Eduseed's Board of Directors

1666 K St.
NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: 202/778.6424
Fax: 202/778.6473

EDUSEED'S BOARD OF DIRECTORS

EduSeed Board of Directors 2006 Retreat

LaNitra M. Berger, Ph.D.

LaNitra Berger is a 2009 graduate of the SisterMentors program. She is currently the director of leadership and international programs at the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), where she conducts and promotes research that addresses minority student access to higher education, racial disparities in student achievement, and cultivating global citizenship among minority students. Dr. Berger is the managing editor of NAFEO's publications, The State of America's Black Colleges and The State of Blacks in Higher Education. Prior to joining NAFEO in 2005, Dr. Berger lived in South Africa and Germany while conducting field research for her art history dissertation, Pictures that Satisfy: Race, Gender, and Nation in the Art of Irma Stern (1894-1966). She received her Ph.D. in art history from Duke University in 2009 and her bachelor's degree in Art and International Relations from Stanford University in 1999.

Dr. Berger participated in the SisterMentors program from 2005 to 2009 and believes strongly that the program was instrumental in helping her to complete the doctorate. As a resident of Alexandria, Virginia who works in Washington, D.C., she sees the positive results of SisterMentors' mentoring of young girls every day in her community.

Timothy Boller

Timothy Boller is a principal with the Seed Intellectual Property Law Group PLLC in Seattle, Washington. He graduated from the University of Kansas with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering (1986) and went on to receive a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center (1994). After receiving his J.D., Mr. Boller was a judicial clerk to U.S. District Court Judge J. Thomas Marten and was a research attorney for the Kansas Court of Appeals. He also served as a legislative assistant for U.S. Representative Jim Slattery.

Mr. Boller is admitted to the bar in the state of Washington and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Claudia Cantarella

Claudia Cantarella is a partner and co-chair of the Intellectual Property Practice of Salans LLP in New York. She specializes in intellectual property and information technology matters, including intellectual property transactions, trademark, patent and copyright licensing, software and technology agreements, data and content licenses, e-commerce counseling, worldwide trademark branding strategies, and enforcement of intellectual property rights.

Ms. Cantarella is also a Legal Consultant to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), where her work includes the drafting of national legislation for conservation, utilisation and access to genetic resources and seed certification. Her most recent FAO missions for Iraq, Syria and Seychelles resulted in implementation of national legislation by the respective country governments.

Ms. Cantarella was named a Super Lawyer in the 2006 New York Super Lawyers Manhattan Edition. She has spoken at numerous international and domestic conferences on all facets of intellectual property law and her articles have appeared in the National Law Journal and Managing Intellectual Property.

Ms. Cantarella was a Special Correspondent to CNN Interactive, where she wrote travel articles for the CNN Web site about her 1997 independent travel journey through 19 countries on four continents.

Ms. Cantarella received her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and her Bachelor of Science (With Distinction) in Speech from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Montina M. Cole, Chair

Montina Cole has over a decade of experience in the legal, political, government and legislative sectors. She is Counsel at the law firm of Schiff Hardin LLP. She was previously Of Counsel at Sullivan & Worcester LLP and at the law firm of Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, where she was a member of the law firm's Hiring Committee, and helped to recruit women and minorities.

Ms. Cole previously served as Special Counsel to the General Counsel, at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where she advised senior departmental officials on legal and policy issues regarding U.S. investment abroad. She worked with U.S. and South African government officials and non-governmental organizations to help develop the 1995 U.S.-South Africa Seminar on Commercial Law, to help promote trade between the U.S. and South Africa.

Ms. Cole's legislative and political experience also includes her service on the congressional staff of former U.S. Representative Jim Slattery, and experience with campaign finance management.

Ms. Cole received her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1991, where she served on the Senior Editorial Board of the Journal of Law and Politics, and was a founding member of the Coalition for Diversity. She graduated from Washburn University in 1988, where she received her B.A. in political science, cum laude, with University and Departmental honors. She is a member of the bar in the District of Columbia and in Pennsylvania, and the American and Energy bar associations.

Ms. Cole is a certified yoga instructor. She received her teacher certification from Satchidananda Ashram --Yogaville, Buckingham, Virginia. She has a daily practice of meditation and yoga.

Shireen K. Lewis, Ph.D.

