LEAVING AND BELONGING SYMPOSIUM
Making an Impact on Immigration and Displacement through
Arts, Culture, and Storytelling
April 17-18, 2026
Teddy Almuktady | talmuktady@gmail.com
Teddy Almuktady is a New York City based LGBTQ+ advocate and digital storyteller whose work is informed by his experience as a queer Muslim asylum seeker from Indonesia. He is the founder of SALT (Southeast Asian LGBTQ+ Together), a community based collective focused on storytelling and connection among queer and diasporic Southeast Asian communities. His work centers ethical, care driven storytelling practices with immigrant, refugee, and queer communities, exploring how narrative can build belonging, challenge dominant representations, and support advocacy without reproducing harm. He approaches storytelling as a collective practice grounded in consent, accountability, and long-term sustainability.
Nouf Bazaz | nbazaz1@jhmi.edu
Nouf Bazaz, Ph.D., LCPC, is a clinical mental health counselor, counselor educator, researcher, and artist whose work integrates expressive arts and trauma-informed approaches to support survivors of war, violence, and persecution. She is the Mental Health Director of the HEAL Refugee Health & Asylum Collaborative and an Assistant Professor of Counseling at Hood College. Previously, she was a Clinical Assistant Professor at Loyola University Maryland where she received the Faculty Award for Excellence in Community-Engaged Scholarship. She holds a Ph.D. in Counseling from George Washington University and an M.A. in Trauma and Violence Studies from NYU.
Milbre Burch | milbre@ad.unc.edu
Milbre Burch is a GRAMMY-nominated, spoken-word recording artist, internationally known storyteller, published writer, independent scholar and produced playwright. She has toured and taught across the US and Canada, in Europe and Asia. A Research Collaborator in the American Studies Department of the University of North Carolina, she guest-lectures in the folklore, performance studies and library science programs there. She has appeared nine times at the National Storytelling Festival. Holding a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Missouri, she has served as co-convener of the Storytelling Section of the American Folklore Society.
Keyania Rayshell Campbell | campbell11@arizona.edu
Keyania Rayshell Campbell is an interdisciplinary scholar at the University of Arizona. As a PhD candidate in the Applied Intercultural Arts Research program, she utilizes arts-based ethnography as an archival tool addressing the gaps in archival practice. Her dissertation work recreates soundscapes of pre-Katrina New Orleans through ethnographic interviews and vintage media. A proponent of digital humanities, Keyania applies technology to her work to create accessible and immersive learning environments. She is from Dallas, Texas, and enjoys video games and music.
Ruth Campos | ruth.campos@gwmail.gwu.edu
Ruth Campos is a junior at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., majoring in International Business and English Literature with a micro-minor in Immigration and Migration Studies. Her academic interests and honors thesis focus on Central American migration and the ways U.S. intervention has shaped Latin American identity, an interest sparked by her internship at the Embassy of El Salvador in summer 2025. Ruth plans to pursue a career in law, with the goal of advocating for immigrants. Outside the classroom, she serves as Director of Membership for the Organization of Latin American Students at GWU and volunteers with D.C.-based advocacy organizations.
Fabricio Carrijo | fabriciocarrijo1@gmail.com
Research Affiliate at the Jagiellonian Centre for Migration Studies at Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland, and former Visiting Researcher at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. He has also held positions as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and as an Assistant Professor at the Federal University of Roraima, Brazil. His research is interdisciplinary and situated at the intersection of Peace and Conflict Studies and Forced Migration Studies, with a particular focus on humanitarian responses, everyday peace, ethnographic research, storytelling, and visual methodologies.
Haeyoon Chung | chunghy@jmu.edu
Haeyoon Chung is an Assistant Professor at James Madison University where she employs a multicultural lens as a developmental psychologist specializing in identity development. Her research examines the developmental trajectories of immigrant origin emerging adults and the ways systemic oppression shapes marginalized youth identities. Currently, Dr. Chung investigates student parent emerging adults as they navigate developmental transitions and parental obligations toward attaining a subjective sense of full adult status. Her work seeks to amplify underrepresented voices while providing culturally grounded insights that inform both scholarship and community practice.
Anastasiia Chystiukhina | anastasiia.chy.usa@gmail.com
Anastasiia Chystiukhina is a Ukrainian entrepreneur and REALTOR® based in San Diego, California. Before moving to the United States in 2022, she founded an e-commerce gift brand in Ukraine. In the U.S., she co-founded a Ukrainian pastry and coffee business in Wausau, Wisconsin, helping build a strong community-centered brand. Anastasiia has organized cultural and fundraising events supporting humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. She is passionate about entrepreneurship, community building, and creating meaningful connections through small businesses and cultural initiatives.
Kavita Daiya | kdaiya@gwu.edu
Kavita Daiya is Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the George Washington University. She is the founder and director of the Immigration and Migration Studies Micro-Minor and led the establishment of GW’s first interdisciplinary Center for Immigration and Migration Studies (2025). Professor Daiya’s scholarship is poised at the intersection of South Asian American Literature and Visual Culture and Critical Refugee Studies. She is the author of two books: Violent Belongings: Partition, Gender, and National Culture in Postcolonial India (2008), and Graphic Migrations: Precarity and Gender in Postcolonial India and the Diaspora (2020).
Brad DeMatteo | bdem@unc.edu
Brad DeMatteo is a postdoctoral research associate affiliated with the Carolina Asia Center’s Bringing Southeast Asia (BSEAH) initiative. He holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Toronto and an MA in ethnomusicology from Tufts University. Brad’s primary research revolves around voice, sound, and music as means by which refugees shape their own refuge. The majority of this research is set within in Lowell, Massachusetts, home to the second largest Khmer population outside of Cambodia. There, vocalities spanning from silence comprise diverse experiences of refuge now over 50 years since Cambodians first arrived to the U.S. following the Khmer Rouge genocide.
Salimatou Diallo | mailto:sdiallo1712@gmail.com
Salimatou Diallo is a Community Engagement Coordinator at VMYDF and a graduate student in Nonprofit Leadership and Management at Arizona State University, where her research centers on civic engagement, aging, and displaced communities. Originally from Guinea, she resettled in the United States in 2018 and spent nearly four years coordinating the Client Voices storytelling program at IRC Dallas. She serves as General Secretary of the Jamila Foundation, a dual-registered 501(c)(3) focused on women’s empowerment in Guinea and the U.S and is a member of the Refugee Storytellers Collective. Her work is deeply rooted in turning isolated experiences into organized advocacy.
Sophal Ear | sophal.ear@thunderbird.asu.edu
Sophal Ear is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management and a scholar of political economy, authoritarianism, and post-conflict recovery. Born in Cambodia and raised as a refugee, he brings lived experience to his research, writing, and public scholarship. He is the subject and narrator of the award-winning documentary The End/Beginning: Cambodia and appears in several other films and broadcast productions on Cambodian history and U.S. foreign policy. His work spans academic research, narrative nonfiction, and media engagement, with a focus on how storytelling shapes public understanding of displacement, trauma, and resilience.
Yasmin Elhady
Yasmin Elhady is a comedian, attorney, and host of Hulu's Muslim Matchmaker, where she connects hearts with humor and heart. Born in Egypt and raised in Alabama, Yasmin blends her world with her voice to challenge stereotypes, amplify voices, and foster empathy. She’s toured internationally, performed at The Kennedy Center, and was a "Yes, And... Laughter Lab" finalist. An advocate for refugees and women's rights, her comedy explores identity, offering a lens on today's issues.
Andi Floyd | andi@blueskies-imm.com
I am a graduate of George Mason University (BA in English, 2004) and began working in the immigration sector in June 2004, assisting two attorneys in Northern Virginia in business (H-1B) and arts (O and P) immigration. In 2014, I co-founded my current company, Blue Skies Immigration Services, and have continued to focus on immigration for foreign nationals in the arts and entertainment fields. Blue Skies works with a variety of US performance companies, artist management companies and other companies in the arts and entertainment fields, as well as with foreign performances companies and individuals in the arts and entertainment fields.
María Luz García | mgarci21@emich.edu
María Luz García is a linguistic anthropologist who has worked in the Ixil Maya area of Guatemala since 2001 and with Maya communities in the United States since 2014. She is currently a Professor of Anthropology at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Aditi Goel | agoel6@gmu.edu
Aditi Goel is a Graduate Research Assistant at the Institute for Immigration Research (IIR) and a first-year PhD student in the Department of Communication at George Mason University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of mental health, interpersonal communication, role conflict, and mindfulness. At IIR, Aditi supports internal and external communications, conducts interviews, and develops storytelling narratives that highlight the lived experiences and positive contributions of immigrants in the United States. In her free time, she reconnects with her roots through Kathak, an Indian classical dance form.
