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Veteran Children Project

MeET OUR CREATIVE TEAM, Advisory BoarD, and funders

Susan Hackley - Producer & Project Director

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Susan Hackley served for 19 years as Managing Director of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, one of the world’s leading centers of negotiation and conflict analysis.

Previously she co-founded an Internet company, Givenation.com, that enabled people to connect and contribute to causes they cared about. She also served as Communications Director of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and was a speechwriter and policy analyst for political candidates.

Her work has been published in National Geographic Magazine, Los Angeles Times, and U.S. News & World Report, and she has taught negotiation workshops in Slovakia, China, Singapore, Spain, Denmark, France, Belgium and Italy. She served as Chair of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to building sustainable peace and security worldwide. She serves on the board of Trustees for Alaska, an environmental law firm.

Susan's son is a veteran Marine Corps infantryman who served in Iraq. Her college boyfriend served—and died—in Vietnam.

Martha White Jackson - Co-Producer 

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Martha Jackson has a long career building bridges across cultures and communities as an educator, non-profit board member and mother. Martha taught English at Boston and Northeastern Universities and the Boston campus of Japan's Showa Women's University. She taught literature and ethics as a Teaching Fellow under Professor Robert Coles at Harvard University. Her teaching career began as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco.
 
In addition, Martha has served on non-profit boards including The Brookline Educational Foundation, Facing History and Ourselves New England, and the Beacon Academy. Martha is a member of Blue Star Mothers, a non-political, non-profit organization of mothers of active-duty service men and women and veterans, which provides support to deployed military and assistance to veteran’s organizations across the nation.
 
Martha’s son is a veteran Army Ranger and Captain who served two deployments to Afghanistan.


Bernice Schneider - Film Editor 

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Bernice Schneider is an award-winning documentary film editor. She received her Masters of Science in Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.

Bernice has edited numerous films for PBS’s American Experience, Frontline, Nova Science Unit, American Masters, and Independent Lens.  She edited Rebel, a feature-length independent documentary film about the politics of national memory and Angkor’s Children, a movement to reinvigorate the arts in post-genocide Cambodia. She edited Alice Bouvrie’s film A Chance to Dress, winner of the Arlington International Film Festival’s Best Short  2015 and A Perfect Crime: the Leopold and Loeb Story for American Experience in 2016. Recently, she completed editing Laurel Chiten’s film Just One Drop, which premiered in London in 2017.  Bernice worked in the field with correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault for PBS’s Newshour in Kenya, South Africa, Haiti and Somalia, editing stories on political and cultural change in the developing world.

Bernice received a Wallis Annenberg scholarship for women filmmakers, a CINE Golden Eagle, the Biographical Video Award, and an N.E.A. Regional Fellowship.
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She teaches editing at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts 

Michael Nash - Cinematographer 

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Michael Nash is an Irish/American filmmaker who was an honored recipient of the Social Change Global Institute Filmmaker of the Year Award. MovieMaker Magazine named Nash one of the “Top 10 MovieMakers Of The Planet,” along with Davis Guggenheim, Morgan Freeman, Don Cheadle and Louie Psihoyos (The Cove).

Nash won Senator Boxer’s Conservation Champion Award and the Neiman Marcus Environmental Visions Filmmaker Award. Nash’s documentary, the multi-award winning Climate Refugees, was the only film screened by the United Nations at the recent IIEA Copenhagen Climate Change Conference and at Davos for world leaders and policymakers. Climate Refugees had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and was noted by Robert Redford in the New York Times “as an agent for social change.”


Matt Shelley-Reade - Production Coordinator & Cinematographer

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​Matt Shelley-Reade is a Boston-based filmmaker, who is excited to join the Veteran Children team and shine a light on the effect war has on children.
 
Originally from New Paltz, New York, Matt is a recent graduate of Wesleyan University, where he received his B.A. in Film Studies and History.
 
In 2017 he received the Christopher Brodigan Award from Wesleyan University to produce short films in Rwanda. Working for Biocoop Rwanda, a local environmental organization, Matt created films elucidating life in the Nyamagabe district—developing a profile on a poacher-turned-park ranger and filming the inner workings of an initiative to curb malnutrition among mothers of newborns by growing food on hospital land.

