COUNCIL OF ADVISORS
Everyone, at every stage of life, can benefit from mentorship and a strong community. Just as AHS models the support of our Scholars after the mentorship Alexander Hamilton received from his community, so too do we understand that our long-term growth must include mentorship and community at the organizational level.
The Council of Advisors serves as critical community champions in support of our mission. Members lean-in in a variety of ways: sharing their professional expertise; their diverse knowledge of constituent perspectives; their connections to local, national, or international resources, colleagues or peers; providing philanthropic support, or other forms of needed assistance.
Our Council debuts today with members from across industries and sectors; we look forward to welcoming additional members in the areas of education, and psychotherapy & advocacy. We’re thrilled to see how this partnership evolves and invite you to explore the bios of our Council below.
Council Members
Marta Lowe
Marta Lowe serves as Corporate Counsel for Costco Wholesale. At Costco, Marta partners with Challenge Seattle to coordinate Career Discovery Tours for under-resourced high school students, and to connect teachers with Costco employees to translate the company's STEM challenges for classroom use. Throughout her career, she’s volunteered her skills toward a more equitable world: documenting the claims of incarcerated women denied health care, helping people with AIDS obtain disability benefits, establishing a pro bono program for fellow in-house lawyers, and serving as chair of the board of directors of Childhaven. Marta received her law degree from The University of Chicago in 1996, where she took the class Racism and the Law from Barack Obama, and completed a certification in Inclusion and Diversity from the Yale School of Management in 2020. She believes in the mission of empowerment embodied by Alexander Hamilton Scholars and is grateful for the opportunity to support it.
Patrick Green
Patrick L. Green is the president and chief executive officer of Lawrence and Memorial Healthcare and executive vice president of Yale New Haven Health. L+M Healthcare, a member of the Yale New Haven Health System.
Patrick has over 20 years of well-rounded leadership experience with private, not-for-profit health systems and major comprehensive academic health systems demonstrating his visionary skill and expertise to ensure operational integrity while developing a sustainable business model for the organization. Patrick is a servant leader and is known for his “People First” leadership approach.
He volunteers his time in the community with various nonprofit organizations that focus on improving the health of the community, education, and leadership development. He serves on several boards including the Connecticut Hospital Association Board of Trustees, the Hospital Association of Rhode Island (HARI) and the American Hospital Association Regional Policy Board (AHA RPB1). He is also a board member of the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut and a board of trustee for Chelsea Groton Bank. In addition, Patrick is on the board of Mystic Aquarium, the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern CT, and the American Heart Association of Connecticut.
Patrick and his wife have a teenage son.
Dr. Jillian Woodruff
Dr. Jillian Woodruff, also known as Dr. Jill, is board certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and is a Fellow of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She maintains an active gynecologic and aesthetic practice in Anchorage, Modern Gynecology & Skin. She is active in nonprofit women’s and children’s issues in her area, serves as an educator to students in medical fields, a mentor to young women via the Women’s Power League of Alaska and hosts a call-in health discussion show on KSKA, the local NPR affiliate.
As a member of the AHS Council of Advisors, “Dr. Jill” is a mentor to aspirant medical students and advises AHS on how better to serve their needs. Dr. Woodruff holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Psychology with a Neuroscience focus and Spanish Literature from Duke University, and her MD from the University of Kentucky, with further training at Cornell University/NY Presbyterian Hospital and residency at Beth Israel Medical Center/Mt. Sinai.
She converses with patients in English, Spanish, American Sign Language and conversational Mandarin, and has volunteered in Guatemala, Mexico and China performing humanitarian and medical missions. At home, in Anchorage, you will often find her interpreting for the Deaf at church, volunteering with the Jack and Jill of America, Inc, long distance running in the snow, cross country skiing, or shuttling her young children to and from activities. She and her husband, physician Dr. Christopher Gay, an AHS Board of Directors member and their two children reside in Anchorage, Alaska.
