NCDD's Board of Directors

Lori Britt, Board Chair
Lori L. Britt, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at James Madison University also serves as the Director of the Institute for Constructive Advocacy and Dialogue (ICAD), which seeks to serve as a resource for the study and practice of public engagement in public problem-solving. Through ICAD, she trains and engages students as public process facilitators to design and facilitate productive conversations to help address complex community and organizational needs. Britt has been a learning partner with the Kettering Foundation conducting applied research on public deliberation and is working on pedagogical resources for dialogue with the Interactivity Foundation. She has published numerous book chapters and journal articles on engagement, public processes, and pedagogy, and serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Deliberative Democracy (formerly the Journal of Public Deliberation).

Kyla Epstein
Kyla Epstein (she/her) lives with her teenager on the stolen territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations, also known as Vancouver, BC, Canada. Kyla is thrilled to be serving on the NCDD board as part of her own learning and development and strives to be curious while working to decrease isolation and foster community through relationships built on trust, connection, accountability and shared values. As the Executive Director, Stakeholder Relations for the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), Kyla works to advocate for amazing people who are working every day for high-quality, applied, public post-secondary education. Kyla is an active volunteer having served on many nonprofit boards and is the past Chair of Vancouver Public Library and past Vice Chair of the Vancouver Writers Festival. Kyla is currently completing a Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on governance and in 2017 she was selected to attend the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference (GGCLC).

Rhonda Fitzgerald
Rhonda Fitzgerald works to oversee the reach of the Sustained Dialogue model to campuses, workplaces, communities, and countries. Under her leadership, she grew the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network’s reach from higher education sites by engaging and providing tools for alumni seeking to bring SD to their workplaces, home country governments, and local communities. Rhonda is a facilitator of multiple processes of intergroup dialogue with over 10,000 hours facilitating dialogues between groups in conflict, especially using the formal SD 5-stage process on race, hierarchy, ethnic mistrust, disability, religion, and resource and land conflicts. She works with technology companies, teaching hospitals, government agencies, foundations, prisons, nonprofits, and more. Rhonda is an alumna of Princeton University, where she was first introduced to dialogue and transformative deep listening as a first-year participant in an SD group on race, which was the first time she experienced conversations that built trust and led to collaboration.​

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Jeff Prudhomme
Jeff Prudhomme, Ph.D., is currently working on initiatives to coordinate the different strands of the movement for growing a healthy democracy where people are equally free, where all people thrive together, and where no one is left behind. At the start of 2025, he retired as Fellow Emeritus after 23 years at the Interactivity Foundation where he served as a vice president for 15 years. At the Interactivity Foundation, Jeff helped develop and put into action sustained dialogue projects with invited participants, shorter community conversations that were open to the public, and dialogue process trainings in educational settings. He came to this work from a background of teaching philosophy and religious studies. Jeff sees the work of democracy-building as part of the intertwined spiritual, moral, and political work of liberation, moving toward a world where all people and all beings are free.​

Norma Ramos
Norma Ramos is the Associate Director for the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE) at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she is responsible for leading strategic direction, initiatives and management related to the Institute’s core areas of research, education and public discourse. She manages the Institute's research projects, educational and leadership programs, public discourse and dialogue initiatives. She is also responsible for building and maintaining civic, community and educational partnerships, media partners, and local and state government relations related to the program development and administration functions of the Institute. She is a trained facilitator, manages training programs and opportunities utilizing various dialogue methods to enhance deliberative democracy and civic and public engagement.

​Larry Schooler
Dr. Larry Schooler is the father of two (Sammy and Robby) and the husband of one (Jolie).  He is also an Assistant Professor of Practice at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches courses on leadership and communication, facilitative leadership, and conflict resolution.  He is also the co-chair of the faculty panel for the Bridging Disciplines Program in conflict resolution and serves on the Faculty Council and several committees.  He is also a senior fellow at the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at UT Austin. Outside of academia, Larry provides mediation, facilitation, public engagement, and strategic planning consulting for local, state, and federal agencies as well as nonprofit and faith-based organizations worldwide. He assists clients with building consensus and engaging the public in the decision-making process. He specializes in land use mediation, strategic planning, and visioning and has extensive experience in energy, water, community and regional planning, transportation, housing, health and human services, and technology.​

Logan Steppan
A master strategist and expert facilitator, Logan Steppan —founder and CEO of Creek Consulting— developed his skills while studying at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. An Ozark Missouri born Midwesterner with entrepreneurial roots, Logan’s passion for facilitation has long been connected to government, community and policy conversations at state, local and national levels. Armed with a dual-degree in Political Science and Criminal Justice, Logan honed his craft while working with the Center for Public Deliberation and formally launched Creek Consulting in April 2015. Logan and his family, have just recently relocated to the Denver Metro in order for his wife, Madison to pursue a PhD program at the University of Denver.


