National Advisory Board

The National Advisory Board (NAB) advises the center staff on a broad range of topics, including evaluation and improvement of existing programs and activities; suitability of proposed new programs; attracting new resources to deepen and expand the center’s work; and integration of community and public service into the mainstream of the university’s activities, particularly its teaching and research. 

2011–2012 National Advisory Board

Brian Cheu, Chair
Jorge Tapias, Vice Chair
Muthuraman Alagappan
Cari Pang Chen
Bernadine Chuck Fong
Christa Gannon
Eleanor Clement Glass
Miriam L. Haas
Philip Halperin
Leslie Hatamiya
James Higa
Sharada Jambulapati
Rebecca Johnson
Lauren Koenig
Peter Laugharn
John Levin
Steven L. Merrill
Jenna Nicholas
Waseem Noor
Emma Ogiemwanye
Amanda Renteria
Jennifer Satre
Steven A. Schroeder
D’Neisha Simmons Jendayi
Bill Somerville
Anna L. Waring
Sylvia Meiling Yee

Ex officio
Greg Boardman (Vice Provost for Student Affairs)
Harry Elam (Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education)          
Julia Hartung (Office of Development)
Stephanie Kalfayan (Vice Provost for Academic Affairs)         
Jeff Wachtel (Senior Assistant to President)           
Howard E. Wolf (President of Alumni Association)

2011–2012 NAB Member Bios

Brian Cheu, Chair 2011–2013

Brian is currently Director of Community Development for the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing, where he is responsible for overseeing the City’s various grant programs that serve to strengthen the social, physical and economic infrastructure of San Francisco's low-income neighborhoods and communities in need.

Prior to that, Brian was the executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, one of the country’s leading Asian American civil rights organizations. He also served as the first permanent executive director of the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center, and began his non-profit leadership as the executive director of the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC), a youth development organization serving LGBTQ youth. Before entering the non-profit arena, he started his career as an attorney, first with the law firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, and then as supervising attorney for Patients’ Rights Advocacy Services, a disability rights organizations serving individuals caught in the mental health system. His service to San Francisco also included time with the City’s Human Rights Commission, where he was tasked with enforcing the City’s local anti-discrimination ordinances.

He has served on numerous boards, including those of the San Francisco Private Industry Council, the Bar Association of San Francisco, the Organization of Chinese Americans, Community United Against Violence, Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, LIFE Lobby, the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance, and the Crissy Field Center.  Currently he is a member of Northern California Public Broadcasting’s Community Advisory Panel.  He is a recipient of the Human Rights Campaign Jerry E. Berg Leadership Award, the Bar Association of San Francisco Award for Achievement, and the California Alliance for Pride and Equality Crusader Award.

Brian received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Stanford in 1985 and his J.D. in 1990 from Columbia University’s School of Law. His service to Stanford has included being national president of the Stanford Asian Pacific American Alumni/ae Club and a board member of Stanford Pride. His father (’55) and sister (‘92) are fellow alums, as was his grandfather (’25, M.D. ‘29), who was one of the first Chinese Americans to receive a medical degree from Stanford.

Jorge Tapias, Vice Chair 2011–2013

Jorge is Global Head of Live Music at YouTube, where he works with music industry partners and YouTube teams around to world to license live music for YouTube. Before YouTube, he led content acquisition efforts for a segment of Google’s Search and Maps businesses. He worked with content publishers around the world to license content Google uses to improve many of its platforms. Jorge started his Google career by helping build Google’s Latin America advertising and content partnerships business.

Before joining Google, Jorge returned to Stanford to work in the Office of Development as Director of Student and Young Alumni Development, where he was responsible for The Stanford Fund's Fundraising strategies for over 22,000 students and young alumni.

Prior to working at Stanford, Jorge worked at a number of small and large technology companies, leading domestic and international business development and marketing efforts.

From 2000 to 2009, Jorge served on Wildcoast’s board of directors in various roles including president, fundraising committee chair, and treasurer. He gained deep experience in board and management team transitions, as well as strategic planning and growth.

Jorge is a class of ’94 Stanford alumnus with a bachelor's in International Relations. He studied at the Stanford in Florence, Italy, program and was a staffer at Stanford Sierra Camp. A native of Los Angeles, Jorge lives in San Carlos with his wife Molly ’94 (an active Haas Center undergrad and a John Gardner Fellow) and daughter Estela.