Bill Basl
Bill Basl, a White House appointee, served as the Director of AmeriCorps State and National at the Corporation for National and Community Service from 2012-16. Bill began his national service career as a VISTA volunteer in 1970, helping migrant farm workers in Washington establish their own businesses. He also served as a VISTA leader from 1971-72. In this role, he helped form a regional legal services network. In 1983, Bill founded the Washington Service Corps, the first statewide youth service initiative in the nation designed to address priority local education and human service needs. Basl also founded the nation's first veterans' corps in 2010 and is noted for establishing a collaborative regional network to provide AmeriCorps training across the Pacific Northwest. In 1993 he was called upon by the Governor to create the WA Commission for National and Community Service which continues to be the state entity receiving federal and local funding that has enabled thousands of individuals to serve as AmeriCorps members. He provided a vision for service and volunteerism serving in this capacity as a staff person to three Washington Governors from 1993 until his White House appointment in 2012. He is a past chair and board member of the American Association of State Service Commissions and was selected by the White House as a Champion of Change – Service Innovator in 2011.
A native of Pittsburgh, PA, Bill received a BS in business administration from the University of Rhode Island. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the WA Campus Compact, the Civic Learning Council, Civic Assets, and serves as an advisor to Hamilton Scholars.
Rachel Schnalzer
Rachel is a member of the AHS Council of Advisors. She is an audience engagement editor at the Los Angeles Times, where she also writes a weekly travel newsletter. Prior to joining the Times, Rachel worked at BuzzFeed and Snapchat.
Rachel serves as a regional coordinator for the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Alliance's youth committee and has also volunteered with L.A.-based organizations such as WriteGirl and Young Storytellers.
Rachel earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and English at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. She focused her senior thesis on the legacy of censorship in post-independence Ireland, where she studied abroad. While in school, Rachel enjoyed participating in a variety of on-campus clubs and interning at media organizations such as Baltimore Magazine, the Johns Hopkins University Press, Rodale and PBS39.
Matt Stewart
Matt is a member of the AHS Council of Advisors. He currently resides in Frankfurt, Germany, where he is the Vehicles (Hot Wheels/Matchbox/Disney Pixar Cars) Marketing Lead for Germany and Austria at Mattel. Prior to working in Mattel’s Germany office, he worked at Mattel’s global headquarters in El Segundo, California. Before beginning his career in the toy industry in Los Angeles, Matt worked at Snapchat and Kelton Global.
In addition to his experiences in the private sector, Matt volunteered at the Santa Monica Pico Farmers Market for Hunger Action Los Angeles, a food justice nonprofit organization. He also spent a year in Cape Town, South Africa as a fellow for the CTC Foundation and AMANDLA EduFootball, developing programming focused on life skills and education in local township communities. In college, he interned in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland, for U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in Albany, New York, and the ACLU National Prison Project in Washington, DC.
Matt earned his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He hails from Malta, New York, a small town just north of Albany.
Alexis Cox
Alexis Cox is an experienced digital content and growth professional, currently creating developer experiences at Google. She has been driving digital transformation and building creative technical experiences for some of the world's most influential companies for over 15 years. She advises several non-profits and start-up companies in Silicon Valley about best practices in creative digital media, online content and cloud technologies. Alexis holds a BA in digital sculpture from Sarah Lawrence College and an MBA from Wharton at UPenn.
Kellie Tollifson
Kellie Tollifson, MPM® RMP® is Executive Vice President and Co-Founder of T-Square Properties in the Greater Seattle area. Kellie began her 27-year career in Property Management as a landlord managing her own investment properties. After developing systems, processes & industry leading service standards that answered needs in the marketplace for high quality, tech driven and cost-effective property management, she and her team have grown T-Square Properties to over 570 doors and 105 Homeowner Associations.
Kellie holds a bachelor’s degree in Behavioral Science from San Jose State University and served as the 2020 President of the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM®) and is currently serving as the National Instructor Sub-Committee Chairperson for NARPM®. For over 8 years now, Kellie has been a Certified Continuing Education Real Estate Instructor for the State of Washington and a National Instructor for NARPM®.
Shirley McKinney
A native of Gary, Indiana Shirley McKinney is a 42-year National Park Service veteran who joined the system in 1980 as a clerk-stenographer at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. She received several promotions before moving to Mount Rushmore National Memorial in 1986 as the administrative officer, a post she held until she transferred to Gateway in 1988 as a program analyst.
McKinney earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration from Kentucky State University. She resides on Staten Island and has three grown children.
