advising us with regard to operational functions. With no legal or fiduciary responsibility to ILI, advisors are free to offer their unique experience, wisdom, and perspective as critical friends of the Institute.

  • Board of Stewards

    The Board of Stewards leads and tends to the wellbeing and integrity of the Institute, operating on the principle of shared stewardship; the Board is comprised of volunteer and employed members serving as voting co-equals. Volunteer Stewards serve as elected members, officers of the Board, and as committee chairs. ILI staff Leads serve as employed members, and are solely responsible for the core work of the ILI.

    ILI Leads on the Board conduct the daily work of the Institute, including engagement and publications.

  • Associates

    ILI Associates are specialists in particular areas of our work, delivering programs and services, conducting research, and writing for our publications.

Staff

  • As Founding Director, Lucinda leads organizational development, learning, change-strategy, programs and services for the ILI. Her role will shift as our Leadership team grows.

    Lucinda is an accomplished organizational leader, strategist, and systems change practitioner. As a writer, advocate, scholar, and educator, her focus is on liberatory social and organizational change. She was co-founder and Lead Partner of ChangeMakers Partners consulting and research group, and a leader at Goddard College for over 20 years, serving on the faculty, as Academic Dean, Chief Strategy Officer, and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees. She holds a Doctorate in Leadership for Change from Fielding University, a Masters in Education from the University of New Hampshire, and an MFA in Creative writing from Goddard College. Lucinda is a 2024-25 Fellow of the Institute for Social Innovation at Fielding University.

    Contact Lucinda here.

  • As an Associate with the ILI, Pearl’s work is focused on our Liberatory Organizational Development initiative, and ILI organizational development.

    Pearl is public policy, social change and social justice strategist, a consultant with Newark Arts, in Newark, N.J., and adjunct professor of civil rights history at Pilar College in Newark, New Jersey. She has worked as an educator, philanthropic researcher and nonprofit manager, and has led initiatives for the Newark, Delaware Policy Institute and for the Wilmington, Delaware Smart Justice Campaign. Pearl is a doctoral candidate at Union Institute, where her research is focused on violence against trans women of color. She holds a BA in Business Management and M.Ed in Teaching from Pace University, and a Masters in Divinity from Drew University, and is a doctoral candidate in Public Policy and Social Change at the Union Institute & University.

  • As a Senior researcher for the ILI, Shelley originated the role of the Equity Scholar in Residence in K-12 public schools, and is on the forefront of our early explorations into adapting the ESR model for other organizational settings. Shelley serves as Equity Scholar in Residence for the Washington Central Unified Union School District in central Vermont, and as senior scholar and mentor to other Equity Scholars in residence in K-12 schools.

    Shelley has taught multicultural education, identity development, race, gender and disability studies for over twenty-five years, at Goddard College, the University of Vermont and St. Michael’s Colleges, and is a community facilitator with the Vermont Peace and Justice Center’s Racial Justice project. She has participated in restorative practice training through The International Institute for Restorative Practices, The Insight Prison Project, STRONGHOLD, and the North Dakota Study Group. Shelley holds a Doctorate in Education in Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Vermont, and MA in History from Goddard College.

  • As a Senior Associate with the ILI, Pam's work focuses on multi-racial relationships, and expanding traditional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) paradigms.

    Pam is a scholar, educator and facilitator, and the founder of the Black Women's Center for Carceral Empowerment, and an educator with the Global Peace Foundation and Equal Justice Initiative. She holds a doctorate in educational leadership from Fielding Graduate University and an MA in Human Services from Lincoln University, and teaches at Lincoln University and Goddard College.

  • As a senior qualitative researcher, Janet’s primary work with the ILI currently is interviewing participants for our Multi-Racial Relationships project, and participating in analysis of the resulting data.

    Janet served on the faculty in the graduate program in counseling at the University of New Hampshire, and as a faculty member at Union Institute and University and Lesley University. Janet practiced as a mental health counselor for over thirty years, including in leadership, frontline service, and crisis response for a regional hospital behavioral health unit. Her teaching and research has included work with adult development, socio-cultural contexts for counseling, women, culture and change, grief and stress. Janet holds a PhD in Educational Studies from Lesley University, and an MA in Counseling from the University of New Hampshire.

