Our Team

Staff

Alexis Gudding

Operations Specialist

Alexis Gudding

Operations Specialist

Alexis works to support the holistic internal and external operations of PBP. Originally hailing from the Midwest, they began their professional life in Chicago’s storefront theater scene and for the last several years have been working happily and diligently at the intersection of operations, art, and community building. They specialize in systems infrastructure, building organizational capacity, and prioritizing people power and wellbeing. You can catch them dashing around Brooklyn on their trusty single-speed, coaxing life from any available patch of dirt in their community garden, or working on issue areas related to food justice and TGNCNB+ rights.

Email:alexis@participatorybudgeting.org

Anita Dos Santos

Advocacy Manager

Anita Dos Santos

Advocacy Manager

Anita currently serves as the Advocacy Manager at PBP. She works with government agencies, schools, and community-based organizations to develop strategies for implementing participatory budgeting in their contexts. Prior to this role, she was an advocate for affordable housing and tenants' rights, providing holistic services to housing-insecure families and training partners to provide the same quality of care. Drawing on her community engagement work, Anita works to center and amplify community voice as the starting point for transformation within our democracy. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies from Queens College and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Social Work at Fordham University. She is a lifelong resident of New York City.

Email:anita@participatorybudgeting.org

Elizabeth Crews

Acting Executive Director

Elizabeth Crews

Acting Executive Director

Elizabeth leads our campaigns and advocacy work as well as Democracy Beyond Elections, PBP’s national collaborative campaign. Elizabeth brings over 10 years in nonprofit management, research, and fundraising. She started her own consulting firm, Mockingbird Strategies, where she has consulted political parties, candidates, nonprofits, and foundations on political organizing, advocacy campaigns, and community outreach strategies. Most recently, she founded and led UnifiEd, a public education advocacy organization in Chattanooga, TN focused on improving public education by expanding public participation in the school system, from the classroom to the board of education.

Email:elizabeth@participatorybudgeting.org

Edna Sandoval

CA Advocacy Manager

Edna Sandoval

CA Advocacy Manager

Edna Sandoval is our California Advocacy Manager and supports our organization as Technical Assistance Manager. Her background is as a community organizer and academic focusing on grassroots work with racialized communities and diasporas. Her work inside and outside institutions is rooted in a decolonial and abolitionist approach. Edna is also the co-founder of Guatemaya L.A. Mujeres en Resistencia, a solidarity organization that supports femme Indigenous communities in the isthmus, fighting for historical memory, transitional justice, and economic reparations. Edna resides in occupied Tonvga land but was born and raised on Iximulew-occupied territory. You can find Edna on the picket line with her two beautiful dogs.

Email:edna@participatorybudgeting.org

George Ygarza, Ph.D

Curriculum Development Specialist

George Ygarza, Ph.D

Curriculum Development Specialist

George is a popular educator, researcher, and community organizer. His work has taken him across a number of different spaces, from teaching at Ivy League institutions to facilitating peoples assemblies in his birthplace of Paterson, New Jersey. Prior to completing his PhD in Global Studies, George was a substitute teacher (later becoming a certified social studies teacher) in Paterson, where he cultivated critical learning spaces within the classroom. During this time, George was part of the NJ Grassroots collective, helping to coordinate a community garden and cycling collective in Passaic, NJ. George has since worked on producing more public-facing work, including writing op-eds on housing justice, abolition, and peoples budgets. In 2024, two of George's major projects were published. The first, Constructing Worlds Otherwise, is a translation of reports on place-based movements in Latin America. The other is an edited toolkit on Municipalism. George is the Curriculum Development Specialist for PBP's Train-the-Trainer program currently in development.