Sagacity Walker
​Matthew Sagacity Walker is a program designer and facilitator focusing on community engagement and youth development. Sagacity is currently the Program Manager at Everyday Democracy where he designs community trainings and provides coaching on group facilitation and community organizing. Sagacity is also a Senior Associate with The Creative Discourse Group; a collective focused on racial equity and supporting organizations build more equitable practices. A graduate of University of Hartford, he worked as a Field Researcher for the university’s Center for Social Research where he co-designed program evaluations and long-term studies. As a group facilitator, he has collaborated with various Connecticut based organizations and institutions. Sagacity facilitated community organizing trainings in several states; Ohio, Delaware, Iowa, and Maine to name a few. He has also facilitated community dialogues on various issues, particularly education, policing, and racial equity. With a background in management, youth programming, education, program evaluation, and small group facilitation, Matthew Sagacity Walker continues to work on local and national initiatives in hopes to contribute to more equitable, just, and informed communities. 

Previous Board Members

Paul Alexander, Former Director of the Institute on the Common Good at Regis University
John Backman, Principal, Backman Writing & Communications
Martín Carcasson, Director, Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State University
Lucas Cioffi, Founder, QiqoChat
Susan Stuart Clark, Founder, Common Knowledge
Hollie Cost, Assistant Vice President for University Outreach & Public Service at Auburn University
Marla Crockett, Dialogue & Deliberation Consultant
Simone Talma Flowers, Executive Director of Interfaith Action of Central Texas (iACT)
Jacob Hess, Author, You’re Not  as Crazy as I Thought, But You’re Still Wrong
Betty Knighton, President, National Issues Forums Institute
​Martha McCoy, Executive director, Everyday Democracy
Ambassador John McDonald, Co-founder of the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy
Diane Miller, Owner, Civic Collaboration
Quixada Moore-Vissing, PhD, Founder and President, Public Engagement Partners
Leanne Nurse, Program analyst for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Brad Rourke, Chief External Affairs Officer and Director of DC Operations at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation
Barbara Simonetti, Meeting Design Consultant
Najeeba Syeed-Miller, Associate Professor, Muslim and Interreligious Studies at Chicago Theological Seminary
Taylor Willingham, Founder, Texas Forums 
Wendy Willis, Executive Director of Deliberative Democracy Consortium, Director of Oregon’s Kitchen Table
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Members of NCDD’s Original Steering Committee

Before the Board of Directors was in full swing, we had a very active and incredibly helpful Steering Committee. NCDD deeply thanks all of the people listed below. They are listed with the organizational affiliations and positions they had at the time.
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Tom Atlee, Founder, The Co-Intelligence Institute
Andy Fluke, Creative Director, NCDD
Nancy Glock-Grueneich, President, HIGHER Edge
Sandy Heierbacher, Director, NCDD
Leilani Rashida Henry, Founder, Being and Living Enterprises
Pam Korza, Co-Director, Animating Democracy Initiative of Americans for the Arts
Leah Lamb, Founder, The Performance Initiative
Amy Malick, Communications Director, Study Circles Resource Center
Diane Miller, Project Coordinator, Envision Central Texas
Priya Parker, Program Director of the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network, International Institute for Sustained Dialogue
Susan Partnow, Director of Conversations, Let’s Talk America
Barbara Schaeffer-Bacon, Co-Director, Animating Democracy Initiative of Americans for the Arts
David Schoem, Faculty Director, Michigan Community Scholars Program
John Spady, Director of Research, Forum Foundation
Lars Torres, Researcher, AmericaSpeaks
Taylor Willingham, Director of Texas Forums
Miriam Wyman, Co-Director, Canadian Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation
Sandra Zagon, Co-Director, Canadian Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation