Staff & Advisors

Eddie W. Banks is Vice President for Community and Police Partnerships. A hands-on professional, he provides encouragement and opportunities for disadvantaged youth of color. Mr. Banks directed the Foundation’s evidence based Safe Haven and Police Mini-station initiatives funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. Mr. Banks is a retired police sergeant. After twenty years with the D.C. Police Department, he became Director of Field Operations for the Metropolitan Boys' and Girls' Club and then joined the Eisenhower Foundation in 1995.

Alan Curtis is the President and CEO of the Foundation. Dr. Curtis was the Executive Director of President Carter's Interagency Urban and Regional Policy Group, served as Urban Policy Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and later administered the $43 million employment and crime prevention demonstration program in public housing that was part of President Carter’s National Urban Policy. Earlier, he was co-director of the Crimes of Violence Task Force of President Johnson's National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. He is author, co-author, or editor of fourteen books and Foundation reports. Dr. Curtis has an A.B. in Economics from Harvard, an M.Sc. in Economics from the University of London and a Ph.D. in Criminology and Urban Policy from the University of Pennsylvania. For the full bio on Alan Curtis, click here and Alan Curtis on Wikipedia

Omolara Fatiregun is Vice President for Youth Development. Dr. Fatiregun directed the Foundation’s Quantum Opportunities initiative, an evidence based U.S. Department of Justice funded model recognized on CrimeSolutions, Education What Works and Blueprints. Dr. Fatiregun holds an A.B. in Social Science from Harvard, an M.P.P. in Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University and an Ed.LD. degree from Harvard.

Tracey L. Felder is Vice President for Operations. A DC native, she graduated with honors from Spingarn Senior High School. Her background experiences include work for the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and Department of Justice. Ms. Felder has contributed her skills to the community in a number of organizations, including Charles Young Elementary School, Head Start, and the Browne Junior High School Girls' Basketball Team. With the Eisenhower Foundation, Ms. Felder has guided youth development initiatives for over fifteen years.

Nancy Hall is Vice President for Finance. She has over thirty years’ experience in working with nonprofit organizations, primarily in the areas of administration, legal structure, and financial management. For seventeen years, she was a key staff member at the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations where she was Director of Finance. Ms. Hall is a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, where she teaches courses on nonprofit finance and nonprofit management. She holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Ms. Hall’s company, HB Financial, which trades under the name 501(c)Solutions, is an MBE firm registered with the State of Maryland.

Leila McDowell is Vice President for Communications. Ms. McDowell is directing media outreach for the Eisenhower Foundation’s fifty year update of the Kerner Commission, Healing Our Divided Society. She summarized the update in the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/28/opinion/the-unmet-promise.... Ms. McDowell formerly was Director of Communications for the NAACP, Center for Community Change and Advancement Project. She hold a B. A. in Film and Television Production from New York University.

Lin Gao is Goodwill Ambassador and Development Advisor. Since 2015, she has served as a United Nations liaison on Sustainable Development Goals – working with U.N. permanent missions, U.N. accredited nonprofit organizations and local governments. Ms. Gao received the Martin Luther King, Jr. award made by the U.S. Embassy in Japan, was an international fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and has been a researcher at the Rockefeller Foundation. She holds a B.A. in communications and an M.A. in business.

Tawana Bandy is Advisor for Evaluation. Ms. Bandy directed the Foundation’s Quantum Opportunities initiative, an evidence based U. S. Department of Justice funded model recognized on CrimeSolutions, Education What Works and Blueprints. She previously was Senior Research Analyst at Child Trends, where she designed and managed outcome evaluations of youth development programs. Ms. Bandy holds a B.S. in Family Social Science from the University of Minnesota and is currently a doctoral candidate at Howard University.

Emmett Folgert is Advisor on Youth Development and Mentoring. He is Executive Director of the Dorchester Youth Collaborative in Boston and has replicated Foundation programs since the nineteen eighties. Mr. Folgert was Executive Director of the Foundation’s U.S. Justice Department funded Quantum Opportunities Program in Boston and is technically assisting with other Foundation replications of Quantum.

Steven LaFrance is Evaluation Advisor to the Foundation. He is the founder and Principal of LFA Group, a San Francisco consulting firm dedicated to helping social nonprofit organizations achieve their greatest possible impact. Mr. LaFrance has provided evaluation, research, and technical assistance services to hundreds of nonprofit organizations, foundations, and public agencies. He is a nationally recognized leader in the field of organizational effectiveness, with a focus on strategy development and the use of information to maximize social impact.

Jessica Manta-Meyer is Advisor on Youth Development and Mentoring. Ms. Manta-Meyer is currently a Research Associate with Public Profit in Oakland. She has many years of experience creating, directing and evaluating a range of social service and health programs, including publicly funded after school programs. Prior to joining Public Profit, she administered three comprehensive after-school programs in Oakland, including financial and program reporting, human resources, and agency-led evaluations.

Kristin Moore is Advisor on Evaluation. Senior Scholar and Program Director at Child Trends in Washington D.C, Dr. Moore is a social psychologist who studies trends in child and family well-being, positive development, the determinants and consequences of early sexual activity and parenthood, fatherhood, the effects of family structure and social change on children, and the effects of public policies and poverty on children. She directs the Youth Development research area at Child Trends, where she is expanding information on programs that work, implementing rigorous approaches to evaluation strategies, and working to share knowledge with practitioners, funders, journalists, and policy makers. Dr. Moore holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Corey Newhouse is Advisor on Youth Development and Mentoring. Ms. Newhouse is the Founder and Principal of Public Profit in Oakland. She has a wide range of experience in evaluating programs that serve children and families. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Columbia College and her Master’s degree from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Jason Perry is Advisor on Youth Development and Mentoring. He was Deputy Director of the Foundation’s U.S. Justice Department funded Quantum Opportunities Program in New Bedford, Massachusetts and is technically assisting other replications of Quantum. Mr. Perry holds a B.A. in Economics and Finance with a minor in Education from the University of Massachusetts.

Maria A. Rosario, M. Ed is Advisor on Youth Development and Mentoring. Ms. Rosario was Executive Director of the Foundation’s U.S. Justice Department funded Quantum Opportunities Program in New Bedford, Massachusetts and is technically assisting other replications of Quantum. She also serves as Executive Director of NorthStar Learning Centers. Ms. Rosario has a B.A. in Sociology and graduate degree in Counseling Psychology from the Cambridge College Graduate School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Maria has received local, state, and regional awards for her leadership in promoting positive change in communities and schools.

Charlene Sinclair is Advisor on Conference Organizing and Advocacy. Dr. Sinclair has organized many of the Foundation's national workshops and conferences on the Kerner Commission and National Violence Commission. She holds a doctorate from Union Theological Seminary.