Email:george@participatorybudgeting.org

Ingrid Haftel

Director of Learning & Design

Ingrid Haftel

Director of Learning & Design

Ingrid’s work at the Participatory Budgeting Project focuses on using learning, collaboration, and experimentation to strengthen participatory democracy practice. She currently leads the organization’s Participation Lab. Ingrid previously managed Democracy Beyond Elections, PBP's collaborative campaign to win structural democracy reforms that deepen participatory democracy. She has been working at the intersection of civic engagement, popular education, and design for more than ten years. Before joining PBP, she oversaw Community Education programs at the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and directed cultural organizing campaigns at Peoples Climate Movement. Ingrid is also a member of the US Solidarity Economy Network board. Other past lives include being a curator at an architecture foundation, a mender and shelver of library books, and a pizza slinger. Ingrid shares her Brooklyn apartment with a partner, a toddler, and a cat.

Email:ingrid@participatorybudgeting.org

Isabel Luciano

Director of Training & Curriculum Design

Isabel Luciano

Director of Training & Curriculum Design

With a decade of experience helping governments and institutions engage communities that have been excluded from traditional decision-making processes in allocating public funds, Isabel has dedicated herself to opening access to our democracy. She spent the first half of her career helping cities and institutions in North America implement participatory budgeting (PB). More recently, she has been focused on creating youth programming that equips and resources youth to lead their own engagement innovations in their city's PB process. She is currently applying the insights she's gathered from this work to develop PBP's training curriculum and help community members build PB processes that are responsive and tailored to the unique needs of their own contexts.

Email:isabel@participatorybudgeting.org

Jane DeRonne

Development Manager

Jane DeRonne

Development Manager

Jane manages institutional and individual giving for PBP. She brings more than 10 years of experience in grant writing and management, tracking and evaluation, and communicating impacts for a range of government and non-profit organizations. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and holds masters degrees in communication studies and urban planning and policy. Jane lives in St. Louis, MO, where she is a leader in STL Mutual Aid. She likes to be outside in all seasons, and after work you can usually find her on her front porch with a glass of wine and a couple of kids.

Email:jane@participatorybudgeting.org

Kayla Knight

Technical Assistance Project Manager

Kayla Knight

Technical Assistance Project Manager

Kayla serves as a project manager on PBP’s technical assistance team. She is responsible for supporting the delivery of training, consulting, and capacity building services for government and schools. As a high school student, Kayla helped implement the first youth-led participatory budgeting process in Boston. Since then, Kayla has been dedicated to improving economic development in Black and Brown communities and making government more accessible to immigrants and refugees. Prior to joining PBP, she spent time at nonprofit organizations Bowdoin Geneva Main Streets and Yellow House Kuala Lumpur. Outside of work, you can find Kayla reading, hiking, and learning Spanish.

Email:kayla@participatorybudgeting.org

Michael Cusack

Director of Technical Assistance

Michael Cusack

Director of Technical Assistance

Michael provides support and guidance for local governments, community organizations, and educational institutions implementing models of participatory budgeting as a project manager on PBP’s technical assistance team. Michael’s participatory and learner-centered approach to facilitation and capacity building is informed by his background as a labor organizer and adult educator. He earned his EdM in Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Off the clock you are likely to find Michael with a book, on his bike, or at a picket line.

Email:michaelcusack@participatorybudgeting.org

Navdeep (Nav) Gill

Finance Associate

Navdeep (Nav) Gill

Finance Associate

As PBP's Finance Associate, Nav maintains the financial health of the organization on a daily basis. Being of Punjabi diaspora; intersectional feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, disability justice, and equity have always been at the forefront of their endeavors in representing their community and sharing solidarity with others. Studying International Relations at SUNY Oswego, Nav has used their knowledge of decolonial literature and social movements to bring global perspectives representing the working class, women of color, and post colonial experiences to their internships. Off hours, Nav dabbles in poetry, art, and music.

Email:navdeep@participatorybudgeting.org

Nisha Thompson

NJ Advocacy Manager

Nisha Thompson

NJ Advocacy Manager

Nisha is a community organizer who has extensive experience building movements to increase government transparency using open data, community engagement, and policy advocacy. A NJ native, she worked locally and nationally in the US and in India bringing people together to work on improving the relationship between citizens and government. Her passion is working with volunteers, demystifying complex processes, and engaging people in innovative ways. She is joing PBP as the NJ Advocacy Manger for the Seeds program which aims to build PB demand all over the state.