Jessye Kass - Production Coordinator 

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​Jessye Kass became interested in working with Veteran Children because of her passion for social justice issues relating to youth, empowerment, conflict and trauma. In 2013 she graduated from Brandeis University, where she studied Anthropology and African and Afro-American Studies and held several leadership positions. While an undergraduate, she co-founded a local NGO in Ghana (Attukwei Art Foundation) that provided free, therapeutic arts programming to children living in marginalized communities. While in Kenya, she worked in a health clinic and in a camp with internally displaced persons. Following graduation, she worked in Thailand on a Fulbright grant, teaching English and working at a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the sex and labor trafficking of young boys.

Jessye has published articles through the US Department of State (International Exchange Programs) and the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life. 

Advisory Board

Dana H. Born: Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard and retired brigadier general Dana Born is a retired brigadier general with 30 years of service in the U.S. Air Force and a lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University. From 2004-2013, she served two terms as the President-appointed Dean of the Faculty for the U.S. Air Force Academy, where she was also a professor and head of the Behavioral Sciences and Leadership Department. Born also served as Assistant Director for Recruiting Research and Analysis in the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Management Policy, aide to the Secretary of the Air Force and Deputy Chief of the Personnel Issues Team in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel. She commanded the 11th Mission Support Squadron at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., was an Exchange Officer with the Royal Australian Air Force, and served in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. A 1983 graduate with distinction of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Born holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate in industrial and organizational psychology.

Rob DuBois: Founder & CEO, SEAL of Peace
Rob DuBois is a speaker and security consultant with extensive military experience. He retired as a Navy SEAL after 20 years of service, and has worked in more than 30 countries. DuBois is the author of Powerful Peace: A Navy SEAL’s Lessons on Peace from a Lifetime at War and is the founder and CEO of SEAL of Peace Consulting. He conducts “Red Team” security assessments and delivers talks on full-spectrum security, conflict management, and team-building.

Kathy Eldon: Founder & Chairman, Creative Visions Foundation
Kathy Eldon founded Creative Visions Foundation, a global organization that supports creative activists who use their talents to change the world around them. CVF was inspired by the life of Kathy’s son, Dan Eldon – artist, adventurer, and activist – killed in 1993 while on assignment for Reuters News Agency in Somalia. Since 2004, CVF has acted as an incubator, academy, and agency for more than 200 projects and productions by artists, filmmakers, playwrights, and leaders of social movements, impacting over 100 million people.

Silouan Green: : Marine Corps veteran & creator of The Ladder UPP  Silouan Green is a Marine Corps veteran, writer, motivational speaker and creator of The Ladder UPP, a life skills program that helps people respond to adversity and trauma in their lives and communities.  He speaks to veterans and other groups on leadership, dealing with PTSD, depression, suicide, and overcoming adversity, and he is a lecturer for the Public Agency Training Council, the world’s largest training program for first responders. Green has taught The Ladder UPP and spoken to a variety of organizations and groups around the country,  including Walter Reed Medical Center, Fort Bragg, IUPU Fort Wayne, University of California - Riverside, Fort Campbell, Camp LeJeune, The American Red Cross, Marine Corps League, Indiana Department of Mental Health, Purdue's Military Family Research Institute, Mental Health America, National Association of Mental Illness, Veterans Administration, National Guard, police and sheriff's departments, and many mental health professionals and centers across the country. With A Child's Guide to War project founder Susan Hackley, Green co-led the first project's first public "Conversation about War", held in Kokomo, Indiana, June 2016.

Chip Hauss: Government Liaison, Alliance for Peacebuilding
Chip Hauss serves as the Government Liaison for the Alliance for Peacebuilding, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing sustainable peace and security worldwide. He is an adjunct professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University and the author of several books, including the widely-read and acclaimed textbook Comparative Politics.

Kristina Kaufmann: Executive Director, Code of Support
Kristy Kaufmann is the Executive Director of the Code of Support Foundation – a national nonprofit organization that provides critical one-on-one assistance to service members, veterans and families in crisis. Kaufmann has served as an advocate for military and veteran families for over 14 years, 11 of those as an Army wife herself. Her 2009 Washington Post op-ed, “Army Families Under Fire,” was the first in an ongoing series of publications and media appearances in which she highlighted the challenges facing military families, and provided actionable recommendations to help civilian and military leadership integrate families and community support more effectively into mental health treatment and suicide prevention efforts.