Muthuraman Alagappan

Muthu Alagappan is a senior at Stanford (Class of 2012) majoring in Biomechanical Engineering. Muthu has also studied philosophy in a quarter abroad at Oxford University.  His main interests are in medical device design and data visualization, and he hopes to pursue a career as a physician and engineer applying technological solutions to large-scale medical problems. At Stanford, Muthu serves as the President of the South Asian Preventive Health Program (SAPHOP), one of the first student-run health project incubators in the nation. SAPHOP is currently incubating projects that organize health screenings for taxi drivers and create emotional health films for free clinics. Muthu is a 2011 Mayfield Fellow with the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, where he is exploring the intersection of medicine and entrepreneurship. He is currently working on a project named Creobase to crowd-source the world’s biggest medical needs onto an online collaborative database. Muthu is interested in using his passion for public speaking, engineering, and medicine to develop innovative public service solutions.

Cari Pang Chen

Cari is currently Program Director for Rebuilding Together Peninsula, a local affiliate of a national organization that builds volunteer partnerships to rehabilitate homes and community facilities in low-income communities.

Cari graduated from Stanford in 1997 with a B.A. in Urban Studies (Community Organizations) and in 1998 with a MA in Education (Policy Analysis & Evaluation). As an undergraduate student, she was involved with Students for Environmental Action at Stanford (SEAS), attended Stanford in Washington (SIW), and participated in a variety of service learning courses through the Urban Studies program. As a graduate student, she worked with the Service-Learning 2000 Center (now part of Youth Service California) to conduct an evaluation of K-12 service-learning programs in the Ravenswood and Palo Alto school districts. She also served as the inaugural teaching assistant for two Urban Studies courses: Community Based Organizations and Community Organizing. When she wasn't involved with the Haas Center, Cari stayed active with a variety of other activities at Stanford, including working as a dining hall hasher, coordinating the New Undergraduate Student Information Program, playing trombone with the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band, working as a campus tour guide, and serving as a Resident Assistant for a four-class dorm.

A fourth-generation Chinese American from Honolulu, Hawai`i, Cari has volunteered for or worked with a variety of nonprofit organizations and foundations in Hawai`i and California since she was in high school. Cari is currently the Program Director for Rebuilding Together Peninsula, and has worked for a variety of nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, including Thrive - The Alliance of Nonprofits for San Mateo County, Team-Up for Youth, The San Francisco Foundation, and The Nature Conservancy of Hawai`i.  In addition to her service on the National Advisory Board at Haas, Cari is on the Board of Directors for Footsteps Child Care.

Cari lives in Belmont with her husband, dog, and two young children.

Bernadine Chuck Fong

Bernadine is Senior Partner with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching where she is responsible for the national community college developmental math initiative in eight states. She is also president emerita of Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, CA and visiting scholar at Stanford University, where she received her bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. degrees, and served on its Board. Under her leadership, Foothill established ETUDES, one of the first open source learning management systems; Foothill also led California’s 110 community colleges in the percent of students who are successful in transfer, as well as basic skills, programs. She also is an executive coach for the national Achieving the Dream Initiative, aimed at increasing the academic success of under-represented students through institutional transformation.

Bernadine has served as the co-director of the Dale Tillery Summer Institute on Community College Leadership for the University of California, Berkeley and served on the National Advisory Board for the Haas Center for Public Service. She is currently on the board for the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.  She previously served on the boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the John Gardner Center for Youth and Families, the Peninsula Community Foundation and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. She recently authored a chapter on an institutional response to open source and content for Opening Up Education: the collective advancement of education through open technology, open content, and open knowledge, M.I.T. Press, 2008.

Bernadine lives in Los Altos with her husband, Herbert. They have two adult children and a pet collie who is the son of the 9th generation “Lassie.” 

Christa Gannon

Christa graduated with honors from Stanford Law School (1997) and is a member of the California Bar.  At Stanford, she created a volunteer program where law students taught incarcerated youth.  The program received an award for violence prevention presented by the California State Department of Education, and in 1998, Christa was selected as one of ten people in the United States to receive funding from the George Soros Foundation to develop an innovative criminal justice program. Under the name of Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY), Christa’s program still serves youth today.  Under Christa’s leadership, FLY focuses on reducing juvenile crime and incarceration through legal education, mentoring and leadership training.  College students, law students and other interested adult volunteer to mentor at-risk and disadvantaged youth.  Volunteer mentors also listen to the teenagers and help them advance to a FLY leadership program, where they are trained to pass along their knowledge to other teens in trouble.