Email:nisha@participatorybudgeting.org

Petula Jarvis-Hanley

Democracy Beyond Elections Coalition Manager

Petula Jarvis-Hanley

Democracy Beyond Elections Coalition Manager

Petula is responsible for supporting the coordination and management of the Democracy Beyond Elections coalition. This includes building relationships with national, state and local partners to build the coalition and foster engagement of member organizations in order to increase the visibility and impact of participatory democracy across the United States. Petula has over a decade of experience in building strategic relationships with advocacy groups, community partners and elected officials. Petula has managed political campaigns and organized communities in Central Brooklyn around affordable senior housing, quality education and social justice initiatives. Prior to joining PBP she served as Chief of Staff for the 56th District NYS Assembly. She volunteers her time and expertise by taking leadership roles in organizations such as local Community Councils, East Brooklyn Congregations, and Repair the World (Brooklyn) - Crown Heights Leadership Cohort.

Email:petula@participatorybudgeting.org

Rahel Mekdim Teka

Director of Strategic Communications

Rahel Mekdim Teka

Director of Strategic Communications

Rahel is an organizer, facilitator, and writer based in Oakland, CA. She is passionate about building power, storytelling, and Ethiopian food. A member of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100), Rahel strives to bring a Black Queer Feminist lens to all aspects of her life. She is the Communications Manager at the Participatory Budgeting Project, a national organization that creates and supports opportunities for communities to decide how public money is spent. In her spare time you can find Rahel watching movies, reading, and exploring new cities. If you ever need to buy her favor, books by Black women authors and tequila based cocktails are the way - don't worry, she'll drop hints.

Email:rahel@participatorybudgeting.org

Robbie Barton

Communications Associate

Robbie Barton

Communications Associate

Robbie is an educator, facilitator, and eco-social justice organizer based in Oakland, CA. As the Communications Associate on the Participatory Budgeting Project team, he weaves and bridges stories of participatory democracy in action, advances equitable public decision-making that shifts health, wealth, and power to communities, and connects with folks from across geographies and neighborhoods about the issues that impact their lives. He brings to this practice a wealth of experience as a youth educator, local government public servant, and climate justice advocate. In his spare time, you will find him relaxing in nature, nose deep in a good book, engaged in good conversation, or dancing like nobody's watching.

Email:robbie@participatorybudgeting.org

Looking to get in touch?

Board of Directors

Joan Bakiriddin

Elsevier Inc. | New York City

Joan Bakiriddin

Elsevier Inc. | New York City

Joan’s been a leader in PBNYC since its first cycle in 2011, serving as a facilitator, budget delegate, District Committee leader, and Citywide Steering Committee member. Her passion for PB stems from seeing how the process mobilizes and empowers disenfranchised folks who feel like they don’t have a voice. She’s a Business Systems Training Manager at Elsevier Inc. and a community advocate who believes in peaceful troublemaking. Joan is eager to grow and sustain PB at powerful scales, and she brings a tremendous amount of experience from leading the largest PB process in the U.S. since its inception.

Evan Graner

San Francisco

Evan Graner

San Francisco

A proud native of North Dakota, Evan Graner is a Director in the Brand Engagement practice at Landor, the world’s leading brand and design consultancy. At Landor, he helps the leaders of major companies devise strategic plans for applying their brand in leading their business strategy and then activating that strategy with employees; participatory budgeting is quite similar, simply replace business leaders with city leaders and employees with residents. Additionally, Evan’s has had the joy of seeing the country’s mayors in action via past work in Global Public Affairs at Citi, including work with their sponsorship of the US Conference of Mayors. He also votes in his participatory budgeting process as a resident of New York City’s third district (the west side of Manhattan from TriBeCa to Hell’s Kitchen). Evan joined the Board because he believes that now – more than ever – it is paramount for residents to make their voices heard so that there can be transparency and accountability in the distribution and use of public money.

