/THE AEI TEAM
JAMILA RAQIB
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Jamila Raqib is Executive Director of the Albert Einstein Institution and a specialist in the study and practice of strategic nonviolent action. For 15 years, she worked closely with the late Dr. Gene Sharp, the world’s foremost scholar of the field of strategic nonviolent action.
Since 2002, she has been focusing on the development and distribution of educational resources on nonviolent action and has conducted workshops on strategic planning for movements, human rights organizations, universities, and governmental bodies around the world.
As a Director’s Fellow at the MIT Media Lab, she conducted research on how to design better systems for nonviolent action research and education.
Joe Worthy
DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION
Joe Worthy is the Director of Education at the Albert Einstein Institution, where he coaches young nonviolent activists in leadership skills and develops the project planning capacities of the Institution.
Joe is also the Light House | Black Girl Projects’ Chief of Staff, where he is responsible for the leadership development of the staff and the development and quality of programs. He is a Community Organizer by trade, building and leading community organizing projects that have ended Zero Tolerance Policies in Boston and overhauled Cleveland’s Citizen’s Review board in response to the police homicide of Tamir Rice and Tanisha Anderson. Previously, he was the National Organizer of the Children’s Defense Fund, working to end the Cradle to Prison Pipeline.
Joe received his B.A. from Heidelberg University, where he studied Political Science and completed part of his degree through Magdalen College at University of Oxford. Additionally, Joe was a Community Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School where he further developed his skills as an organizer and political scientist.
AHMED GATNASH
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS
Ahmed Gatnash is Director of Programs at the Albert Einstein Institution, where he oversees the transition to new technologies, development of new programs, and new organizational capacities.
Ahmed is the founder of Kawaakibi Foundation, an incubator for new models of human rights activism focused on the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region, and author of The Middle East Crisis Factory (Hurst, 2021) about the history and future of democracy in the MENA region. Ahmed is based in the UK, and previously worked in R&D developing patentable new technologies for small businesses and Fortune 500 companies.
alexander repenning
EDUCATION ASSOCIATE
Alexander Repenning is a sociologist and writer engaged in climate justice with a background in Social Science and Economics. He is co-author of the book “Beginning to End the Climate Crisis. A History of Our Future” and worked as Education Manager at Right Livelihood, connecting activism and academia and creating learning formats for system change. He’s enrolled in a Master at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (SciencesPo), focusing on the interlink between climate justice and human rights and their implications for social movements. At AEI, he is supporting the Climate Justice Fellowship Program.
JESSICA DRAWE
OPERATIONS ASSOCIATE
Jessica Drawe is the Operations Associate at the Albert Einstein Institution. She joined the staff in 2010 and is responsible for financial and donor management, publications production and distribution, and oversight of volunteers, interns, and staff.
Jessica has worked closely with the Executive Director editing writing projects, coordinating with translators, preparing reports, appeals, newsletters, grant applications and reporting, and correspondence. Jessica holds a BA in French and Francophone Studies and a minor in History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
/BOARD OF DIRECTORS
gayle karen young / Board Chair
Gayle Karen Young is an expert in culture-building and human and organizational development, who works to create dynamic organizational cultures in which people can thrive and thus make greater contributions. She comes from a rich organizational consulting background with both corporate and nonprofit clients.
She was in the process of becoming a monk when she became an executive instead, taking on the role of Chief Culture and Talent Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia and its sister free-knowledge projects) until early 2015.
Born in the Philippines to Chinese parents and raised in the United States, she has a multicultural perspective, an adventurous spirit, and a deep commitment to expanding human freedom.
Elizabeth Defeis
Elizabeth Defeis is a Professor of International Law, International Human Rights, International Criminal Law, European Union Law and United States Constitutional Law at Seton Hall University. Professor Defeis has written extensively in the areas of International Law, Human Rights, Gender Equality, European Union Law and U.S. Constitutional Law. She is the Producer/Host of multiple TV programs, including the 15-part video course on Women and the Law, Human Rights and New Jersey, the 3-part series The Italians and the Creating of America, and the 10-part International Law Television Course, which has been translated into Chinese, Spanish and Russian and distributed in more than 25 countries.
Professor Defeis currently serves on the Council of International Affairs and the Committee on Foreign and Comparative Law for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and previously chaired the International Law Committee and the Committee on the United Nations for the Association.
Cornelia Sargent
Cornelia Sargent currently serves as a mediator on the NH AMP roster. She previously mediated small claims cases for eight years, primarily in Claremont and Newport NH district courts.
She received her BA from Smith College and her JD from Northeastern University School of Law prior to completing 500 hours of mediation training at Woodbury College, and is invovled in numerous community activities throughout New England.
Mary E. King
Mary E. King is a Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies for the UN-affiliated University for Peace, a Distinguished Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, Britain, and a Scholar-in-Residence at the School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC.
King is the author of numerous books on nonviolent resistance, and won a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award for Freedom Song: A Personal Story of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, about her work in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. This four-year immersion was the source for “Sex and Caste,” a 1966 article co-authored with Casey Hayden that is viewed by historians as tinder for second-wave feminism.
A presidential appointee in the Carter administration, King had worldwide oversight for the Peace Corps and other national U.S. volunteer service corps programs. She received the 2009 El-Hibri Peace Education Prize, and in 2003, in Mumbai, she was awarded the Jamnalal Bajaj International Prize, named for Gandhi’s silent financial backer.
Peter O’connor
Peter F. O’Connor is an attorney and legal expert with extensive experience in regulatory compliance, litigation strategy, and international law. O’Connor also has extensive experience in international law, serving as Legal Expert on Security Council and General Assembly matters at The Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations since 2016. In this role, he provides legal analysis pertaining to international law, policy, and human rights, particularly related to treaties, international civil and criminal courts, and other human rights issues. Additionally, O’Connor has served as a Teaching Fellow at St. John's University School of Law, Center for International and Comparative Law.
O’Connor holds a Juris Doctor from St. John's University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Fordham University. He is admitted to practice law in New York, the U.S. Southern District of New York, and the United States Supreme Court, and is an active member of the New York City Bar Association's Committee on European Affairs.
Nam Pham
Nam Pham is a veteran public servant, nonprofit leader, and banking executive whose career spans over four decades. He served in the Baker/Polito Administration from 2015 to 2022, becoming the first Asian American at the Assistant Secretary level in Massachusetts. He oversaw several key agencies including the Massachusetts Offices of Business Development, Travel and Tourism, and International Trade. He previously led VietAID, the first Vietnamese American community development corporation in the U.S., and served as Director of Real Estate and Asset Management at the Department of Transportation.
Earlier, Nam held leadership roles in banking, including as Vietnam Country Manager for United Commercial Bank, and served as Massachusetts Commissioner for Refugees and Immigrants. A former Presidential Management Fellow under Reagan, he has taught at Tufts, chaired public venture funds, and co-founded Boston’s Van Lang Vietnamese Language Centers. He is currently president of Asian American Advocacy & Actions and the AI World Society Foundation, and is producing a documentary on the Vietnam War from the South Vietnamese perspective. Nam holds degrees from the University of Minnesota and Harvard Kennedy School.