Kahakulei Institute Biographies
Kevin Kahakula’akea John Fong (he/they)
Cultural respect and intercultural navigation have been at the heart of Kevin’s work with, and within, communities and organizations, for decades. This includes honoring culture and its great gifts of connection and identity through its many manifestations. Understanding that culture also can contribute to the closing of ranks and fanning the flames of division, Kevin’s goal is to help people gather in dialogue in the service of personal, collective, and generational healing.
Kevin’s lived experience has informed their process, which they have honed through years as a founder and director of the Clinical HIV Program and Teen Clinic in Oakland, California. During that time and since, Kevin has been mentored by prominent leaders, teachers, and elders including Grace Lee Boggs, Aunty Puanani Burgess, Mama Lila Cabbil, Kumu Hula Robert Cazimero, Tessie Guillermo, Martha Lee, Ms. Jacqueline Martin, Katherine Metz, john a. powell, and Maestro Jerry Tello.
Through cultural bridging and translation, Kevin builds beloved communities to promote transformative justice and leadership development. As a community healing practitioner, Kevin facilitates Second Circles for groups and organizations.
Kevin believes that, under the right conditions, truth can partner with accountability to bring healing, and reconciliation, even in communities that have resisted positive change. Kevin founded the Kahakulei Institute in 2021 to support the healing process in building and sustaining communities of belonging.
Kevin, a third-generation Asian-Pacific American, founded Elemental Partners, an organizational design firm, in 2010. Kevin has served on numerous national and local boards, including Within Our Lifetime, a national network to eliminate racism. Kevin has been a regular lecturer on race, equity, healing, and The Five Elements, at the UC San Francisco, UC Davis School of Medicine, University of Michigan School of Education, University of Utah, and the University of Washington School of Law. Kevin graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with degrees in Physiology and East Asian Studies.
HAKU / WEAVER BIOS
Carol Bebelle (she/her) was born and raised in New Orleans – the traditional land of the Choctaw People. She holds a Bachelors' Degree from Loyola University in Sociology and a Master’s Degree from Tulane University in Education Administration. A published poet and essayist, Carol is a popular panelist and commentator on the transformative power of culture.
In 1998, Carol co-founded Ashé Cultural Arts Center, an organization dedicated to community and human development using culture and art. She has participated in international, national, and local processes aimed at emerging the resilient and healing powers of culture and art for cultural, social, and equitable change in the world.
Carol has an impressive collection of international, national, and local awards and acknowledgments. She is an active member of her community and a dedicated servant leader.
Juanita Capri Brown (she/her) specializes in societal equity and personal and collective liberation. She supports the public and non-profit sectors, foundations, and communities across the nation and internationally to undertake breakthrough approaches. Her work promotes the ability of staff, students, residents, educators, and executives to agitate and disrupt static systems and transform relationships within their realms of influence. She is currently a part-time lecturer at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. Juanita wrote her latest multimedia one-person show which she offered in October 2019.
Juanita received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and her Master of Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley. A Chicago native, Juanita cherishes her family roots which run deep in the state of Alabama.
Susan M. Glisson (she/her) is a trained historian of social movements, a skilled educator, and an accomplished facilitator with a gifted capacity for community engagement and youth mentorship. As the founding executive director of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, Susan has amplified voices often ignored by decision-makers. She has used her positionality as a white Southerner to ground other whites in the truth of our nation’s founding white supremacy in ways that enable them to join in solidarity with their Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) neighbors.
Born and raised in Evans, GA, Glisson holds two bachelor’s degrees, in religion and in history, a master’s degree in Southern Studies, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William and Mary. She has been widely recognized for her leadership, including being named a “Boundbreaker: People Who Make a Difference” by NPR in 2016 and a Champion of Justice by the Mississippi Center for Justice. Her motivation is simple: "My mother taught me to leave places better than I found them.”
Monica Haslip (she/her) has become a compelling voice on behalf of children and the arts. Monica is one of the Nation’s youngest founders of a community-based arts organization to build a multi-million-dollar Art and Design Center, making her a respected leader in the fields of Youth Advocacy, Community Arts, and Cultural Development.
Monica is the Founder and Executive Director of the Little Black Pearl School, which serves as an innovative neighborhood arts and community development program designed to expose youth and adults to the vast contributions of the arts to American culture. In addition, Monica led Little Black Pearl to open the doors of Options Laboratory School in September 2011, a Charter School offering arts and technology-based curriculum to at-risk high school youth.