Stephen Lafume

Boston, MA

Stephen Lafume

Boston, MA

Stephen Lafume is a 22 year old, Haitian American, lifelong resident of the city of Boston. Stephen Started doing PB work at the age of 15 with Boston's unique Youth Lead the Change PB process and continued to do so for 5 years. Stephen now works with Boston based BIPOC youth to create self-sufficient communities in Boston's predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods. You can find Stephen working on the Boston's People's Budget and organizing local artist markets and performances!!

Robert Sherman, PhD

New York City

Robert Sherman, PhD

New York City

Robert F Sherman Ph.D. has been focused on youth civic activism and social justice teaching/learning for most of his career. He works as a consultant to foundations and nonprofits in areas of education reform, youth development and leadership, civic engagement and arts education. Until March 2013 he served as Director, Initiative for Social and Emotional Learning at the NoVo Foundation where he was a major architect of a robust, 8 large district learning/teaching initiative., advancing educational experiences and practices. Prior to NoVo, Sherman served as Executive Director of the Action Center to End World Hunger, a division of Mercy Corps where he supervised the agency’s Global Citizen Corps, a youth activist and service program involving thousands of young people from 11 countries who convened in person and online in a yearlong peer-to-peer leadership, learning and service effort focused on local action-taking on global challenges around hunger, poverty, conflict, and human rights. Sherman founded and directed the national Effective Citizenry program at the Surdna Foundation in New York City, where he served for 15 years. Sherman served in the NYC government for 8 years, founding and directing a grassroots focused division of the Mayor’s office. He graduated from Haverford College, and holds a clinical psychology Ph.D. from the Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University.

Cyndi Tercero-Sandoval

Phoenix Union High School District | Phoenix

Cyndi Tercero-Sandoval

Phoenix Union High School District | Phoenix

Cyndi Tercero-Sandoval is the Student Support Services Manager for the Phoenix Union High School District. Cyndi has been with the district for over 24 years working in student services and dropout prevention. She actively seeks partnerships that promote student achievement by eliminating barriers to learning and creating social emotional learning opportunities for students to be empowered. Cyndi is considered a resident expert in dropout prevention initiatives and student support services. She has received several awards for her work with youth and was recently recognized as a White House Champion of Change in 2016. She is very active in the community and serves on several other boards and coalitions that focus on improving youth outcomes.

Jan Weetjens

Jan Weetjens

Jan Weetjens is passionate about community development. During his 30 years as a leader and executive at the World Bank, he was instrumental in the development of participatory methodologies to allow communities to identify, finance, and implement their own development priorities. He designed, introduced, and supervised large scale community development programs in over 30 countries in Africa, in South East Asia, and in Latin America. Before joining the World Bank, Jan led a participatory community development program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, before that, in his native Belgium. Jan currently works as an Executive Leadership and Life Coach and dedicates the balance of his time among coaching, volunteer work with the homeless in Washington D.C., and studies. Jan holds an MS degree in Sociology from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and a BA degree in Social Work and Adult Education. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Depth Psychology at Pacifica University, CA. Jan also achieved a Certification in Executive Leadership Coaching from Georgetown University.

North American PB Research Board

Celina Su

Marilyn J. Gittell Chair in Urban Studies and a Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York

Celina Su

Marilyn J. Gittell Chair in Urban Studies and a Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York

Celina Su is a writer and academic based in New York. There, she is the Marilyn J. Gittell Chair in Urban Studies and a Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York, focusing on everyday struggles for collective governance. Her current book project centering radical democracy, Budget Justice: Racial Solidarities & Politics From Below, is forthcoming from Princeton University Press. Celina has served on New York City's participatory budgeting Steering Committee since its inception in 2011. Her publications include Streetwise for Book Smarts: Grassroots Organizing and Education Reform in the Bronx (Cornell University Press) and pieces in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, n+1, and elsewhere, as well as creative works that examine the politics of social policy and civil society through poetics as a mode of inquiry.