Alexandra Woods, Ph.D
Alexandra Woods is a graduate the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, where she has been co-Chair of its Committee on Ethnicity, Race, Class Culture and Language (CERCCL) since 2012; she is a member of Black Psychoanalysts Speak. She has been supervising students since 2000 at the Doctoral Sub Program in Clinical Psychology, CUNY where she has taught courses in Diversity and Mental Health. She has a Certificate in the treatment of couples and families at the Family Institute of Westchester. She has worked in full time private practice since 2001 in New York City with individual adults and couples. Starting in 2020 she has been a mentor with Students for Justice, a project of Reclaim Our Vote, and she has been a member of the activist group Rise and Resist since November 2016.
Luisa Santos
A proud product of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, education advocate, successful entrepreneur and now the youngest ever School Board Member, Luisa Santos represents everything great about Miami Dade County Public Schools.
She moved to Miami from Bogota, Colombia when she was eight. During her junior year of high school, Luisa discovered she was undocumented. College seemed an impossibility, but she persisted — starting her higher education at Miami Dade College and eventually becoming a proud U.S. citizen.
Luisa went on to intern with the Undersecretary in President Obama’s U.S. Department of Education in Washington, DC while completing her studies in Political Economy and Education at Georgetown University. She knows teachers and school staff can change lives — she saw it first-hand teaching 4th graders and leading a mentoring and advocacy literacy program for historically underserved students. Luisa eventually came home to Miami to launch her own business, Lulu’s Ice Cream, through which she has reimagined what students can learn in the workplace.
Luisa’s story has featured in top publications, including Forbes, Glamour, The Miami Herald, and in national TV ads. She even spoke at the White House for the Latinas in the U.S. Summit and was named the Young Entrepreneur of the Year for Florida by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Luisa’s career narrative as a change-agent, thought-leader, mentor, and education advocate was built on what our public schools taught her. She now serves as an elected leader to ensure all students have an excellent and equitable school experience that sets them up to succeed in the real world.
Dee Simon
Dee Simon is the CEO of the Holocuast Center for Humanity. She is responsible for all museum operations and programs, reporting to a 25 member Board of Directors. She launched the opening of a new museum in Seattle and was instrumental in passing Washington State legislation for Holocaust education. She is a frequent presenter, and currently serves on the board of the Association of Holocaust Organizations.
Shereese Braun
Shereese Braun is a native Seattleite, who still resides in Washington State. She has been fortunate to have her personal passions and professional interests coalesce in her ability to serve decades in social services and higher education. She began her professional career working with at-risk youth, teaching employability and goal setting skills. After over 10 years working in higher education, with focuses in financial aid and Workforce Education, Shereese returned to social work to impact the lives of youth and young families. Shereese holds degrees in Integrated Social Sciences and Adult Education & Instructional Design. She joined King County in 2016 and currently serves as Youth and Young Adults Employment and Education Program Manager within the Children, Youth and Young Adults Division. Shereese is also the mother of two current college students, a certified Life Coach and amateur writer. Previously, she served on AHS’ Board of Directors for three years.
Dr. Frank J. Popper
Since 2001 Frank Popper has been a visiting professor at Princeton University's High Meadows Environmental Institute, where he has taught US city planning and environmental history with his wife, Deborah Popper. From 1983 through 2019 he taught them at Rutgers University's Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.
Starting in 1981, he has written about planning for Locally Unwanted Land Uses (LULUs), projects such as hazardous waste facilities and low-income housing projects that few people want nearby but that society needs. The term, which he invented, became part of the language of planning, the environmental justice movement, and more recently the resistance to environmental green-washing.
Beginning in 1987, he and his wife have written together on the Buffalo Commons, an influential land-use concept they devised to describe a more environmental future for the depopulating, economically declining rural and small-town parts of the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada. Their controversial idea has been described as Manifest Destiny in reverse or as a White version of the Native American Ghost Dance. It has been a main subject of at least five books, including two novels and Anne Matthews' "Where the Buffalo Roam," one of four finalists for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Since 2002 he and his wife have written about the urban counterparts to the Great Plains, shrinking cities like Detroit, St. Louis, and Memphis.
He has served on the governing boards of the American Planning Association, Great Plains Restoration Council, and National Center for Frontier Communities. He went to Haverford College and has a PhD in government from Harvard University. His hometown is Chicago.