Mee Moua (she/her) is a nationally recognized public speaker, leadership mentor, and relationship weaver. She is passionate about democracy-building, heart leadership, and making visible the interconnectedness among peoples. Some of her clients are local and state elected officials, community and national foundations, colleges and universities, and non-profit organizations undertaking equity-centered transformation.
Mee was the President and Executive Director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC, a civil rights organization based in Washington, DC. Prior to her work in Washington, DC, Mee served three terms as a member of the Minnesota State Senate. She was the first Hmong American to be elected to a state legislature in the United States. Mee was born in Laos and came to the United in 1978 as a refugee. She attended Brown University, received her MPA from the University of Texas at Austin, and earned her JD from the University of Minnesota Law School.
Simran Noor (she/her) is an independent consultant specializing in strategy development, institutional change/organizational development, and movement building with a focus on developing processes and setting clear outcomes to achieve racial equity. Simran served as Vice President of Policy & Programs for the Center for Social Inclusion (CSI), where she led the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE). Prior to joining CSI, Simran served as Program Manager at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation She also served as Program Assistant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, where she supported the Policy Research and KIDS COUNT teams.
Simran graduated with degrees in American Studies and Political Science from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a master’s degree in Public Administration and Social Policy from the University of Pennsylvania.
Michelle Otero (she/her/ella) is a writer, poet, facilitator, and professional coach who utilizes creative expression and storytelling as the basis for organizational development and positive social change. Her process of engaging individuals and communities through the expression of shared story has found a wide range of applications, from helping environmental organizations understand the priorities of traditional land-based communities to helping people heal from trauma.
Michelle served as a coach/mentor for the inaugural class of W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network Fellows. She holds a B.A. in History from Harvard University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College.
Maggie Potapchuk (she/her) is the founder of MP Associates, a national consulting practice that works in partnership with individuals, organizations, and communities to co-create a racially just world. She co-developed Transforming White Privilege: A 21st Century Leadership Capacity curriculum for leaders to better identify, talk about, and intervene to address white privilege and its consequences.
Before launching her consulting practice, Maggie co-developed a national network of over 150 race relations and healing organizations. She served on the Leadership team for Within Our Lifetime, a national network of racial justice organizations, since its founding. Maggie earned a Masters of Education in Organizational Development and Applied Group Studies, as well as a Certificate in Social Justice Issues from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Charles H. Tucker (he/him), a native of Cary, Mississippi, earned his Bachelor of Science in Mass Communications with a focus in Print Journalism from Jackson State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Pine Manor College. Charles has extensive experience in meeting facilitation, consensus building, community planning and needs analysis, social systems analysis, and creative writing to liberate community stories and gifts, bridge divisions, and build community.
Charles served as a Public Information Officer for W. K. Kellogg Foundation – Mid South Delta Initiative (Jackson, MS), and as the Associate Director of the Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi. He is a contributing writer for the Jackson Free Press.
Charles currently works to build unity and consensus in communities, nonprofit and corporate entities. He uses his skills and experience as a facilitator and program designer to focus on the journey of achieving sustainable equity.
Joe Weston (he/him) is an international trainer, workshop facilitator, author, consultant, coach, professor, and advocate for lasting peace. As the Founder and Executive Director of the Fierce Civility Project, Joe synthesized over thirty years of knowledge and practices that combine theory with somatic exercises, leading to programs that cultivate resilient strength within the individual and transformation of the world around them. He has created programs in some of the most conflict-ridden areas of the globe and serves as adjunct professor at Georgetown University, School of Government, Department of Conflict Resolution. His book, Mastering Respectful Confrontation, is read worldwide.
KUPUNA / ELDER BIOS
Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) was an activist, writer, speaker, and philosopher whose political involvement spanned major social movements of the 20th century, including workers’ rights, civil rights, women’s rights, and environmental justice. Born in Rhode Island, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, Grace studied at Barnard College and Bryn Mawr, receiving her Ph.D. in 1940. Her studies in philosophy and the writings of Marx, Hegel, and Margaret Mead led to a lifetime of social activism. She embraced a philosophy of constant questioning and service – believing that lasting social change happens not through large revolutions, but through local acts of love and kindness. Grace often said that “you cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it unless you see yourself as belonging to it.” She authored many books and was the subject of an award-winning documentary.