In 2007, Christa won a Stanford Dance and Drama Award, in recognition of her and FLY’s contributions to Professor Janice Ross’s service-learning course, “Dance in Prisons.”  Among Christa’s many honors, in the fall of 2000, she was selected by the National Law-Related Education Consortium (funded by the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention) to be California’s State Coordinator of Law-Related Education.  In this capacity, she supports individuals and organizations that want to start law-related education projects.

Eleanor Clement Glass

Eleanor Clement Glass is Chief Donor Engagement and Giving Officer at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation where she provides oversight and guidance to the community foundation's grantmaking, donor engagement, civic engagement, community initiatives, research, and public policy and advocacy work.  The Community Foundation’s community impact priorities include immigrant integration, literacy, economic security and closing the achievement gap in middle school and early childhood.  She is active in the community and currently serves on the boards of Hands On Bay Area, Destination: Home and on the advisory council of the Foundation Center, and is active in Bay Area Blacks for Philanthropy and Asian American and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy.

Previously, Eleanor was at The San Francisco Foundation and served as the education program officer and later, director of programs. Her grantmaking supported early childhood, youth development, public school reform, and strengthening families. Leading the Hewlett-Annenberg Challenge, her efforts resulted in leveraging $100,000 for the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative that transformed teaching and learning and began to close the achievement gap in 87 Bay Area schools.  She also initiated the $5 million Quality Care Initiative to increase the quality and availability of child care in eight Bay Area counties.

Other former positions include The David and Lucile Packard Foundation where she served as special advisor in philanthropy and designed a grantmaking portfolio to strengthen California community foundations and emerging donor education programs across the nation. At The Foundation Incubator, she participated in creating exciting learning opportunities for individual donors and institutional funders.  She became the director of the Philanthropy Incubator, a joint venture of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and Community Foundation Silicon Valley, to bring the TFI model of donor education to the Silicon Valley.

Miriam L. Haas

“Mimi” and her late husband, Peter Haas, were early significant supporters of the Public Service Center at Stanford, which was renamed in 1989 in honor of the Haas family of San Francisco in recognition of major endowment gifts that secured the future of the Center. In 2004, the Haas family reaffirmed their support of public service education at the university by endowing the Peter E. Haas Directorship (held by the Center’s faculty director) and creating a new endowment to advance service-learning at Stanford. Mimi has served on the NAB since its founding.

Peter served on Stanford’s Board of Trustees of Stanford University with founding Haas Center board member John W. Gardner, whom Peter and Mimi admired greatly.  Gardner was the first incumbent of the Miriam and Peter Haas Centennial Professorship in Public Service (established 1989).  Until his death in 2005, Peter was a major leader in the Bay Area corporate and civic community, known for his socially responsible business ethics and practices.

President of the Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, Mimi is Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees and Chair of the Audit Committee of the New York Museum of Modern Art, a Trustee of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Global Philanthropists Circle. She received a B.A. in Political Science from George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Mimi lives in San Francisco.

Philip Halperin

Phil is President of the Silver Giving Foundation in San Francisco, a charitable entity whose mission is to better the lives and prospects of at-risk children by affording them educational opportunities. Founded in 1998 by Phil and his wife, Maurine, the foundation primarily works with organizations in the fields of literacy and academic enrichment in the San Francisco Bay Area. Phil currently serves on the boards of the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco and University High School, and chairs the San Francisco School Alliance Foundation Board, which supports public schools. At Stanford, Phil serves on the board of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Maurine on the School of Education advisory board. Several years ago, the Halperins provided a generous endowment for the Stanford in Government International fellowships program, and for the last few years have been providing support to the Haas-SUSE collaboration.

Previously, Phil was a General Partner at Weston Presidio, a private equity investment firm.  There, he focused on information technology, consumer branding, telecommunications and media.  He also worked at Lehman Brothers and Montgomery Securities.  Phil earned his B.A. in Political Science at Stanford University ’85 and his M.B.A. from Harvard Graduate School of Business. 

Phil and Maurine live in San Francisco with their three children; RJ is a member of the Stanford Class of 2011.