Thea Crum

Associate Director of Neighborhoods Initiative at the Great Cities Institute of the University of Illinois at Chicago

Thea Crum

Associate Director of Neighborhoods Initiative at the Great Cities Institute of the University of Illinois at Chicago

In her current role as the Associate Director of the Neighborhoods Initiative at the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago and her previous experience as Program Coordinator of the same, Thea’s work is centered around community engagement and development. She provides overall project management of initiatives and programs that have included the Community Economic Development Research Cluster, the Civic Leadership Training Program, serving as Assistant Director on the ChiWest ResourceNet capacity building project, and serving as Project Director for the Participatory Budgeting Chicago Initiative. From these positions and others, Thea brings over 15 years of experience in the areas of community development, capacity building, and civic engagement to the Board, which she has been a member of since 2014. She is deeply committed to Participatory Democracy, and she regularly gives public and conference presentations on Participatory Budgeting, guest lectures in graduate courses, and publishes research and practitioner reports. Thea recently presented on Advanced Participatory Budgeting at the Second White House convening on Participatory Budgeting in the United States.

Daniel Schugurensky

Professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University

Daniel Schugurensky

Professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University

Daniel Schugurensky is a professor in the School of Public Affairs and in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University, where he is the founding director of the Participatory Governance Initiative, the director of the master's in social and cultural pedagogy, and the coordinator of the graduate and the undergraduate certificates in social transformation.He has published more than 100 articles, book chapters and technical reports on a variety of topics, including adult education, community development, participatory democracy, citizenship education, social economy, civic engagement, higher education, migration, and volunteer work. One of his current projects focuses on school participatory budgeting.

Benjamin Goldfrank

Professor in the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University

Benjamin Goldfrank

Professor in the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University

Benjamin Goldfrank is a professor of Latin American politics at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. His research interests focus on the comparative analysis of experiments in participatory democracy. His continued interest in Participatory Budgeting and its origins as well as Participatory Democracy more broadly can be seen through the scope of his publications, which span throughout his career and include topics such as The Rise, Spread, and Decline of Brazil’s Participatory Budgeting (Palgrave, 2022), Deepening Local Democracy in Latin America: Participation, Decentralization and the Left (Penn State University Press, 2011), The Left in the City: Participatory Local Governments in Latin America (Latin American Bureau and Transnational Institute, 2004).

Lodewijk Gelauff

PhD Student in Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University

Lodewijk Gelauff

PhD Student in Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University

Lodewijk Gelauff is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He manages the PB Stanford platform (for voting in Participatory Budgeting) and the Stanford Platform for Online Deliberation (for structured small-group discussions through video chat without a human moderator) at the Crowdsourced Democracy Team. Lodewijk has been an active contributor and volunteer in the Wikipedia/Wikimedia community in various roles including as a founder and core organizer of the photography competition Wiki Loves Monuments, and was named the 2021 Wikimedia Laureate. His efforts with Wikimedia contribute to the democratization of information and knowledge, advancing the foundation’s vision of a world in which all people can share in the sum of all human knowledge.

Ron Hayduk

Professor in the Department of Political Science at San Francisco State University

Ron Hayduk

Professor in the Department of Political Science at San Francisco State University

Ron Hayduk’s work on participatory budgeting appears in New Political Science and other venues. Hayduk’s work on immigration and social movements appears in the Journal of International Migration and Integration, Cosmopolitan Civil Societies, Socialism and Democracy, Dialectical Anthropology, Jacobin and in other venues. His fuller biography is on the SFSU website.