Inna Golovakha | innagh@gmail.com
Inna Golovakha is a Ukrainian independent folklorist and Candidate of Philological Sciences (PhD equivalent). She is teaching Ukrainian language at the Washington Diplomatic Language Center. She is the founder of the U.S.-based nonprofit organization Ukrainian Cultural Initiatives (2017), and the founder and editor-in-chief of the cultural studies journal The Ukrainian: Life and Culture (2017-2021). She also founded the American-Ukrainian language Project SELO, which provides English-language instruction for educators and scholars from Ukraine (2021-current) Research interests include: folklore performance and the performer of prosaic narratives, folk demonology, graffiti, and the history of American folklore scholarship in the second half of the twentieth century. editor@ukrainianculturalinitiatives.org (571)789-7853
Sara Green | info@artforrefugees.org
Sara Green is the Founder and Executive Director of Art for Refugees in Transition. She worked in management, fundraising, development, and strategic planning for non-profits and danced professionally for ten years in Europe and the U.S. Ms. Green received her MBA in Finance and Economics from Columbia Business School and holds a BFA in Dance and a BA in History from The Ohio State University. A.R.T. is accredited by UNESCO and serves as an advisor on Intangible Cultural Heritage. In 2023, was awarded the Jeonju Award for Presentation of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Ms. Green is the Founder and Chair of the UNESCO Working Group on Conflict and Displacement.
Stefanie Haeffele | shaeffele@mercatus.gmu.edu
Dr. Stefanie Haeffele is a Senior Research Fellow, Senior Director of Talent Programs, and a Senior Fellow for the F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She earned both her PhD and MA in Economics from George Mason University and earned a BBA in Economics and Finance from the University of North Alabama. She is an alum of the Mercatus MA Fellowship. Her research interests include Austrian economics, political economy, entrepreneurship, and development. Her work has examined post-disaster community recovery as well as the political economy of nonprofit organizations, specifically focusing on organizations that attempt to provide affordable housing to the poor.
Kimia Hesabi | khesabi@nationalphilharmonic.org
Jane Hirshberg | janeh22@umd.edu
In her role as Program Director for Development and Community Engagement at The Clarice, Jane Hirshberg is a key member of the programming team and leads programs in the area of campus and community engagement. She is also the staff lead on annual giving and sponsorship campaigns, and facilitates efforts to secure institutional funding for The Clarice.Partnerships with community-based organizations for the purpose of integrating art making activities for those organizations’ constituencies is a hallmark of Jane’s work. She has led several large-scale projects that have invited participation by community members on and off campus, addressing such issues as racial healing, immigration and displacement, and others.Before coming to UMD, Jane had leadership roles at Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, New England Foundation for the Arts, and The Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She lives in Catonsville, Maryland with her family and numerous pets and does a lot of hiking in the Patapsco Valley State Park.
Marion Jacobson | mjacobson@perkinscenter.org
Marion Jacobson is Director of NJ Folklife at Perkins Center for the Arts and a folklorist and ethnomusicologist whose work has focused on immigration, cultural transmission, and vernacular music traditions. She has conducted folklife fieldwork and produced public programs across New York and New Jersey, including work with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Her research on the accordion and Yiddishspeaking immigrant musicians explores music as a vehicle for memory, identity, and adaptation in diasporic communities. Jacobson’s current projects center on arts-based storytelling and collaborative documentation of immigrant experiences in New Jersey through oral history, documentary media, and public exhibitions. She is the author of Squeeze This! A Cultural History of the Accordion in America (University of Illinois Press), 2015, winner of the Klaus P. Wachsmann Prize in Organology Research.
Keisha Johnstone | johnstone16@gmail.com
Monna Kashfi
Monna Kashfi leads Welcome.US’s content, marketing, and communications strategy. She is a national Emmy award-winning senior media professional and seasoned creative producer with more than two decades of experience in broadcast, documentary, and digital media production. Prior to joining Welcome.US, she was Chief Content Officer at WAMU 88.5, overseeing a staff of more than 90. Previously, Monna was Executive Producer at CT America, developing a 60-minute weekly show aired globally and across the United States.
