gggg, ...what a motley crew these are:
Ilise Cohen was raised in Atlanta in a Sephardic Jewish family. She attended Washington University in St. Louis, where she received her BA in Anthropology and Spanish. While in St. Louis she worked with the Latin American Solidarity Committee, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and St. Louis for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze. She co-founded the Union of Progressive Students that taught students about U.S. intervention and conflict resolution. Her year at Hebrew University was interrupted by the Gulf War. Ilise returned to Israel for two years to live and work with Palestinians and Jews on community projects, dialogue and reconciliation. She co-coordinated an international women's leadership seminar for Jewish women on peace and human rights. Since returning to the States, Ilise has worked with AFSC as Director of the Middle East Peace Education Program in Atlanta and the southeast. She speaks to groups around the country on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and Iraq and the impact of the U.S./UN sanctions. She offers workshops on prejudice reduction, conflict resolution, and community building. Each year, Ilise returns to the Middle East. In March and April of 1999, Ilise went on a 6-member AFSC teacher's delegation to Iraq to assess the impact of economic sanctions on education.
Ramsey Kysia is a peace activist and children's advocate currently living in the DC area. He previously worked with both young children and teenagers at the Langley School, Alternative House, and Residential Youth Services. He is a member of the Northern Virginia Green Party and Amnesty International. He has been actively working on Iraq since December 1998, and he traveled to Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness in August 1999.
Rania Masri is the coordinator of the Iraq Action Coalition, an informational network dedicated to distributing news on the effects of sanctions and war on the people of Iraq. Masri has written about the situation in Iraq in local, national, and international news magazines, and has spoken at conferences and universities around the United States and Canada. She has been extensively interviewed by CNN, Fox National News Channel, Pacifica Radio, Radio Canada International, "Voice of America," and numerous NPR affiliates. Most recently she has been on NPR's "Talk of the Nation." Masri is a national board member of Peace Action. She is the 1999 recipient of the International Human Rights Award of North Carolina.
Charles Sheehan-Miles served as a M1A1 tank crewman with the 24th Infantry Division in the Gulf War. He was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for Valor, and later was honorably discharged from the Army as a Conscientious Objector. Since leaving the military, Charles has become an advocate for non-violence, and for veterans and their families who served in the military and later became ill due to service. He founded the GWVM internet mailing list in the spring of 1994, which has provided timely information on Gulf War illnesses to thousands of veterans, and continues to serve as Associate Editor of the Gulf War Veterans Resource Pages. In 1994 Sheehan-Miles served on the first Board of Directors of the Gulf War Veterans of Georgia, and later went on to co-found the Gulf War Veterans of New England. He helped organize the first national conference of Gulf War veterans in Dallas, Texas in March 1995. In June of that year Charles and his family moved to Washington, DC, where he served as the first Executive Director of the National Gulf War Resource Center until 1997. In recent years he has testified before congressional committees and the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, and he has made presentations on chemical weapons exposure and the use of experimental drugs on soldiers in the Gulf. Sheehan-Miles is currently employed as a computer systems engineer with Teligent.
Mira Tanna teaches Peace Studies at the Meeting School, a Quaker high school in Rindge, New Hampshire. Previously, she directed the international affairs program for the American Friends Service Committee in St. Louis. She has also served as program coordinator for the St. Louis Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America and Washington University's International Writers Center. She received a BA in Russian Language and Literature from Washington University. She has traveled to Iraq twice with Voices in the Wilderness and was active in opposing the Gulf War. In 1996 she helped found the CoLibri Urban Housing Collective. She is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
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EPIC's Staff
Jennifer Nader is EPIC’s Communications Associate. Since joining our staff early this year, she has participated in a re-design of EPIC’s identity package and secured major media interviews for EPIC staff and affiliates. Before joining EPIC in January 2002, Jennifer was employed as a Marketing Associate for the Delaney Policy Group (DPG), a public policy consulting firm. Prior to DPG, she worked for PR 21, a division of the Daniel J. Edelman Corporation, as an Assistant Account Executive with the New Media Group. Jennifer has also gained communications experience as an Account Assistant at Shepardson Stern + Kaminsky where she assisted the Marketing group with the launching of internet clients. She also wrote intelligence reports that analyzed the competitive media of her clients. Jennifer received her BA in English from the College of Wooster.
Chris Fitz works part-time at EPIC as the Iraq Speakers Bureau coordinator. He traveled to Iraq in December 2001 with a Church of the Brethren delegation and spends most of the rest of his time developing an advocacy campaign for the people of Iraq within the Church of the Brethren. Chris’ prior work experiences include a DC bicycle messenger, the program director at a Christian camp and retreat center and the program assistant at the Colgate University Peace Studies program. He continues to conduct training workshops in communication, conflict resolution, privilege-awareness and related social change skills. Chris received an M.A. in Peace & Development Studies from the Universitat Jaume I (Castellon, Spain) focusing on ethnic conflict construction in US media and foreign policy in conjunction with a fellowship in Croatia from the Winston Foundation. He received a B.A. from Hampshire College (Amherst, MA). In what little time remains, Chris enjoys cycling, writing, dancing Argentine tango and sharing folk music.
Erik Gustafson is EPIC’s Executive Director and a veteran of the Gulf War. He spent eight months in Saudi Arabia with the 864th Engineer Battalion, building hospitals, roads and POW camps. In 1997, he traveled to Iraq on a humanitarian mission and became a dedicated opponent of the broad-based economic sanctions. In 1998, he founded EPIC and soon became recognized as an expert on Iraq and U.S. policy, testifying at congressional briefings and policy forums and delivering countless lectures across North America. He has been interviewed by NBC Nightly News, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, BBC, NPR, and others. His letters to the editor and opinion pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and a dozen other newspapers.
Note: In addition to EPIC's staff and active board members, EPIC's work is supported by interns and volunteers. For information on volunteering or interning at EPIC click here.
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