Gary Hytrek

Professor of Social Geography at California State University, Long Beach

Gary Hytrek

Professor of Social Geography at California State University, Long Beach

Gary Hytrek is a professor of social geography at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) and the director of the M.A. program in geography. He is a community-based researcher trained in urban political economy whose research focuses on movement building and the potential to generate meaningful spaces of participation and self-determination. His research is driven by questions connected to social justice and human well-being. Hytrek has 25 years of experience conducting community-based research in Costa Rica, South Georgia, and in Los Angeles County. Hytrek founded La Escuela Bilingüe Para Los Latinos, an entrepreneurial literacy training program in South Georgia, and more recently co-founded the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community. In 2013, Hytrek brought Participatory Budgeting (PB) to Long Beach. He served on The California Endowment’s Planning Committee that established the Building Healthy Communities Initiative (BHC) in Long Beach, and later as The Endowment’s Evaluation and Learning Specialist. Currently, he is associate editor of Latin American Perspectives, and member of the Liberty Hill Bold Vision Funding Board. Hytrek has authored or coauthored over 50 articles, reports, and opinion pieces on topics ranging from positive youth development, housing affordability, workplace conditions, and participatory democracy for The California Endowment, Urban Geography, International Sociology, Journal of Historical Sociology, Latin American Perspectives, among other journals. His book, American Transformed: Globalization, Inequality, and Power, was published by Oxford University Press.

Yvonne Yen Liu

Co-Founder and Co-Director, Solidarity Research Center

Yvonne Yen Liu

Co-Founder and Co-Director, Solidarity Research Center

Yvonne is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of Solidarity Research Center, a nonprofit organization that builds solidarity economy ecosystems using data science, story-based strategy, and action research. SRC launched two projects informed by radical municipalism last year: the Municipalism Learning Series (theory) and Los Angeles for All (practice). Yvonne and her colleagues see participatory budgeting as the portal through which cities and social movements can introduce other participatory or direct democracy measures.

Tara Bartlett

Senior Research Analyst School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University

Tara Bartlett

Senior Research Analyst School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University

Tara Bartlett is a Senior Research Analyst for Arizona State University's Participatory Governance Initiative. Her research focuses on public policy, civic education, and democratic innovations, particularly among youth and within school communities. Drawing upon frameworks of experiential learning and participatory democracy, she employs methods such as community-based research (CBR) and participatory action research (PAR). Tara’s dedication to these areas stems from her passion for integrating opportunities for youth and families in decision-making processes, policy creation, and community empowerment initiatives. Before her current role, Tara spent 14 years as a middle school educator, significantly contributing to curriculum development and professional development in civics and democracy for K12 educators. She has extensive experience with civic education projects at local, national, and international levels, including roles with the Arizona Civic Coalition and several U.S. State Department initiatives.

Priyanka Verma

3rd year doctoral student, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto

Woman in brown jacket against white background

Priyanka Verma

3rd year doctoral student, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto

Gina Hakim

Research Fellow, Participation Lab

Gina Hakim

Research Fellow, Participation Lab

Gina Hakim joined PBP and the Board this Summer as a Research Fellow in the Participation Lab. Gina is currently finishing her PhD in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. Her dissertation analyzes how Mexican migrants' experiences in Los Angeles alters and informs environmental practices in their home community in Michoacán. Specifically, she focuses on how transnational collaboration has led to more democratic and participatory governance, with the potential for imagining, enacting, and stewarding more environmentally just worlds. Gina is looking forward to facilitating the Board and learning from its members throughout her time with PBP.

Our Team

Staff

Alexis Gudding

Anita Dos Santos

Elizabeth Crews

Edna Sandoval

George Ygarza, Ph.D

Ingrid Haftel

Isabel Luciano

Jane DeRonne

Kayla Knight

Michael Cusack

Navdeep (Nav) Gill

Nisha Thompson

Petula Jarvis-Hanley

Rahel Mekdim Teka

Robbie Barton

Looking to get in touch?

Board of Directors

Joan Bakiriddin

Evan Graner

Stephen Lafume

Robert Sherman, PhD

Cyndi Tercero-Sandoval

Jan Weetjens

North American PB Research Board

Celina Su

Thea Crum

Daniel Schugurensky

Benjamin Goldfrank

Lodewijk Gelauff

Ron Hayduk

Gary Hytrek

Yvonne Yen Liu

Tara Bartlett

Priyanka Verma

Gina Hakim

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