Marissa Kiss | mkiss@gmu.edu
Marissa Kiss, PhD, is the Assistant Director of George Mason University's Institute for Immigration Research (IIR). Dr. Kiss earned her doctorate in Sociology at George Mason University in 2020. Her dissertation, Baseball: The (Inter) National Pastime, examined immigrant Major League Baseball players and immigration policy. Dr. Kiss is currently the Principal Investigator or project manager on several projects at the IIR including an AmeriCorps project which examines the degree to which athletes use their visibility to strengthen communities as well as a joint project with Fairfax County that examines the contributions and challenges among Fairfax County residents. Other projects Dr. Kiss leads at the IIR includes the Sports and Civic Engagement initiative, Immigration Data on Demand (iDod), the immigration timeline, and Nobel Prize Laureates.
Peter J Klubek | peter.klubek@louisiana.edu
Peter Klubek is a Louisiana-based visual artist and librarian whose work explores the intersections of art, information, and cultural memory. Working in watercolor, collage, and book arts, he transforms pages from legal codes, archival texts, and discarded books into layered portraits, landscapes, and railroad imagery. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Battery Park Outdoor Art Festival and through international residencies in Scotland and Finland. Peter is Head of Research and Access Services at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Dupré Library, where he integrates visual literacy, creative practice, and interdisciplinary research into library programming.
Nino Kvirkvelia | n.kvirkvelia@hotmail.com
Nino Kvirkvelia is a Community-Based Protection Associate at UNHCR in Georgia, where she leads initiatives to amplify refugee voices, engage communities, and inform national displacement policies. She was a 2024-2025 Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow at American University, focusing on forced displacement, refugee policy, and legal frameworks in the U.S. Nino holds two M.A. degrees - in Migration Studies (University of Sussex) and EU-Russia Studies (Tartu University), and a B.A. in International Relations (Tbilisi State University). Her work combines humanitarian practice, research, and policy advocacy to support inclusion, protection, and social cohesion for forcibly displaced population.
Mariamme Latif Estafan | mlatifes@gmu.edu
Mariamme Latif Estafan is a senior undergraduate student at George Mason University double majoring in Government & International Politics as well as Conflict Resolution & Analysis. She has been an intern with the IIR for 9 months and has functioned as a translator for Spanish and Arabic speaking groups. She is looking to pursue Immigration or International Human Rights law in the following months in law school.
Vincent Maluwa | vincentmaluwa@vt.edu
Vincent Maluwa is a PhD student in the ASPECT program at Virginia Tech and a research assistant with the Center for Refugee, Migration, and Displacement Studies, where he supports research, publications, and community engagement on migration and displacement. He serves as Associate Editor of the Center’s Directions in Displacement blog. Vincent has taught students in Elimisha Kakuma, a college-access program in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya. His professional experience spans more than a decade across diplomatic missions, nonprofit organizations, and work in Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi, bridging scholarship and applied practice in displacement, migration and humanitarian contexts. He focuses on policy-relevant, community-centered research.
Jenni Martínez | jmart270@ucr.edu
Jenni Martínez is a PhD candidate in Ethnic Studies at UC Riverside and the creator of Amordidas, a food-centered research and art project born from her parents’ deportation. Her work lives at the kitchen table, where recipes become archives and cooking becomes method. Through oral history, auto-historia Teoria, and embodied practice, she explores how food sustains relational life across borders. Her installation, Amordidas Acompañadas, transforms exhibition space into a sensory encounter of memory, altar, and shared meal. Centering taste, touch, and story; her work asks how art can accompany families living in the wake of migration and separation.
Eve McPherson | emcpher1@kent.edu
Eve McPherson is Professor of Music at Kent State University at Trumbull. As an instructor, she has developed course materials using the knowledge she gained as a facilitator and participant with the Student Experience Project Belonging Champions Program at Kent State University and with the support of an OER ALM Super Grant Award. She holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of California at Santa Barbara and conducted fieldwork in Istanbul supported by a Fulbright Hays fellowship. Her primary areas of research are vocal timbre, Islamic recitation, and northeast Ohio music communities.
Cara Mertes
Cara Mertes is an award-winning independent media field builder who has deployed significant resources internationally. She believes in artists as leaders and stories as essential to social progress. Cara founded IRIS (International Resource for Impact & Storytelling), a donor collaborative integrating creative storytelling into social justice efforts. As JustFilms Director at the Ford Foundation, she piloted a film and narrative grantmaking strategy. Previously, she led the Sundance Institute Documentary Program and served as Executive Producer of PBS’s POV.
Marzia Nazari | marzia@shconnections.org
Ana Ndumu | andumu@umd.edu
Ana Ndumu is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland College Park’s College of Information Studies. She primarily researches and teaches on library services to immigrants—particularly, Black diasporic immigrants—along with methods for promoting racial realism and representation in library and information science (LIS). She directs the Immigration and International Information Research Alliance–or i3r Alliance–a hub that examines immigrant information behavior to design toolkits for immigrant information empowerment. i3r Alliance projects include the state-funded Konesans Together initiative that leverages Haitian epistemology to improve information resources for Maryland’s Haitian residents and the Libraries, Integration, and New Americans (LINA) Project that has culminated in courses, credentialing, and the popular monthly Immigration Policy & Media Digest for information professionals. In addition to partnering with local, state, and national groups such as UndocuBlack and the Abren Enhun Ethiopian Support Association, Dr. Ndumu has chaired the American Library Association’s Serving Refugees, Immigrants, and Displaced Persons sub-committee and leads within intellectual groups like REFORMA and BCALA. She is the editor of Borders & Belonging: Critical examinations of library service to Immigrants (Library Juice Press, 2020) and co-editor of The Black Librarian in America: Reflections, resistance, and reawakening (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).
Bertha Nibigira | berthanibigira@gmail.com
Bertha Nibigira is a spoken word poet, peacebuilder, and international development practitioner whose work centers on migration, belonging, and social justice. Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rooted in Burundi, and raised in Tanzania, her Third Culture Kid and refugee experience shape a cross-cultural practice grounded in storytelling as advocacy and community-building. She is the founder of N&Y Creative Solutions, a Washington, DC–based creative consulting enterprise, and curator of initiatives including Voices of Resilience, I Have a Dream, Amani Kwa Congo, and To Be Human. Her work has been commissioned by academic institutions, the World Bank, and diplomatic missions, using spoken word to elevate lived experience within policy, peacebuilding, and international development spaces.
Sally Nobinger | snobinger@ilctr.org
Sally Nobinger is the Advising Manager at The Immigrant Learning Center in Malden, MA. She has worked at The ILC for eight years, starting out as an ESOL teacher and transitioning to her current role in 2021. Over her time at the ILC, she has coordinated and supported various arts initiatives, including a partnership with the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, an ongoing partnership with discovery-based filmmaking company Film building, and teaching the internal ILC theater class. Sally holds a B.A. in English Language & Literature and Drama from the University of Virginia.
Kayt Novak | kayt@ncta-usa.org
Kayt Novak is the Programming and Marketing Manager at the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA). Sheis a folklorist who graduated with her MA in Folk Studies from WKU in 2023. Kayt also has BAs in Hospitality Management and Anthropology from UNLV. Her research interests include supernatural and sustainable tourism, folk and street art, and occupational folklore. She recently completed an Archie Green Fellowship through the American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress, where she conducted 22 oral history interviews with professional body piercers from the Mid-Atlantic and beyond.
Omar Offendum
Omar Offendum is a Syrian-American rapper, spoken word poet, and theatrical storyteller with a 20-year career blending Hip-Hop and Arabic poetry. He was named a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow, an Arab America Foundation “40 Under 40” recipient, and has toured the world promoting his music while raising millions for humanitarian relief. His off- Broadway hit Little Syria earned him a place in The Public Theater’s “NewYork Voices” program, with performances at venues nationwide.
Lola Okunula | lolao@welcomingamerica.org
Lola Okunola is Senior Regional Manager for the South at Welcoming America, where she leads initiatives that help communities build inclusive practices and strengthen belonging for immigrants and longtime residents alike. With over two decades of experience spanning leadership, program strategy, entrepreneurship, and community engagement, she is recognized for connecting people, ideas, and institutions to drive meaningful change. Okunola is also an internationally exhibited mixed media visual artist whose work explores identity, heritage, and cultural continuity. Across her professional and creative practice, she is committed to shaping communities where everyone feels seen, valued, and at home
Anita Omary | ao17omary@gmail.com
Anita Omary is a public speaker, advocate, and Employment Specialist with experience supporting refugees, immigrants, and women in transition. Originally from Afghanistan, she migrated to the United States in 2023 and has since dedicated her work to empowering displaced communities through career development, storytelling, and advocacy. She is currently writing her book, Being Father of Daughter Is Not Easy, which highlights the challenges and resilience of Afghan girls and women in patriarchal societies. Anita is a recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Vision Award (January 2026) and uses storytelling to promote belonging, empathy, and cross-cultural understanding.
