author: Emily Jacobi
date: 2020-11-25
slug:
title: Welcoming New Team Members
wordpress_id:
categories: – blog
image: https://images.digital-democracy.org/assets/2020-11-new-team-1600@2x.jpg
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Thanks to recent support from the McGovern Foundation and Good Energies,
and growing partnerships in new locations including Brazil, Sub-Saharan
Africa and Southeast Asia, the Digital Democracy team is expanding. We
are thrilled to welcome the following folks onto our team, including
long-time collaborators who have stepped into new roles, and new people
whose diverse backgrounds and experiences are already enriching our
work.
First, a heartfelt hello and welcome to Sabella Flagg, Dd’s
new UX designer who brings more than a decade of experience working on design
for leading technology companies and innovation groups. Sabella joined our team
with a passion for designing for positive social impact, and challenging the
gatekeeping in traditional tech projects. We’re thrilled to have Sabella’s keen
eye focused on improving our design and user experience across our technology
stack. In addition to her work as a designer, Sabella is a talented artist
creating work under the moniker the monarq. She is
based in Seattle, Washington.
Bon bini to Rudo Kemper, a long-time friend of Digital Democracy
who has joined our team to lead the Earth Defenders Toolkit, and support mapping and
environmental monitoring initiatives with new and existing partners, including
in Kenya and Ecuador. Rudo is a geographer and technologist who brings years of
experience working with Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in Suriname
and the Guiana Shield, and most recently worked with Amazon Conservation Team,
with whom Dd is partnering on the Earth Defenders Toolkit. He is a steward of
Terrastories, an open-source geostorytelling application which is one of the core tools
featured in the toolkit. He is based in Springfield, Virginia.
Bem-vinda and bon retou (welcome back!) to Emilie Reiser,
who led Digital Democracy’s Haiti program from 2010 to 2013, and helped kick off
our work in the Amazon before leaving to join the MIT Media Lab’s Center for
Civic Media. There, she worked for 4 years on a collaborative data collection
platform with Brazilian partners. She is now splitting duties as a carpenter
with a Design Build firm, and is leading Digital Democracy’s work in Brazil,
including user research with partners and building curriculum with Brazilian
youth group Engajamundo. She is based in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Welcome to Lisbet Portman, a writer and educator who has spent
the past decade working on addiction policy and criminal justice reform, and
brings a passion for both humans and ecosystems. Lisbet began working with us in
the spring, helping produce our Technology Solidarity blog series, and has
joined our Program team to support our internal project management, monitoring
and evaluation, and how we communicate our story with external audiences. She is
based in Washington, DC.
And, finally, benvinguda Mar Cartró Sabaté, an environmental
scientist with deep experience in community-engaged research, premised upon
participatory and collaborative methodologies. We learned of Mar through her
work with Dd’s partner ISS (the Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands) and
Indigenous communities in northern Peru, where Dd has worked since 2013. Her
research shows how Indigenous monitoring programs in the Peruvian Amazon can
push the frontiers of scientific knowledge while contributing to defending
Indigenous territories from the pervasive impacts of oil extraction, and we are
thrilled to have her expertise in support of our Programs team and direct work
with partners in South America and Sub-Saharan Africa. She is based in
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.