“These are the times to grow our souls. Each of us is called upon to embrace the conviction that, despite the powers and principalities bent on commodifying all human relationships, we have the power within us to create the world anew.” – Grace Lee Boggs
Aunty Puanani Burgess (she/her) is a poet, priest, aunty, and friend to many. She has been a community activist in the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement for over fifty years. As the designer and facilitator for Building the Beloved Community - a process that brings ceremony, storytelling, and circles of trust and respect - Aunty Pua has shared Native Hawaiian practices throughout the world to bring healing and reconciliation. She served as the Myles and Zilphia Horton Chair for the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee and as a community scholar in residence at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawai'i. Aunty Pua is an ordained Zen Buddhist priest in the International Daihonzan Chozen-ji,
“You want to make a difference? Then start by looking within.” – Aunty Puanani Burgess
Mama Lila Cabbil, (1944-2019), was a lifelong Detroiter, water warrior, transit advocate, civil rights activist, and anti-racism educator. Among her many life achievements, Mama Lila became a mentee and close friend of Rosa Parks and served as president of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development. Mama Lila co-edited the book Accountability and White Anti-racist Organizing: Stories from Our Work, she co-founded Within Our Lifetime, a national network to eliminate racism. She shared her many gifts, loved hard with each relationship, acted always with integrity, and had cutting analysis that would be delivered with a kind smile and a sparkle in her eye.
“We need to go from dialogue to action. When we do not take our conversations to action, it is just idle conversation.” – Mama Lila Cabbil
Robert Uluwehionapuaikawekiuokalani Cazimero (he/him) has devoted his life as an ambassador of Hawaiian language and culture through performing arts. Under the teachings of Kumu Hula Maiki Aiu Lake, he co-founded Hālau Na Kamalei o Lililehua in 1975, a world-renowned, all-male hula hālau. For nearly fifty years, Kumu Robert has mentored countless men to sustain the traditions of Hawaiian culture. He is the founder of the Wāhea Foundation, which ensures that the rich teachings and traditions of male hula will continue for future generations. As a musician, Kumu Robert has received 25 Na Hoku Hanohano awards and was nominated for a Grammy in 2005 for Best Hawaiian Music Album. He continues to contribute his time and talent in all areas of the arts: singer, dancer, musician, kumu hula, choreographer, recording artist, composer, chanter, and mentor.
“You are the lei I entwine with the beauty of your smile.” – Kumu Robert Cazimero
Tessie Guillermo (she/her) served as the chair of CommonSpirit Health, the largest non-profit health system in the U.S. She also served on the boards of The California Endowment, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Nonprofit Finance Fund. Tessie was the CEO of ZeroDivide, a nonprofit organization that funded innovative strategies to address digital equity for underserved communities, and the past President/CEO of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, a national health policy, and advocacy organization focused on health disparities. In 1999, Tessie was appointed as an inaugural member of the White House Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
“We all have a contribution to make to the generations that come after us and the generations that came before. We don't ever finish, and that's why it's important
for us to always think about who we care about, and what we are going to do for them.” - Tessie Guillermo
Martha Lee (she/her/ella) has been deeply involved in leadership development throughout her career— supporting emerging and seasoned leaders in finding and following their passions. She was born and raised in Panama, attained a bachelor’s degree from Concordia College, and a master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Colorado-Denver. Martha served as the executive director of the Kellogg Fellows Leadership Alliance and was the president and founder of the Asian Pacific American Women's Leadership Institute. She has served on the board of directors of the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation and Girl Scouts USA.
"I try to go through life with my hands outstretched so that I can grab hold and pull someone up. I was lucky to be born where I was born and to have the gifts that I was given. It’s important to pass that along." – Martha Lee
Ms. Jacqueline B. Martin (she/her) is a civil rights veteran from McComb, MS, and serves as the community liaison for the Civil Rights/Labor History curriculum development project at McComb School District. She has served as a civil rights tour guide for high school and college students, as well as teachers and other interested citizens. Ms. Jackie has organized many of McComb’s civil rights tours and commemorations, especially those honoring local civil rights veterans. She joined the Institute as a Community Building Manager and participates in intergenerational community work in Mississippi. She has a B.S. in Business Administration from Belhaven University and is a Certified Training Professional through the WLPI at the University of Southern Mississippi.