Maida Owens | maidaowens@gmail.com
Maida Owens is a folklorist who directed the Louisiana Division of the Arts Folklife Program from 1988 to 2025. She is a co-founder of the Bayou Culture Collaborative, an initiative of the Louisiana Folklore Society. Her focus is on the impact of migration upon our cultures in the face of disruption.
Ulrike Präger | ulrike.praeger@louisville.edu
Ulrike Präger is an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Louisville. She has also taught at the University of Chicago, the Chicago College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research lies at the intersections of ethnomusicology, musicology, and migration studies, focusing on how and why sonic phenomena serve as nuanced tools for investigating the interrelations among mobility, place, sociality, and political expression. In her previous postdoctoral position at the University of Salzburg, she authored and co-published a compendium titled Handbook Music and Migration: Theories and Methodologies, published in German in summer 2023 and in English in 2024. She is currently working on a monograph titled Sounding 21st-Century Post-Migration. Ulrike has also performed for decades as a soprano with ensembles in Europe and the United States. She holds a Ph.D. in Musicology/Ethnomusicology from Boston University and degrees in Voice/Voice Pedagogy from the University Mozarteum Salzburg and in Music and Dance Pedagogy from the Mozarteum's Carl Orff Institute.
Sherrel Rieger | sherrelrieger@gmail.com
Sherrel Rieger is a retired Spanish teacher living in Dover, Ohio. She has been advocating for the Latino community in Tuscarawas County in northeast Ohio for the past 32 years. She has a M.A. in Spanish from The Ohio State University and a B.S. in Education from Kent State University. She lived in Mexico for 11 years.
Jennifer Ring | jennifer.L.ring@gmail.com
Jennifer Ring is a multimedia storyteller with an interdisciplinary background spanning the arts and sciences. She has spent more than eight years interviewing Tampa Bay artists and amplifying their stories for Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. She also works with Hillsborough College Art Galleries in Tampa, FL, where she supports and promotes art exhibitions through digital and print storytelling, including e-newsletters, social media, and exhibition publications. Ring now brings her passion for narrative-based engagement to the Immigrant Hall of Honor, a new museum opening online and then physically in central Texas, celebrating the contributions of American Immigrants.
Gregory J. Robinson | grobins8@gmu.edu
Gregory Joseph Robinson is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Ethnomusicology at George Mason University’s School of Music. He received the Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and graduated summa cum laude from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. His current research projects center on rural music in southern Chile and Argentina, classic rock in the United States, and Latin American art music. His book, No Borders Between Gauchos: Music, Tradition, and the Post-Frontier in Chilean Patagonia (under contract with Oxford University Press), deals with music, conviviality, and border relationships in southern Chile, where he conducted fieldwork from 2005 to 2007, and again in 2011 and 2013.
Galih Sakti | gsakti@gradcenter.cuny.edu
Galih Sakti is an educator, visual artist, and scholar-practitioner working at the intersection of immigration, visual culture, and public pedagogy. He holds two master’s degrees in Filmmaking and in History and Theory of Architecture, where his work examined visual storytelling, colonial memory, and cultural representation. He is currently a non-degree student at the CUNY Graduate Center focusing on Urban Education. Galih works as a mural educator in New York City public schools and is the co-founder of SALT, a Southeast Asian LGBTQ+ collective. His research and practice center arts-based approaches to immigrant identity, belonging, and advocacy.
Ahoo Salem | asalem@brlit.org
Ahoo Salem is the Executive Director of Blue Ridge Literacy (BRL), a non- profit organization based in the Roanoke Main Library Building that provides English and digital literacy and citizenship preparation services to foreign-born adults in the Roanoke Valley. As a sociologist with a deep passion for integration initiatives, Ahoo is particularly interested in how differential access to resources shapes and influences the everyday life experiences of immigrants in diverse host settings. Originally from Iran, Ahoo holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Università degli Studi di Milano (Milan University) in Milan, Italy.