Leslie Hatamiya

With wide-ranging experience in the public, nonprofit, political, and private sectors, Leslie Hatamiya ’90 (Political Science) leads the California Bar Foundation as its Executive Director. Previously, she served as Chief of Staff and Director of Corporate Communications and Special Projects at SOMA Networks, a San Francisco-based wireless broadband startup company.  As Deputy Campaign Manager for Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign, Leslie helped build a national operation from the ground up and managed the day-to-day operations of the campaign headquarters.  She has also served as Program Director at Coro Northern California, managing the Fellows Program in Public Affairs; as Assistant to the President at Yale University; as Law Clerk to Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit; and as Special Assistant in Bradley’s U.S. Senate Office.

At Stanford, Leslie served as chair of the National Advisory Board, and a member of the Stanford Associates Board of Governors. She has completed terms on Stanford’s Board of Trustees, Board of Directors of the Stanford Alumni Association, and Stanford’s Trustee Task Force on Minority Alumni Relations.  As an undergraduate, Leslie’s honors included a Harry. S. Truman Scholarship and election to Phi Beta Kappa. She received a J.D. from Stanford Law School (1997), where she was an Articles Editor of the Stanford Law Review. She also completed the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs in San Francisco. 

A native of Marysville, California, Leslie lives in San Bruno with her husband and two children.

James Higa

James is a Senior Director in the Office of the CEO at Apple Computer, his hair is decisively grayer after the landmark negotiations with the major record labels to open the iTunes Music Store. Whether it is helping to launch the Macintosh, iPhone, or Stanford on iTunes, his career has been spent in the pursuit of thinking differently and making technology simple enough for the rest of us.

James attended Stanford and received his A.B. ’81 in Political Science. He currently serves on the Stanford Libraries Advisory Council, in the Stanford Admissions Office, and as a Stanford Fund Volunteer. He is a former member of the Stanford Alumni Association Alumni Executive Board. James lives in Los Gatos and is married with two children.

Sharada Jambulapati

Sharada ‘12 (International Relations) is from Cairo, Georgia.  While at Stanford, she has actively participated in programs at the Haas Center, such as East Palo Alto Stanford Academy (EPASA), the 2009 Impact Abroad trip to India, Alternative Spring Break (ASB), and Public Service Leadership Program (PSLP).  Through ASB, she has extensively learned about immigration, the US-Mexico border, and migrant health disparities in Arizona (Desert USA 2009) and in the Central Valley (Medicine at the Margins 2010).  Last year, she co-led an ASB trip on the California prison system (Justice Deferred 2011) and participated in Professor Janice Ross's Dance in Prison class.

Sharada is a founding member of the Stanford Immigrant Rights Project (SIRP), a student group dedicated to raising campus awareness about immigrant rights and border issues.  She currently serves as co-director of outreach in the Phoenix Project, a free college admissions mentorship program for first generation and/or low-income students in California.  She also is a campus coordinator for Teach for America. 

Rebecca Johnson

Rebecca Johnson is a co-terminal master’s student in Religious Studies, with an emphasis on Modern Religious Thought, Ethics and Philosophy.   She is working on a master’s thesis discussing religious and ethical perspectives on genetic testing and disability.   As an undergraduate, she majored in Psychology with minors in Economics and Religious Studies.    Her honor’s thesis looked at how different conceptions of depression affect stigmatization of the illness and support for government and philanthropic mental health funding.   Rebecca’s public service endeavors at Stanford include serving as a director for Women and Youth Supporting Each other (WYSE), an all-female East Palo Alto mentoring group, founding and serving as Co Editor-in-Chief of Stanford Journal of Public Health, an undergraduate journal devoted to public health research and scholarship, and serving as director of the Stanford Undergraduate Psychology Conference, an international student research conference with proceeds donated to high school Psychology programs.   Eventually, she hopes to pursue a PhD in Social Psychology or Religious Studies, concentrating on moral theory and ethical issues in public health.  

Lauren Koenig

Lauren Gray Koenig ’81 (Human Biology) received an MBA in finance from New York University in 1985. She worked in Investment Banking in New York for six years and then locally in Residential Real Estate Development until 1995.  She served on Sacred Heart Schools (SHS) Board of Trustees for nine years and is currently the co-chair of SHS Capital Campaign. Lauren has served on various other committees for Sacred Heart Schools in Atherton. She also serves on the Stanford School of Education Advisory Board; part of her service is tutoring and mentoring at East Palo Alto Academy, which she has done for several years. She currently serves on the Major Gifts Committee for The Stanford Challenge Campaign and has recently rejoined the Stanford Athletic Board.

