Board
Michael Gaouette has 20 years of United Nations and international NGO experience. He served the UN in New York, Geneva, West Africa and the Middle East in a variety of roles, including as the leader of the team that established a peacekeeping operation in Darfur, Sudan. He was also the Director of Emergency Operations at a major British NGO, where he led humanitarian responses to crises around the world, including in India, East Africa and Central Asia. His commentary includes: A Case for Change – A Review of Peace Operations (contributor), “Ignoring Sudan?” (Al Jazeera), “Peacekeeping in Darfur” (NPR), and “Peacekeeping – can the UN meet the challenge?” (Harvard Institute of Politics). He now teaches international conflict resolution at Columbia University and the New School for Social Research in New York. He has an A.B. from Harvard College and an MPhil from Cambridge University. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.
Janet Harris has 20 years experience leading development in science, humanitarian and arts non-profits. Since 2010, she has been Chief Development Officer at the California Academy of the Sciences. There, she leads the Academy’s program to support its museum in Golden Gate Park and their world-class scientific research and education programs. For the ten years prior, Janet was VP of Development for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a humanitarian relief organization that operates in more than 40 countries around the world and resettles refugees in 22 cities across the United States. During her tenure the IRC raised over $350 million in private support and $110-million in endowment funds and Janet traveled to Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Liberia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, Thailand and Indonesia.
From 1992 to 2000, she was a development and planning consultant for several prestigious nonprofit organizations including the Roundabout Theatre Company, The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and The James Beard Foundation. Prior, Janet was the Director of Development at Manhattan Theatre Club and a sign language interpreter for the deaf. She received a BA from the University of Iowa and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Janet volunteered for ACORN and Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. She is also a board member of Hands On which provides sign language interpreting for New York theatres. Janet rides a scooter and is a swimmer, reader, and the mother of two grown sons.
Vincent Warren is the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a national legal and educational organization dedicated to advancing and defending the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Vince oversees CCR’s groundbreaking litigation and advocacy work which includes using international and domestic law to hold corporations and government officials accountable for human rights abuses; challenging racial, gender and LGBT injustice; and combating the illegal expansion of U.S. presidential power and policies such as illegal detention at Guantánamo Bay, rendition and torture. Prior to his tenure at CCR, Vince was a national senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where he litigated civil rights cases, focusing on affirmative action, racial profiling and criminal justice reform. Prior to the ACLU, Vince monitored South Africa’s historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings and worked as a criminal defense attorney for the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn. A jazz musician, he lives in Chelsea with his family.
Websites: www.calacademy.org | www.ccrjustice.org/