Hanna Salman | hanna.salmon@austincc.edu
Hanna Salmon is an ethnomusicologist specializing in music and storytelling of the Middle East. In her research, she studies Palestinian oral storytelling performances as methods of pursuing affective atmospheres to understand how storytelling supports communal belonging, resilience, and futurity. By centering the work of storytellers in Palestine and international settings, her research illuminates how storytelling can foster inter- and intra-communal relationships, preserve and communicate memories, and support effective advocacy. She is an adjunct professor of music at Austin Community College and Our Lady of the Lake University, as well as a piano teacher and performing oud player and storyteller
Juan “Pepe” Santana | juanjsantana@optonline.net
Juan “Pepe” Santana is an Ecuadorian-born musician, educator, instrument maker, and cultural activist based in Stanhope, New Jersey. He plays more than twenty traditional Andean wind instruments and several string instruments, and is founder and director of the ensemble INKHAY (“to tend the fire”), dedicated to sustaining Andean musical traditions across the Americas. Santana founded the Festival of the Andes in New Jersey and has directed Andean festivals at Lincoln Center and other major venues. He has lectured and taught nationally and internationally. In FY2026 he received the New Jersey Heritage Fellowship, a $20,000 award recognizing lifetime achievement, artistic excellence, and contributions to New Jersey’s living cultural heritage.
Janet Satter | janet@shconnections.org
Jake Savage | jsavage@somervillema.gov
Jake Savage, LICSW, is the Library Social Worker at Somerville Public Library in Somerville, Massachusetts. He has a background in immigrant and refugee health, community organizing, and work with the Latinx community in the Boston area. He is passionate about increasing equity in the community through advocacy, programming, and access to resources and information. He also loves to read, hike, and solve crossword puzzles!
Forough Sehat | forsehat@iu.edu
Forough Sehat is an Iranian arts administrator and emerging curator based in Bloomington, Indiana. She is currently pursuing an MA in Arts Administration at Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, where she also serves as a Graduate Assistant for the O’Neill Art Committee and works with the Eskenazi Museum of Art in arts education. Her curatorial interests center on representing displaced and underrepresented artists and challenging preconceived narratives. As a woman from Iran, she is committed to amplifying marginalized voices and developing exhibitions and programs that create space for dialogue and reflection.
Jennifer Sherill | jlsherrill@ucdavis.edu
Jennifer Sherrill is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of California, Davis and holds degrees in vocal performance and vocal pedagogy from Northern Illinois University and North Park University. Since 2017, she has traveled repeatedly to Lesvos, Greece, where she helps to implement music curriculum into the refugee camps and community centers on the island. She also partners with the local Greek community to host classical recitals featuring local musicians alongside musicians from the United States. her research focuses on musical agency in refugee communities. Additionally, she explores ways in which music creates a borderless soundscape of home.
Jenna Sears | jensears@iu.edu
Jenna Sears is a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. Their work focuses on integrating community-arts practices and health discourse within refugee resettlement spaces. They are the Assistant Director for the IU Center for Refugee Studies. Jenna is an active vocalist and educator, and directed the Indiana University Children's Choir from 2022–2026. They hold a master's degree in Ethnomusicology from the University of Limerick, and a BM and BME in Voice and Choral Education from the Jacobs School of Music. They are currently conducting dissertation fieldwork in Ireland and the United Kingdom through the IU President Diversity Fellowship.
Karla Segovia | ksegovia@mercatus.gmu.edu
Karla Segovia is a program manager for Academic & Student Programs and a Research Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where she works on the Markets & Society conference and journal. She is also an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College, where she teaches economic courses. Karla holds a PhD in Economics from George Mason University and is an alum of the Mercatus Joseph Schumpeter Fellowship. Her research focuses on economic sociology, immigrant life, and foreign intervention in Latin America.
Blaine Siegel | SiegelB@CarnegieArt.Org
Blaine Siegel is a multidisciplinary artist, a sculptor by training and a public engagement artist by practice and experience. Blaine is the Public Programs Manager at Carnegie Museum of Art in which he has run the Neighborhood Museum program since 2023. Blaine created Awaken Home in 2020, a project in which local artists are paired with and create an artwork of belonging for a refugee family. Blaine was the artist in residence at the Pittsburgh International Airport from January 2018 through August 2019 and worked as the Director of Education and Outreach for Conflict Kitchen, 2014-2017.
Carol Silverman | csilverm@uoregon.edu
Carol Silverman is an anthropologist/folklorist and scholar/activist who has worked with transnational Balkan Romani musicians and cultural leaders for over 40 years. An award-winning Professor Emerita at the University of Oregon, she writes about cultural policy, heritage, gender, and human rights. She has published numerous articles and two books: Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora (Oxford 2012) won the Allan Merriam Book Prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology; and Balkanology (Bloomsbury 2021) analyzes the politics of Bulgarian wedding music. Carol works with the NGO Voice of Roma, the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture, and is a music curator for RomArchive.eu. She has served as a booking agent/tour manger, is a vocalist/teacher of Balkan music, and recently helped initiate an oral history project with Macedonian Roma in Bronx NY.