She and her husband Brad reside in Atherton and have three children, two at Sacred Heart and one at Dartmouth.

Peter Laugharn

Peter Laugharn ‘82 (American Studies) has been Executive Director of the Firelight Foundation since July 2008.  Firelight funds about 150 grassroots organizations in Africa, all helping children and families affected by AIDS and poverty. From 2002 to 2008, Peter served as Executive Director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF), the largest private foundation in the Netherlands, which funded and shared knowledge about work in early childhood development and children's rights. He served as BvLF's Director of Programs from 1999 to 2002.

Between 1989 and 1999, Peter worked in a variety of roles for Save the Children USA, including eight years based in Africa.   As Save the Children's Field Office Director in Mali, Peter helped develop the "Village Schools" model, which promoted access to basic education, girls schooling, and community participation.  Through this program Save the Children helped almost 800 Malian villages establish primary schools, increasing the number of primary schools in the country by 20%.  Peter was later Save the Children's West Africa Area Director and then Education Adviser for Africa, providing technical assistance for programs in 10 countries.

In addition to his Stanford bachelor’s degree, Peter holds a Master’s in Arab Studies from Georgetown and a Ph.D. in education from the University of London. He was also a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco from 1982 to 1984. Peter is chair of the Coalition on Children Affected by AIDS (CCABA), and a member of the Council on Foundations' Global Philanthropy Committee.

John Levin

John Levin is chairman of Folger Levin LLP. His practice focuses on transactions and strategic advice for businesses, high net worth families and individuals, and nonprofit organizations.

John received his law degree from Stanford Law School in 1973. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1969 and a Master of Arts degree in Education from Stanford University in 1970. Following law school, John served for one year as law clerk to Associate Justice Stanley Mosk of the Supreme Court of California. In 1978, John co-founded Folger & Levin and served as its chairman and managing partner for nearly 30 years. He has been a member of the California Bar since 1973.

John is active in a wide range of community activities and has served on numerous boards. In 2009 he completed a ten year term as a Trustee of Stanford University, the last five years as Vice-Chair of the Board. He is currently Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of Stanford Hospital and Clinics. He is also Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of California and a founding member of the Board of Trustees of Team-Up for Youth. John has been active in the leadership of Stanford Law School, serving as a member of the Dean's Advisory Council, Co-Chair of the Campaign for Stanford Law School and a member of the Executive Committee of the school's Board of Visitors. With his wife Terry, John established The John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law at Stanford Law School. John has also served as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Claude and Louise Rosenberg, Jr. Family Foundation, Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees of Marin Country Day School, a member of the Board of Trustees of Marin Academy, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Little School, a member of the Advisory Board of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities, a member of Harvard University's Committee on University Resources and a member of the Civil Justice Reform Act Advisory Group of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Steven L. Merrill

Steven, a native San Franciscan, has been active in venture capital investing since 1968 when he joined Bank of America's venture capital group. With an A.B. (1965) from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, he became president of BankAmerica Capital Corporation in 1976 and managed this very successful venture activity until 1980 when he formed Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre (MPAE), a privately held venture capital partnership.

MPAE managed funds of approximately $285 million provided by a group of 50 limited partners, including major corporations, pension funds, insurance companies, university endowments, and prominent families. MPAE stopped making new investments in 1996 and the partners founded Benchmark Capital and Foundation Capital. Merrill is a limited partner in both of these firms, but he is no longer involved in the day-to-day management and is devoting more time to civic and nonprofit activities as well as his private investments.

Steven was chairman of the Board of Trustees of Town School for Boys, a member of the Committee to Restore the San Francisco Opera House, and a director of the Children's Health Council. He currently serves on the Board of Aspire Public Schools, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and the UCSF Foundation. He is also an investment partner in the New Schools Venture Fund. Steven was president of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists and director of the National Venture Capital Association, and has been a director of numerous privately held companies.

