Board/Advisors

Carrie Ellis, Board Chair

Board member since 2003
Director of Project Management, KaBOOM!
Carrie L. Ellis is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, GA where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Following her undergraduate studies, Carrie moved to California to teach middle school English and Mass Media in Los Angeles through Teach for America. Her teaching experience inspired Carrie to pursue a Master’s degree in Communication Management from the University of Southern California, where she concentrated in Educational Children’s Media. After graduation, Carrie went to Washington, D.C. where she worked for several years in different capacities on the national staff of Teach for America. In 2005, Carrie joined the staff of KaBOOM! as the Director of Project Management. KaBOOM! is the national nonprofit that creates playspaces through the participation and leadership of communities. Every year, her team oversees the planning and installation of over 200 community-built playspaces throughout North America.

Darryl McDuffie

Board member since 1996
Resource Teacher, Special Education, Thomas W. Pyle Middle School
When Darryl J. McDuffie began working as an intern with Teaching for Change in 1995, he had no idea that he would eventually become a board member. It has been an affiliation that transformed his practice and continues to invigorate his passion for education. Currently, Darryl coordinates services students with emotional and behavioral disabilities for Montgomery County Public Schools. He started his career in education with the D.C. public schools and has worked for public and independent schools in the Washington metropolitan area. His areas of concentration are English, urban education, special education and professional development. Darryl earned a BA in English and Communications from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and a Master’s in Secondary Education from George Washington University.

Don Murray

Board member since 2011
Retired from city government. Appointed Chair of the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C.
Don Murray has been active in local politics for many years. He is the father of Alana Murray, co-editor of  Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching and the son of  Donald Gaines Murray, who de-segregated the University of Maryland Law School in 1935.

Gita Rao, Board Treasurer

Board member since 2007
Portfolio Manager, The Non-Profit Finance Fund

Sheldon Scott

Board member since 2011
General Manager, Restaurant Marvin, and performance artist
A native of Pawley’s Island, SC, received his BS in Psychology from Francis Marion University in Florence, SC. He began his career in Social Work as a Unit Director for the Boys & Girls Club of Horry County. Upon moving to the Washington D.C. area, he joined a private practice, specializing in Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Sex-Offender Treatment at Northern Virginia Counseling Group. After this four-year stint as a psychotherapist, he began studying and performing as an actor, storyteller and writer. He’s an acclaimed performer, who also serves on the board of Youth Pride Day, D.C. ; Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, 1A03; and the regional manager for Restaurant Marvin.

Kate Tindle, Board Vice-chair and Nominations Chair

Board member since 1999.
Senior Program Associate, Synergy Enterprises, Inc.
As a child of a military family, Kate Tindle moved around every three years, being exposed to new communities and schools throughout her K-12 experience. This mobility fostered an awareness of how people can make others feel different and marginalized. Before her father was drafted into the military, Kate’s father worked at hanging wallpaper and pumping gasoline. Her mother, with five children, was a stay-at-home mom until cancer took her at an early age, when Kate was seven. Kate’s mother’s family, Irish immigrants from Cork to Baltimore, also shared a blue-collar background of plumbers, salesmen, and secretaries. This family background, coupled with transient school experiences, fostered in Kate a desire to make a difference by pursuing teaching in high needs schools as her career. She tried to foster a sense of activism in her seventh grade students by teaching biology through the lens of how human behavior can impact living things and how political and legal action can help save environments. Kate eventually moved into preparing graduate students at George Washington University to teach in high-needs urban schools and currently works for educational reform at Synergy Enterprises, Inc.

Nzinga Tull

Board member since 2008.
Chief Systems Engineer Aerospace Engineering Division, Jackson and Tull
Nzinga Tull is a native Washingtonian, a graduate of the D.C. public school system and Spelman College, and a systems engineer with her family’s engineering firm, Jackson and Tull. She has been working with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Mission Operations Team since July 1998, supporting on-orbit activities and anomaly investigation as well as three Servicing Missions. She has represented the HST various public forums, including 60 Minutes (CBS), Behind Closed Doors with Joan Lunden (A&E Network), and the HST 15th Anniversary Symposium. Nzinga believes deeply that broad access to progressive publications and to rigorous, culturally relevant, student-centered K-12 public education are critical for healthy communities.  When she isn’t wearing her “engineer” or “education advocate” hats, she enjoys studying and performing dance with KanKouran West African Dance Company. She also enjoys spontaneous dance-offs with friends and eating chocolate.

