Gar Alperovitz
Gar Alperovitz is Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political-Economy at the University of Maryland and a founding Principal of The Democracy Collaborative. He is a former Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University, of the Institute of Politics at Harvard, of the Institute for Policy Studies, and a Guest Scholar of the Brookings Institution. His most recent book (co-authored with Lew Daly) is Unjust Deserts: How the Rich Are Taking Our Common Inheritance and Why We Should Take It Back, www.unjustdeserts.com (New Press, 2008). Alperovitz is also author of America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty and our Democracy, www.americabeyondcapitalism.com (John Wiley & Sons, 2004). He is also author (with Jeff Faux)
of Rebuilding America (Pantheon) and co-author (with Thad
Williamson and David Imbroscio) of Making a Place for Community (Routledge, 2002). Well-known works in other areas include: The
Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (Knopf) and Atomic Diplomacy (Simon & Schuster). Alperovitz received his Ph.D. in Political
Economy as a Marshall Scholar at Cambridge University, a Masters Degree
from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Science
Degree from the University of Wisconsin. Previously he was a Legislative
Director in the U.S. House of Representatives (with Rep. Robert Kastenmeier
of Wisconsin) and the U.S. Senate (with Senator Gaylord Nelson of
Wisconsin), and a Special Assistant concerned with United Nations
issues in the Department of State.
Steve Dubb
Steve Dubb is Research Director of The Democracy Collaborative and has worked for the Collaborative since 2004. Dubb is the principal author of Linking Colleges to Communities: Engaging the University for Community Development (2007) and Building Wealth: The New Asset-Based Approach to Solving Social and Economic Problems, which was published by The Aspen Institute in 2005. Previously, he was Executive Director of the North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO), a U.S. and Canadian nonprofit association that provides education and technical assistance to university and community-based housing and retail cooperatives. For much of the past two decades, he has worked in various positions in the cooperative or civil society sector. Dubb received his Masters and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. He received his Bachelor's in Economics (with honors) and Spanish from the University of California, Berkeley.
John Duda
John Duda started working for the Democracy Collaborative as
Communications Coordinator in 2011. He holds a B.A. in lingustics
from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master's degree in logic from
the Universiteit van Amsterdam, and is currently finishing the last
stages of a PhD at Johns Hopkins examining the genealogy of the idea
of "self-organization" in politics and the sciences. He is also a
founding collective member at Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse, where
he was one of the core organizers of the 2009 City From Below
conference, and has worked extensively as a digital media activist
supporting a variety of grassroots independent media projects.
Thomas M. Hanna
Thomas M. Hanna has been a research assistant with the Democracy Collaborative since 2010 and is working on a project with Gar Alperovitz to develop a successor book to America Beyond Capitalism. Hanna previously interned with the Dictionary of Virginia Biography project at the Library of Virginia and worked as a research assistant on an oral history project concerning the life of former Virginia Governor and Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder. He is the author of a biography pending publication in volume four of the Dictionary of Virginia Biography, as well as several other articles and reports. He received his M.A. and B.A. degrees in History from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Ted Howard
Ted Howard is the founding Executive Director of The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland. Howard directs the Collaborative's partnership with The Cleveland Foundation on the Evergreen Cooperative Business Initiative, a path-breaking strategy to create green jobs and wealth for low-income families in six of the city's underserved neighborhoods.
For the past three decades, Howard has worked in the not-for-profit/civil society sector, including more than 15 years in international development with NGOs and agencies of the UN system. Most recently, he was the Executive Director of the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives, a research and policy institute.
Howard served for nine years as Chairman of the Board of Search for Common Ground, the world's largest conflict resolution NGO. He also serves on the board of LIFT, a national organization dedicated to engaging college students and youth in combating poverty in our nation's urban areas.
Holly Jo Sparks
Holly Jo Sparks started working as a research associate for The Democracy Collaborative in 2010. Her research initially will focus on the role of anchor institutions, particularly hospitals, in building community wealth. She also assists in the production and development of www.Community-Wealth.org and new media strategies. Before joining The Democracy Collaborative, Sparks spent ten years working with cooperatives, including five years developing housing cooperatives with the North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO). She also served for three years on the board of the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA), the leading national trade association of cooperatives. Sparks holds a Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with an emphasis in housing, community and economic development. She received her Bachelor's in History of Art from the University of Michigan.
Benzamin Yi
Benzamin Yi has been a Research Assistant with the Democracy Collaborative since May 2011 and is working on a project with Gar Alperovitz to develop a successor book to America Beyond Capitalism. Prior to working with the Collaborative, Yi has worked with the Earth Day Network as a Special Projects Coordinator working with local communities to encourage the growth of a green economy through Earth Day. Yi is the author of "A Fair Distribution of Economic Costs in Global Warming" published in the California Undergraduate Philosophy Review (2010). Yi received his B.A. degree in Philosophy while minoring in Political Science and Environmental Analysis and Design from the University of California, Irvine. |