Jenna Nicholas

Jenna is a senior (Class of 2012) at Stanford studying International Relations. She has studied abroad at Oxford and worked for the Oxford Hub, the Stanford Social innovation Review, the Stanford Centre for Philanthropy and Civil Society, Global Health Corps and Business for Social Responsibility.  She spent five months in China working on an honors thesis for the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law Program. The topic of her thesis is philanthropy, NGOs and social entrepreneurship in China. She is originally from London and is an active member of the Bahai Faith which is an inspiration for much of what she does.

Waseem Noor                                                          

Waseem is a Senior Principal in the Strategy & Portfolio Analysis practice of IMS Health, where he leads engagements in strategy development, portfolio management, and decision process design for large and mid-size pharmaceutical clients. He is also leading IMS’ Not-For-Profit Initiative which looks to support global, non-profit organization as they address challenges in public health.

Waseem has over ten years of consulting experience advising global companies on key issues concerning product and franchise strategy and developing strategic processes to help them make better investment decisions on the products in their pipelines. He has helped many pharmaceutical companies think about product strategy and portfolio issues and how they link to corporate strategy; determine business direction; decide on questions about acquisitions, alliances, and partnering; and define their business footprint in their commercial space. His work has enabled clients to have a greater strategic alignment of key stakeholders within their organizations, by bringing R&D and commercial organizations together.

Waseem has experience in facilitating large groups from both his project work and his previous teaching experience in economic policy at Columbia University. His past consulting experience includes work for the Harvard Institute for International Development, the International Labour Organization, and the World Bank. Waseem holds a Ph.D. with distinction, M.Phil, and M.A. in Economics from Columbia University, and an A.B. (1991) with honors in Economics from Stanford. He is fluent in French and Bengali.

Emma Ogiemwanye

Emma is a senior (Class of 2012) majoring in Urban Studies with a focus on Urban Society and Social Change. Her involvement with the Haas Center began freshman year as a mentor for Ravenswood Reads and continued with Stanford College Prep and the Public Service Leadership Program. She also has received mentoring and support from the center in restructuring and running Stanford Service Ambassadors, an ASSU program that aims to engage freshman in public service and building a cultural enrichment program for Family Crossroads, a transitional homeless shelter in Daly City.

Emma is passionate about education reform and supporting the comprehensive solutions necessary to alleviate poverty in this country and abroad. Stanford has given her many opportunities to explore her interests within and outside academia, most recently working for the U.S. Department of Education on the Promise Neighborhoods program as part of Stanford in Washington. She is excited to serve as this year’s ASSU Chief of Staff and hopes to support efforts to infuse the student body and Stanford community with a culture of compassion, engagement, and social innovation.         

Amanda Renteria

Amanda is Chief of Staff to United States Senator Debbie Stabenow (D–MI). Prior to this, she served as Legislative Director for Senator Dianne Feinstein (D–CA). She also spent time in local government, working as a budget analyst and neighborhood manager for the City of San José. At Harvard, she earned her M.B.A. with an emphasis on public and nonprofit management.

Before graduate school, Amanda spent a few years as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, and as a high school economics teacher. A member of the Stanford Class of 1997, she majored in Political Science and Economics and played two years on the basketball team and four years on the softball team, where she was voted an Academic All American and Most Inspirational Athlete.

Jennifer Satre

Jennifer received her Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University in 1971 and a Master's in Education from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1980. She and her husband Phil are steering committee members for The Stanford Challenge and serve on the Stanford Parent Advisory Board.  Additionally, Jennifer is President of the Stanford Club of Northern Nevada and the Sierra.

A retired elementary school teacher, Jennifer is active in several community organizations. She is the immediate past Chair and a current Trustee of the Community Foundation of Western Nevada, and also serves as a Director on the Board of First Independent Bank of Nevada. Jennifer is also a past chair of the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation. Her other community experiences have included founding board member and chair of both the Nevada Women's Fund and the Women's Foundation for a Greater Memphis, as well as serving on the boards of the Sierra Arts Foundation, the Memphis Development Foundation, and LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis. She and Phil have four adult children, Malena, University of Colorado '99; Allison '01, who was a Public Service Scholar; Jessica '07; and Peter '10.

Steven A. Schroeder

Steve is Distinguished Professor of Health and Health Care, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, UCSF, where he also heads the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center. The Center, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American Legacy Foundation, works with leaders of more than 50 American health professional organizations and health care institutions to increase the cessation rate for smokers.  It has expanded the types of clinician groups that support cessation, developed an alternative cessation message (Ask, Advise, Refer), created new ways to market toll-free telephone quit lines, and engaged the mental health treatment community for the first time.