Pedro (PJ) Urquilla

Board member since 2008
Digital Strategist, GMMB
Pedro Urquilla (DJ Eurok) is a Salvadoran-American hip hop artist and writer based in Washington, D.C. His independent movement, Upset the Setup, seeks to empower artists and communities through a “do it yourself” approach to the development and promotion of positive culture. As a Teaching for Change board member his focus is on creative approaches to social media, technology, and strategic planning.

Sheryl Winarick

Board member since 2011
Owner, Law Office of Sheryl Winarick, PLLC
Sheryl Winarick is an immigration attorney based in Washington, D.C. Before opening her own law firm in May 2007, Sheryl worked for five years with the Justice for Our Neighbors program of the United Methodist Committee on Relief.  Sheryl previously worked with Catholic Legal Immigration Network, currently serves on the Public Policy Committee of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and co-founded Just Cause, a social group that raises money for and awareness about non-profits serving the community in Washington, D.C. Before moving to D.C. in 1995 to attend George Washington University Law School, Sheryl grew up in the public schools of Waco, Texas, and graduated from Texas A&M University. Waco ISD consolidated their high schools for desegregation purposes in 1986. Sheryl was part of the first fully integrated class in Waco’s history. Growing up Jewish in the Bible belt has informed Sheryl’s life choices. At an early age, she learned the concept of tzedakah, the moral obligation to perform philanthropic acts. She also learned through her own experience how it feels to be categorically different, a (religious) minority. Sheryl credits her parents for instilling in her a strong sense of self worth.

Former Board Members

• Trish Ahern, Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA)
• Naomi Ayala
• Denise Bello
• Patricia Bradford Charles, Herbert Flowers High School
• Marcy Fink Campos, American University
• Margarita Chamorro, Prime DC
• Connie Chubb, American University
• Donald Clausen
• Bonny Cochran
• Michael Cohen, New York University
• Sheila Coleman-Castells
• Kenneth Danford, North Star Teens
• Carmen Davila, AARP
• Kathy Davin, Key Elementary Schools, Arlington Public Schools
• Hilda Diaz
• Mike Finley
• Evie Frankl
• Sue Goodwin, NPR
• Sharon Grevious
• Sally Harriston
• Damien Heath
• Aida Heredia
• Rebecca Shulman Herz
• Marlene Hoffman
• Alicia Horton,  Thrive DC
• Leah Holmes-Bonilla
• Etta Johnson, Arlington Public Schools
• Irene Leon, Cypress Hills Community School/PS 89
• Catherine Long, Montgomery County Public Schools-Office of Staff Development
• Joann Malone, Blair High School
• Edgardo Menvielle, Children’s Hospital
• E. Ethelbert Miller
• Francisco Millet
• Samuel Miranda
• Marie Moll, Latin American Youth Center
• Derrick Posey, Pullen Middle School, Prince George’s County Public Schools
• Susan Randall, Kenmore Middle School
• Katherine Rawson
• Richard Reinhard, photographer
• Carol Robledo
• Kevin Rocap, Project LEARN
• Roland Roebuck, DC Department of Human Services
• Sandra Rogers-Green, Arlington Public Schools
• Ila Supriya Roy, Montgomery County Social Services
• Paulette Saunders, For the Love of Children (FLOC)
• Andy Shallal,  Busboys and Poets
• Renee Hausman Shea, Bowie State University
• Hilary Stern-Sanchez, Seattle Literacy Project
• Ruth Tamaroff, Tamohara Imports
• Lynda Tredway
• Marian Urquilla, Columbia Heights/Shaw Family Support Coll
• Jenice Leilani View, George Mason University and Teaching for Change
• Rebecca Villarreal, AARP Illinois
• MaryAnne White
• Barbara Wien