Alain Lempereur: Director of the Coexistence & Conflict Program,
The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University

Alain Lempereur is Alan B. Slifka Professor of Coexistence and Conflict; Program Director, MA in Coexistence and Conflict at Brandeis University. A mediator, author, professor and negotiation expert, Lempereur has extensive experience in conducting research and consulting internationally for a variety of organizations. He has worked on the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, has published several books and runs the coexistence and conflict program at the Heller School, a graduate school at Brandeis University, where he also teaches courses.

Diane Levin: Professor of Education, Wheelock College
Diane Levin, Ph.D., is Professor of Education at Wheelock College and an international expert on early childhood education. Her professional expertise and interests focus on issues related to promoting children’s play, the impact of media and media violence, violence prevention, and peacebuilding with children in communities affected by war and conflict. For over 25 years, Levin has worked with early childhood professionals, parents and policy makers. She has published nine books, including From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The Power of Early Childhood Initiatives and Teaching Young Children in Violent Times. She co-wrote The ‘So Far’ Guide for Helping Children and Youth Cope with the Deployment of a Parent in the Military Reserves.

Colin Maiorano: CEO, StrategyWorx
Colin Maiorano serves as the CEO of StrategyWorx, a consulting firm that helps organizations with strategic planning and leadership development. Maiorano has been a consultant to organizations around the world and is the author of Credible, Confident & Clear: A Guide to a Well Organized, Persuasive Presentation.

Jack McLean: Author of Loon: A Marine Story
Jack McLean is the author of Loon: A Marine Story (Random House, 2009), a best-selling coming of age memoir about his service in the Marine Corps from 1966 to 1968. McLean served as an infantry corporal in Vietnam in 1967-1968, where he fought in and later vividly described the Battle for Landing Zone Loon, a horrific three-day battle that cost forty young lives. He subsequently became the first Vietnam veteran admitted to Harvard University, entering in the fall of 1968, days after his return from combat.In the years since, he has had a successful career as a marketing executive, most recently as the Founding Managing Partner of the Greater Washington Initiative.

Robert Mnookin: Past Chair of the Program on Negotiation and the Samuel Williston Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Robert Mnookin is the Samuel Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Chair of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and Director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project. A world-renowned scholar in the field of negotiation and conflict resolution, he is the author of several books, including Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight. He has also served as a consultant to governments, international agencies, and corporate clients throughout the world, and he has resolved a large number of complex disputes.

Michael Ostrolenk: CEO, Transpartisan Center
Michael D. Ostrolenk, a social entrepreneur, is an expert in the field of transpartisan public policy. He has successfully convened policy initiatives in the areas of transparency, privacy, defense, foreign policy and national security. He co-founded and serves as National Director of the Liberty Coalition, a transpartisan coalition of groups working to protect civil liberties, privacy and transparency, and he is the Program Director and Master Coach for SEALFIT‘s Unbeatable Mind Academy, a leadership and personal development training program created by Navy SEALs. He also co-founded the American Conservative Defense Alliance, which promotes a traditionally conservative foreign and defense policy

William Ury: Author, Mediator & Senior Fellow, Harvard Negotiation Project
William Ury is one of the world’s leading experts on negotiation and mediation. He is the co-founder of Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation and co-author of Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In, an eight million copy bestseller translated into more than 30 languages. He has served as a negotiation adviser and mediator in conflicts ranging from corporate mergers to wildcat strikes in a Kentucky coal mine to ethnic wars in the Middle East. He has served as a crisis management consultant to the White House and, more recently, as a third party helping to end a civil war in Aceh, Indonesia, and helping to prevent one in Venezuela. His most recent project is the Abraham Path Initiative, which seeks to connect the human family step by step by creating a permanent route of cross-cultural tourism in the Middle East.