Between 1990 and 2002, Steve was President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. During that time the Foundation made grant expenditures of almost $4 billion in pursuit of its mission of improving the health and health care of all Americans. It developed new programs in substance abuse prevention and treatment, care at the end of life, and health insurance expansion for children, among others. In 1995, Steve served as mentor to John Gardner Fellow Ying Ying Goh '94 (MD '01) at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Steve graduated with honors from Stanford University in Psychology (1960) and Harvard Medical School, and trained in internal medicine at the Harvard Medical Service of Boston City Hospital and in epidemiology as an EIS Officer of the Centers for Disease Control. He held faculty appointments at Harvard University, George Washington University, and UCSF. At both George Washington and UCSF he was founding medical director of a university-sponsored HMO, and at UCSF he founded its division of general internal medicine.

He has published extensively in the fields of clinical medicine, health care financing and organization, prevention, public health, the work force, and tobacco control. He currently serves as chairman of the International Advisory Committee of the Ben Gurion School of Medicine in Israel, is a member of the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine, a director of the James Irvine Foundation, the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, and the Robina Foundation.  He formerly chaired the American Legacy Foundation, was a Council member of the Institute of Medicine, an Overseer of Harvard, and President, the Harvard Medical Alumni Association. He has six honorary doctoral degrees and numerous awards.  Steve lives in Tiburon, California with his wife Sally, a retired schoolteacher. Their two sons are physicians, one a cardiologist and one a pediatrician. Steve and Sally have three grandchildren.

D’Neisha Simmons Jendayi

D’Neisha earned her bachelor’s in Organizational Communication from Stanford University in 1999. While at Stanford, she remained involved with numerous Haas Center programs, particularly through her participation in Stanford in Washington and membership in Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a public service organization.
D’Neisha serves as Vice President of Global Communications for Heritage Link Brands, LLC, the largest U.S. importer and marketer of black-produced wine from Africa and its Diaspora. With over a decade of communication, multicultural outreach and general management experience, she has served in key roles for Ketchum Public Relations, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
 
Her commitment to Stanford includes leadership as board member of the National Black Alumni Association and former co-president and board member of the Black Alumni Association of Washington, DC.

Bill Somerville

Bill is Executive Director of Philanthropic Ventures Foundation and a founding member of the NAB, He has decades of experience in the nonprofit sector and is a nationally recognized expert on creative grantmaking, having spent more than 40 years developing innovative programs to help the neediest among us. In 1991, after 17 years as the Executive Director of the Peninsula Community Foundation (now known as the Silicon Valley Community Foundation) Somerville founded Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, which specializes in creative giving programs customized to donor’s interests.  
As the West Coast’s senior-most foundation executive, Bill has consulted with over 400 community and family foundations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. He is a recipient of the 2004 Gerbode Fellowship Award in recognition of outstanding achievement as a non-profit executive. He serves on the Advisory Boards of the Peery Family Foundation, Tactical Philanthropy, the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare, and the Junior League of Palo Alto.
Bill has worked with the Haas Center for Public Service to establish the Tom Ford and Sand Hill Fellowships, to introduce more young people to philanthropy and foundation work. He is author of Grassroots Philanthropy: Field Notes of a Maverick Grantmaker with Fred Setterberg, which is a guide to decisive, hands-on grantmaking.

Anna L. Waring

Anna is Executive Director of Foundation for a College Education (FCE) in East Palo Alto, CA and received her Ph.D. from Stanford (1995). Founded in 1995, FCE’s mission is to increase the number of low-income students of color who attend and graduate from college.  FCE takes a comprehensive approach involving parents as well as students in the college preparation process.  In addition, the foundation continues to work with its students throughout their college career to ensure that they graduate from college in a timely manner.  In 2007, the Lumina Foundation recognized FCE as a model college access program.

From July 2002 until June 2007, Anna served as president of Josephinum Academy, an all girls’ Catholic school located in the Wicker Park area of Chicago.  Josephinum Academy is a multicultural college preparatory school educating girls in grades in six through twelve. The majority of young women educated at Josephinum live at or below the poverty level. Between 95 and 100 percent of the seniors graduate on time and a comparable number are admitted to colleges and universities.