Dr. Vin Gupta
Vin Gupta, MD, MSc, MPA is a practicing pulmonologist and affiliate faculty at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and Evans School. In parallel, he is a Commissioned Officer (O-4, Major) in the United States Air Force Medical Reserve Corps, serving as the Officer-in-Charge of the Critical Care Air Transport Capability at Joint-Base Lewis McChord. Outside of his civilian and military clinical responsibilities, Dr. Gupta serves as Chief Medical Officer of Pharmacy and New Health Initiatives at Amazon and is a medical analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He’s held prior research roles at the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention and World Bank, focused on pandemic influenza preparedness, in addition to the Center for Global Health Engagement and Harvard Global Health Institute. Lastly, he serves as a medical advisor to several organizations, including the National Football League and Major League Baseball.
Dr. Gupta received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University, Medical Doctorate from Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Masters in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and Masters in International Relations from the University of Cambridge. He has active board certification in Internal Medicine, Pulmonology and Critical Care Medicine and completed his clinical training at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
Rhonda Lewis
Rhonda Lewis is a veteran public servant. Her local government career began in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where she worked in the Office of the City Clerk and the Office of the City Manager. Upon relocating to Seattle, she worked for a large multi-national technology company before returning to public service and serving many roles with the City of Tukwila, culminating her service there as City Administrator, before joining King County as Chief of Operations for King County Executive Dow Constantine. Rhonda was an inaugural member of King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay’s tea; in addition to serving as Chief of Staff, Rhonda’s focus areas are Constituent Services, particularly as lead staffer for the unincorporated community of Skyway; Health, Budget, Veterans’ Services, Senior Services, and other duties as assigned.
Rhonda is an alumna of the University of Central Oklahoma with a bachelor’s degree in Business Education and a Master of Business Administration degree. Additionally, she has supplemented her formal education with by attaining a Certificate from the Harvard Kennedy School of Public Affairs for participation in the Women in Power program and has also taken coursework in College Admissions Counseling at the UCLA Extension.
Dr. Carolyn Walker Hopp
Dr. Carolyn Walker Hopp earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Central Florida (UCF). She is a retired Associate Lecturer from the University of Central Florida College of Community Innovation and Education. Her work focused on urban education, issues of diversity, equity and inclusion, curriculum design, and student advising (undergraduate and graduate).
Her current focus is ensuring that educational equity, student success, and access for underserved and marginalized groups are at the forefront of university and K-12 education. Dr. Hopp’s research includes mentoring as a foundation for achievement and leadership for higher education students and faculty. Her work also focuses on arts advocacy and integration into the curriculum. She has worked on several education reform initiatives, including the Coalition of Essential Schools and Harvard Project Zero’s Teaching for Understanding, where she served as faculty for the Teaching for Understanding International Summer Institute (Harvard Graduate School of Education). Dr. Hopp has worked with Dr. Howard Gardner (whose work is in Multiple Intelligences), Dr. David Perkins (with focus on Thinking and School Transformation), and Dr. Ron Ritchhart (Cultures of Thinking and Making Thinking Visible).
Dr. Hopp is a principal consultant in Technology and Educational Research Associates (TERA), which encompasses program design and evaluation as well as consultation in the areas of research, technology, and education innovation. She also served as curriculum consultant for the International School of Geneva, Switzerland and for the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She also reviews for the Journal of Urban Education, Vanderbilt University.
Dr. Deborah Popper
Deborah Popper is a geographer, professor emerita at the College of Staten Island and Graduate Center/City University of New York and long-time visiting professor at Princeton University’s High Meadows Environmental Institute. Her work has dealt with how places can re-envision themselves in the face of environmental, demographic, and economic pressures.
With her husband Frank Popper, she devised the Buffalo Commons idea for the rural/agricultural American Great Plains. The concept put restoration ecology at the heart of rethinking and addressing long-term population, financial, and environmental losses and the resulting strains. The Buffalo Commons term, often as metaphorical as physically prescriptive, relies on widespread local participation and invention to adapt to the region’s ongoing difficulties. Many public, private, and nonprofit Buffalo Commons initiatives have emerged in the region and keep doing so.
The Poppers have also looked at urban/industrial places with comparable contractions, shrinking cities like Detroit and Flint in Michigan or Buffalo, New York. Their term Smart Decline, suggests emphasizing what current residents value in their place and engaging environmental resources to improve it rather than focusing on traditional economic growth.
She directed the College of Staten Island’s Macauley Honors College, an innovative program aimed at providing amble resources for talented undergraduates.
She has served for many years on the boards of the American Geographical Society and the National Center for Frontier Communities and as co-editor of the Society’s on-line non-academic publication, Focus on Geography. She lives in New York City.