“It is only when we have the capacity to love ourselves into healing, that we can change the world.” – Ms. Jackie Martin
Katherine Metz (she/her) is a virtual repository of knowledge and wisdom, both ancient and modern. Under the tutelage of His Holiness Grandmaster Professor Lin Yun (1932-2010), Katherine honors Professor Lin’s legacy by sharing her first-hand account of 25 years of his teachings in Tibetan Buddhism, and over 36 years of experience as a practitioner, teacher, and mentor. Her quiet presence and nuanced writings continue to educate and inspire students and practitioners around the world. Most importantly and uniquely, Katherine imparts its heart song: the spirit—that must be present in order to fully practice in a way that touches the world.
“There is a simple, natural, harmonious magic that exists, to which we are all in tune if we can learn to listen. Just as a work of art moves us to a dimension that words cannot reach, the places that we create can move us beyond the rational, the external, and the objective, to a place of meaning and reverence.” – Katherine Metz
john a. powell (he/him) is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties, structural racism, housing, poverty, and democracy. john is the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, a research institute that brings together scholars, community advocates, communicators, and policymakers to identify and eliminate the barriers to an inclusive, just, and sustainable society and to create transformative change toward a more equitable world. He is the author of several books, including his most recent work, Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society. He is one of the co-founders of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and serves on the board of several national and international organizations. john has taught at numerous law schools including Harvard and Columbia University.
“We must continue to lay the groundwork for the best future we can imagine now.” – john a. powell
Maestro Jerry Tello (he/him//él) comes from a family of Mexican, Texan roots and was raised in south-central Los Angeles. He is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of men and boys of color, fatherhood, family strengthening, racial justice, racial healing, community peace, and mobilization, and culturally based violence prevention/intervention issues.
Over the last 40 forty years, Mr. Tello has dedicated his efforts to “La Cultura Cura” or efforts addressing systems and community transformational healing from the effects of racial inequity and internalized oppression. He believes that individuals and communities have culturally based knowledge and wisdom that can prevent and heal the pain of relationship/community violence, teen pregnancy, fatherless-ness, and racial justice. He is co-founder of the National Compadres Network (established in 1988) and the present Director of the Training and Capacity Building.
“You are sacred. You are a blessing. You have medicine to share. We all have a part of that story that can heal the world.” – Maestro Jerry Tello
KOKUA / SUPPORT BIOS
Karen Rezai (she/her) is a certified Online Business Manager for wellness organizations and entrepreneurs. She provides strategic planning and management services, freeing up other organizational leaders to focus on their brilliance without sacrificing results or work-life balance. Karen is passionate about community leadership and integrative health and has worked for decades empowering multicultural communities around women’s health, cancer prevention, and tobacco-free living. Karen graduated from Yale University with honors in Psychology and earned a Masters of Public Health in Behavioral Sciences (with a specialty in International Health) from UC Berkeley.
Joshua Feliz Martinez (he/him/él) is a racial equity facilitator focused on tying together academic, structural, and interpersonal concepts to develop solidarity, empowerment, and community engagement. As a first-generation immigrant, Joshua was raised in both the Dominican Republic and in The Bronx, New York. Joshua has worked in the nonprofit sector as a Cultural Navigator, assisting Spanish-speaking families in the West-End of Colorado. Joshua studied Anthropology at the University of Colorado-Denver where he developed his holistic lenses through cultural anthropology, designing and completing research projects in Denver, Colorado; Piste, Yucatan; and Salcedo, Dominican Republic.
Todd Hoskins (he/him) is a bridge-builder between people, ideas, values, and actions. For nearly twenty years, he has been working in a deeply relational context with teams, organizations, and networks.
In 2009, Todd launched Canopy Gap, which evolved into an organization design and coaching practice inspired by his passion for cooperation, collaboration, and navigating complexity. With wisdom guide Marti Spiegelman, Todd co-hosts the podcast and leadership program Leading from Being. In addition, Todd is a certified facilitator in Respectful Confrontation and Senior Fellow of the People-Centered Internet’s Global Help Desk. He serves on the boards of Wisdom Projects, the Fierce Civility Project, and Project Realize.
With graduate work in psychology, interest in network science and ecology, and training in awareness and somatic learning, Todd thrives when bridging disciplines and dimensions. Having worked in the corporate world, technology startups, and with a wide variety of entrepreneurs, he has helped launch 15 organizations and initiatives in the last twelve years.