  • Life is an educator, scholar, and community organizer, focused on educational and social equity. He has worked in various roles in K-12 education, including classroom teacher, assistant principal, math department head, state agency administrator, and school board member.

    Most recently, Life was with the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education at the University of Vermont, where he supported middle school transformation, conducted and published research, and created multimedia stories to share educator and student perspectives and insights.

    Life holds an M.A. in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an Ed.D. from the Leadership in Urban Schools program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

    Life serves as Equity Scholar in Residence at the Central Vermont Career Center high school in Barre , Vermont.

  • Summer Melody Pennell is a qualitative researcher whose work focuses on equity in education. She is a lecturer at the University of Vermont in the Department of Education, in the Secondary Education Program. Pennell is also a founding member of the MotherScholar Collective, an international think tank of scholars who use a framework of radical feminist flexibility to conduct intersectional research on mothers+ experiences in academia. She is committed to working with teachers, students, and communities to create equitable schooling experiences. She has a Ph.D. in Education from UNC-Chapel Hill, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research Methods.

Board of Stewards

The board of stewards is legally responsible for ensuring the financial stability of the institute, and alignment of Institute activities, structures and policies with its mission.

The ILI is actively seeking board members. If you are interested in our work, please contact our Director.

  • Sumeet is an advocate and strategist specializing in financial regulation and consumer protection. He has served as General Counsel for Nova Credit, a mission-oriented fintech start-up focused on helping immigrants get access to credit. He has also had prior roles as an attorney at Credit Karma and the Federal Reserve Board. He currently works as a Senior Markets & Policy Fellow at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Sumeet is serving ILI in his personal capacity). He has a B.S. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University, and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

  • Lyn Chamberlin is an award-winning leadership consultant. She works with a broad range of institutions, companies, and non-profit organizations to develop the branding and marketing strategies they need to significantly increase visibility, drive revenue, and expand constituent engagement.

    She has held senior leadership positions throughout her career, acting as chief spokesperson for the institutions she represents and overseeing branding, advertising, public relations, and public affairs initiatives. She has held senior management positions at Harvard University, Radcliffe College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Sarah Lawrence College. An Emmy award-winning television producer, she was director of television programming at The Christian Science Monitor and a senior producer at Westinghouse Broadcasting and NBC.

    Before her focus on higher ed, Lyn was the founder and chief operating officer of skyePR, a brand consultancy in Boston, advising companies such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Polaroid, IDG, Navigant Consulting, and Technology Review Magazine, as well as numerous emerging technology start-ups and small businesses.

  • Ana (she/they) is a project management professional based out of Seattle. Having grown up in rural Washington state in a family of social workers, they have always been dedicated to meeting the needs of disenfranchised communities. Her professional experience centers on providing administrative support for community-based organizations, most recently at the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County. Ana holds a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College, where they concentrated on Public Policy and Creative Writing with an emphasis on narratives of immigration.

  • Melissa Gopnik is Vice President of Innovation at Neighborhood Trust, a financial services innovator creating financial security for low-wage workers. Melissa has worked with a diverse set of organizations to envision and implement the kind of strategic plan and new programs that make organizations work smarter and serve their stakeholders better. Throughout her career she has combined her talents in strategic planning, program and product design, research, and public speaking with a strong commitment to social change. Melissa holds a Master of Business Administration degree, with a diploma in Nonprofit Management, from Boston University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Russian and Political Science from McGill University.

  • Robin E. Hummel, Ed.D. is the Director of the Leadership in Mathematics Education program at Bank Street Graduate School of Education. As Bank Street faculty, she serves as an advisor to graduate students and teaches mathematics, mathematics pedagogy, and action research. Dr. Hummel is also the Co-Director of Online Teaching and Learning where she supports faculty in the development of progressive pedagogy online. She received her Ed.D. in Leadership for Educational Change at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, CA, and her dissertation focused on action research as professional development for teachers and leaders in schools. She has presented at the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) and American Educational Research Association (AERA). Prior to her career in higher education, she taught fifth grade through high school in public schools for over 25 years in southern New Jersey.