Dr. Shireen Lewis has received many awards for her work with SisterMentors, including from EBONY magazine in August 2009, for making a difference for children, schools and communities. She has devoted over 30 years to mentoring and coaching women and girls. She has mentored women in college, encouraging them to pursue graduate and professional school. Dr. Lewis was Dean and teacher of a high school for girls in Trinidad and Tobago. She has served on the board of several community organizations that promote education and equity for women and girls. She is past Co-President of the Washington Branch of the American Association of University Women.

Dr. Lewis earned her Ph.D. from Duke University and her J.D. from The University of Virginia School of Law. She has a B.A. from Douglass College, a women's college at Rutgers University, where she was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society in her Junior year.

Dr. Lewis practices yoga and meditation every day and is a frequent visitor to Satchidananda Ashram ---Yogaville in Buckingham, Virginia. She is also vegan vegetarian....more

Michele A. Roberts

Michele A. Roberts began her career as a staff attorney with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. While there, Ms. Roberts represented hundreds of clients and was trial counsel in over forty jury trials in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia. During her final two years at the agency, Ms. Roberts served as Chief of its Trial Division.

Since her departure from the Public Defender Service, Ms. Roberts' practice has expanded to include complex criminal and civil litigation in state courts, federal courts and administrative proceedings. Her white collar practice has included representation of defendants charged with racketeering, securities fraud, tax fraud, wire fraud, insurance fraud and bank fraud. Her civil practice has involved representation of both plaintiffs and defendants in the areas of commercial development, product liability, Title VII, premises liability, medical malpractice, personal injury and wrongful death.

Ms. Roberts' exceptional litigation skills have earned her a reputation as one of the area's most talented trial lawyers. She is a frequent lecturer and presenter to both the bench and bar on a variety of topics related to litigation and trial practice. She is currently a member of the adjunct faculty at The Harvard Law School and has previously served on the adjunct faculty at the George Washington University School of Law and as an Instructor with the National Institute of Trial Advocacy. Ms. Roberts is also a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

In its 2003 listing of the top 75 lawyers in the District of Columbia, The Washingtonian magazine rated Ms. Roberts No. 1 describing her as "… the finest pure trial lawyer in Washington: magic with juries, loved by judges, feared by opposing counsel." In 2005, The Washingtonian magazine again listed Ms. Roberts among the top 10 lawyers in the District of Columbia and, in 2006, The Legal Times newspaper listed her among the top 10 white collar lawyers in the District of Columbia.

Ms. Roberts is a graduate of Wesleyan University. She received her J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. She is currently a Partner in the Washington, D.C. law office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

Selena Mendy Singleton

Selena Mendy Singleton most recently was affiliated with Independent Sector as its Director of Public Affairs. Prior to her public affairs role, she was the Chief of Programs at the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education ("NAFEO"), where she worked with higher education faculty and administrators to design, implement, and manage programs to augment the capacity of minority-serving institutions to address and reduce racial and ethnic disparities. Before joining NAFEO, she was the Executive Vice President at TransAfrica Forum where she managed its daily operations and oversaw the One Standard! Campaign to secure rights for Haitian refugees.

A former Environmental Justice Attorney for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Ms. Singleton was part of the legal team which developed a precedent-setting, multifaceted strategy to assure the relocation of a low-income African American community from the perils associated with a Superfund site. She was a Legislative Assistant for U. S. Congressional Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, and a Senior Research Associate for former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley.

An advocate for human rights, Ms. Singleton was the first African American to clerk for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe. She also interned for the Legal Resources Foundation in Harare, Zimbabwe during law school. She has traveled extensively throughout Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe, and has planned and participated in delegations to Cuba, Venezuela, and Haiti.

Ms. Singleton holds a Juris Doctorate from Columbia University School of Law, a Master of Arts in Career Counseling from the College of New Rochelle, and a Bachelor of Arts in Child Study from Tufts University. She currently serves on the Wilson International Studies Program Advisory Board.

Margery Sullivan

Margery Sullivan has a long demonstrated commitment to women and girls expressed through her years of community service. She has served on the local, state and national boards of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). From 2003 to 2005 she was on the board of the AAUW's Legal Advocacy Fund which combats sex discrimination in higher education and the workplace. She is an outspoken advocate for women and girls and her advocacy has increased as she observes the role of women in the biological sciences. In the early 1990's, she was chair of the Maryland Computer Math Science Day for Seventh Grade Girls, an award winning program to introduce girls to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Presently, she is the treasurer of the Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund (VGIF) which supports women and girls in developing countries.

Ms. Sullivan is currently a scientist in biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Previously, she worked at biotech companies, Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.