Lyne Sneige | LSneige@mei.edu
Lyne Sneige is the Director of the Arts & Culture Center at the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, D.C., where she leads the MEI Art Gallery and its programs. Since joining MEI in 2014, she has built a platform to amplify Middle Eastern and diaspora artists and forged partnerships with galleries, museums, universities, and cultural institutions. Sneige brings more than 20 years of experience in international and cultural development in the Middle East.
Sonya Squires-Caesar | sonya2@umbc.edu
Sonya Squires-Caesar’s work explores how—and from whom—people learn about money, emphasizing kinship and communal savings traditions. She is committed to broadening concepts of financial inclusion, particularly for economically vulnerable and immigrant communities, and advocates for culturally responsive economic initiatives. Her interdisciplinary practice bridges scholarship, art, and storytelling, using handmade books and creative works as alternative forms of documentation. She examines where financial equity, cultural practice, and community resilience converge and diverge, illuminating the imaginative power that sustains diverse economies.
Ali Tarokh | alitarokh@gmail.com
Ali Tarokh is a refugee rights advocate, community leader, and storyteller based in Chicago. After arriving in the United States as a refugee, he built a path centered on empowering immigrant and displaced communities through creative expression and narrative justice. He founded Voices Through Art, a public storytelling and art initiative that later grew into the Rishe Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing belonging, cultural preservation, and community-driven policy engagement. He also produces R-Stories, a podcast featuring guests with lived migration expertise. His work focuses on using art, culture, and story work as tools for healing, bridge-building, and systems change.
Sally Van de Water | Sally.VandeWater@sos.nj.gov
Sally Van de Water is the Program Officer for Folk and Traditional Arts at the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. In this role, she manages grants for individual folk and traditional arts practitioners, including the New Jersey Heritage Fellowships and the Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Project, and manages the statewide New Jersey Folklife Network. A folklorist who has worked in cultural heritage arenas for nearly 30 years; she has managed folk and traditional arts programs with state, regional, and national scopes. She holds degrees from Bryn Mawr College and Western Kentucky University.
Chris Vitello | cvitell2@gmu.edu
Chris Vitello is an artist and researcher using ethnographic methodologies to create Visual Art (film, photography, collage) centering community voices and translating academia for popular audiences. His recent projects include "What Happens When We Cannot Mourn: Embodiment of Ambiguous Loss at the U.S Mexico Border" and "The Salmon Still Wait: Western Reclamation and Cultural Identity in Modern North Coast and Salish Life." He is currently a student at George Mason University studying Visual Storytelling and Cultural Anthropology and an undergraduate research assistant at GMU’s Institute of Immigration Research, conducting in-dept interviews and producing videos centering student stories on movement.
Iryna Voloshyna | ivolosh@iu.edu
Iryna Voloshyna is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, an Adjunct Lecturer at the Byrnes Institute, and a founding artistic director of Indiana Slavic Choir at Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests include politics of culture; nationalisms; migration and diaspora studies; critical heritage studies; material culture; Slavic and East European folklore; Ukrainian traditional music and arts. Her dissertation is titled The Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of North America: Tradition and Transmission in Diaspora. Selected awards and fellowships: American Folklore Society Inaugural Presidential Award for Meritorial Service, Wells Graduate Fellowship from Indiana University, Fulbright Fellowship.
Shana Walton | shana.walton@nicholls.edu
Shana Walton is an anthropologist, professor emerita at Nicholls State University (Thibodaux, LA) and a co-founder of the Bayou Culture Collaborative (BCC). She is co-author of Bayou Harvest: Subsistence Practice on the Gulf Coast, a documentation of hunting, fishing, and gardening practices in Coastal Louisiana and winner of the 2025 James Mooney Award. Currently, she is a project coordinator for the BCC and the South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center.
William Westerman | westerman22@gmail.com
William Westerman is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at New Jersey City University, which after 99 years is becoming a branch campus of Kean University as of July 2026. He has been involved in refugee and immigrant detention issues since the Golden Venture case in the U.S. in 1994, curating exhibitions of their artwork at the Museum of Chinese in the Americas. He co-founded First Friends of New Jersey and New York, one of the oldest and largest immigration detention visitation and human rights programs in the country.
Kellie S. Wilkerson | kwilker@gmu.edu