Project Funders

The Veteran Children Project gratefully recognizes our funders for helping us promote understanding of those who serve and sacrifice – soldiers, families, and children – and raise awareness of the military’s role in our democracy.
Ellen Aamodt
Mette Aamodt
Sally Abrahms and David Rosenthal
Lois and Ian Alsop
Rosalie and Paul Anders
Kevin Avruch
Ellen Barth
Sarah Barton
Mary Battenfeld
Martha Beckwith
Daphne and Brandon Berger
Louellen and Darryl Berger
Bryce Beverlin II
Rick Beyer
Susan S. Blake
Thomas Blinkhorn
Robert Bordone
Robert Bottome
Marilyn Brandt
Brandeis Graduate Program on Conflict Resolution and Coexistence
Wayles Browne
Shirley R. Buchanan
Nancie and Miceal Chamberlain
Diana Chigas
Bruce Cichowlas

Maria Ciliberto
Joe Contini
Stephen Cotton
Ian T. Cross
Polly Cummings
Charles F. Dambach
Marian Demeyerd
Karina Demurchyan
Kathleen Drage
Lisa Drummond
Tom Dunne
Ehud and Margot Eiran
Kathy Eldon
Carol English
Ronald Enholm
Marla Felcher and Max Bazerman
Marian Ferguson and Richard Hawkins
Yann Fischer
Ronald J. Fisher

Tom Fitzsimmons
Harry Forsdick
Lynn Franklin-Henry and Charles Henry
Beverly Freeman
Judy Garelick
Shari Gearheard
Shula Gilad
Bob Giles
Michael Graskemper
Hrach Gregorian
Ilene Greenberg and Michael Maynard
Melanie Cohen Greenberg
Paula Gutlove
Kristy Hanstad
Valerie Harding
Jill Harper
Charles Hauss and Gretchen Sandles
Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program
Prudence and Jonathan Hay
Randall Heath
Sheila Heen
Paul Hennessy
Alexander Henry
Jean Henry
Robin Warren Heyden
Donna Hicks
Angel Forrester Hill
David Hoffman
Mike Holloway and Margie Gibson
Edith Mead Holway
Christopher Honeyman
Stuart Horwitz
Jill Iscol
Alexander Jackson
Joseph Jackson and Helena de Bragança
Kate Jackson and Kevin Fryar
Matthew Jackson and Kaitlin Harol

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​John Johnson
Zachary Johnson
Sylvester Johnson, IV
Susan Kaufman
Kasey Kaufman
Melanie Kawano-Chiu
Nancy Kerr and Richard B. Warren
James Kerwin
Peter Kerwin
Ellen Knebel
Susan Koscis
Karen Kronick
Patrick Lang
Rikk Larsen
Skye Lawrence
Joan Levine
Andrea Libresco
Janice Lutz
Larry Lutz
Barbara Lee
Richard Levitan and Susan Edgman-Levitan
Steven M. Lilly-Weber
Johnny Buc Lockwood
Brooke and Kevin Manfredi

Carmine and Beth Martignetti
Charlotte and Philip Mason
Berneda and Louis Meeks
Tarit Mehtra
Jeff Miles
Karin and Leonard Miller
Mindy Miller
Clark James Mishler
Tracie Misiewicz
Robert and Dale Mnookin
Theresa Monaco
Mary and Sherif Nada
Joan F. Napoli
Sharon and David Neskey
Carolyn and Eli Newberger
Gail Odeneal
Patrice O’Neill
Elad Oreg
Brett Nieland
Barbara Parker
Harry Parsekian
Tracy Penfield
Cece Peabody
George Pillsbury
Patricia Plettner
Lewis Randa and the Peace Abbey
Henny Regnier
Nita and Jerome Regnier
Peggy Reiser and Charles Cooney
Richard Rendon
Abby Rosenfeld
Elizabeth Roush
Susan Ruddy
Bernie and David Ruskin
Jody Scheier
Lisa Schirch
Jack Schober
James Sebenius and Nancy Buck
Margaret Shepherd and David Friend
Paul Sheridan
Anne T. Sichel
Jamil Simon
Leo Smyth
Phillip Speiser and Vivian Marcow Speiser
Ann Sprayregen
Sally Steinberg
Douglas Stone
Annsley and George Strong
Guhan Subramanian and Helen Clement
Leslie Sullivan
Derek Sweetman
TechniFab of Virginia, Inc.
Allison and Ben Tiller
Ann Torres
Blair Trippe
Janet Verrill
William Ury
Christine Ward
Michael Wheeler
Naj Wikoff
Perilla A. Wilson
Richard Wright
Andrea Strimling Yodsampa
Maja Zimmermann


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Creative Visions Foundation is the proud fiscal agent of Veteran Children.  
Creative Visions Foundation is a publicly supported 501©3,
which supports Creative Activists
who use the power of media and the arts
​ to affect positive change in the world. All donations are tax deductible.
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