Before leading Josephinum, Anna worked at DePaul University as an assistant dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a faculty member in the Public Services Graduate Program where she taught courses in management, leadership, policy analysis, the nonprofit sector and ethics. Between college and graduate school, she worked in admissions and alumni affairs for A Better Chance, Inc., a national talent search organization for academically gifted students of color, which places students in independent and selected public high schools.

Anna grew up in Boston, MA and was educated in Boston through eighth grade.  For high school she attended Milton Academy where she was an A Better Chance, Inc. scholar.  Anna went on to Williams College where she received her Bachelor’s in Psychology (1978). While at Stanford doing her doctoral work, Anna was a graduate assistant at the Public Service Center (now the Haas Center) from 1985–1989, where she coordinated publicity and publications, served as the staff liaison for the center’s You Can Make a Difference Conferences, and worked with a team of graduate students who provided the preliminary design for the Presidents’ Initiative for Public and Community Service, which eventually became Campus Compact.

Anna serves on the Head of School Council at Milton Academy and is a member of Phi Delta Kappa.  In 2005 Dr. Waring received the “Excellence in Education Award” from the Williams College Bolin Reunion committee and in 2006 the Bicentennial Award from Williams College, the College’s highest honor, also for her work in education. Anna lives in Palo Alto.

Sylvia Mei-ling Yee

Sylvia Mei-ling Yee, Ph.D., is Vice President of Programs at the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, a family foundation in San Francisco that makes $32 million annually in grants to advance equal rights and opportunities. She has played leadership roles both in philanthropy and in the community, serving on the boards of numerous national, state, and local organizations, often as chair, including Asian Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, Foundation Consortium, Family Support America, Lick Wilmerding High School, and Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center. She currently sits on the boards of Northern California Grantmakers, The Springcreek Foundation, and Team Up for Youth, which she cofounded.

Sylvia has helped launch major public-private initiatives to strengthen children, youth and families: the San Francisco Beacon Initiative, Bay Area School Development Program, and Communities of Opportunity. For many years, she taught at the secondary and university levels in the U.S. and China. She also was the Executive Director of Mission Graduates (formerly St. John’s Educational Thresholds Center) and Program Executive in Education at the San Francisco Foundation. Sylvia received her doctorate in Educational Administration and Policy from Stanford University, and authored two books, Careers in the Classroom and Got Me a Story to Tell.

Student NAB Members

The Haas Center encourages student members on its National Advisory Board. Appointments are made for one year with the opportunity to renew for an additional year. All Stanford students (graduate or undergraduate) in good standing are eligible to apply. We are no longer accepting applications for the 2011–12 school year.

Background and Responsibilities

The Haas Center's National Advisory Board was created on May 3, 1986 and since that time its members have provided Haas Center staff with strategic guidance and counsel on a range of topics, including the following:

• strategy and policy, evaluation and improvement of existing Haas Center programs and activities;
• suitability of proposed new programs based on criteria linked to consistency with the Center’s goals, financial sustainability, provision of a broad spectrum of opportunities for student participation, commitment of faculty members and community partners, and potential for replication at other universities;
• methods to attract additional resources to deepen and expand the Center’s work; and
• integration of community and public service into the mainstream of the University’s activities, particularly its teaching and research work.

In order to provide their unique voice, student members are expected to attend a fall student orientation and all NAB meetings, give a concentrated amount of time the week prior to each meeting to review the meeting packet, complete specific tasks as charged between meetings, and serve as a liaison between NAB and students as appropriate. Student members will also be paired in a mentoring relationship with other members of the National Advisory Board.

For more information, please contact Maria Fraboni.

Board Members' Individual Commitments

The members of the National Advisory Board developed the following shared commitments.

• commitment to the work of the Haas Center
• ability to share wisdom and advice, and contribute meaningfully to three meetings annually, including a special orientation session for new board members to be held prior to the Autumn Quarter meeting
• service on one Standing Committee (Board Engagement, External Affairs, or Programs)
• willingness to support at least one Haas Center program activity (staff generate and provide a list of volunteer opportunities during the fall NAB meeting)
• willingness to participate actively in the work of the National Advisory Board
• willingness to contribute financially to the Haas Center in a personally significant way (note: this is about the commitment, not the size of contribution; students members typically give small amounts. The size of the contribution is kept confidential).