NCDD's Board of Directors
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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). |
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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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Christian Ohonba
Christian Ohonba is a PMP-certified project manager and macro-focused MSW candidate at the University of Houston whose work bridges technology, equity, and human-centered systems design. With experience leading implementation, alignment, and inclusion initiatives across SaaS and social impact sectors, she applies a systems-thinking approach to help organizations translate vision into practice. Christian’s projects focus on expanding access to macro career pathways for social workers, emphasizing sustainable structures that center on people and purpose. Through her blog, The Midlife Edit, she writes about intentional living and identity shifts for women in midlife. She joins NCDD with a commitment to fostering dialogue and collaboration that strengthen both organizational capacity and community connection. |
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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. |
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Eric Schmucker, MPA
Eric Schmucker is an experienced facilitator and trainer, focusing on community-engaged dialogue, with over 15 years of program management experience. He has a master’s degree in Public Administration with a concentration in Public Governance from James Madison University (JMU) and is passionate about increasing civic engagement and participatory processes at the local level. Eric has served as a restorative justice facilitator, a story exchange facilitator, and an Affiliate Facilitator with the Institute for Constructive Advocacy and Dialogue at JMU, where he also teaches as an adjunct instructor. He worked internationally in Indonesia and Uganda, for a total of five years, focusing on community engagement and intergroup dialogue. Eric’s professional interests include community building, sustained discussion, and enhancing listening skills. |
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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. |
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Lara Schwartz, J.D. Lara Schwartz is the Founding Director of the American University Project on Civic Dialogue and teaches at the American University School of Public Affairs. She is a 2025-2026 Civic Engagement and Voting Rights Teacher-Scholar, designing a course on democratic engagement across the curriculum. Schwartz has served on her university’s working group on freedom of expression and was a fellow with the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. Schwartz’s book, Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life (Princeton University Press 2024), gives college students a framework for understanding and practicing dialogue across difference. Schwartz is the coauthor of How to College: What to Know Before You Go (And When You’re There). Schwartz holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an AB in English and American Literature from Brown University. |
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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 |
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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
Norma Ramos, Associate Director of the University of Illinois at Chicago Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement
Kyla Epstein, Director, Government Relations & Strategic Partnerships at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT)
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
Kyla Epstein, Director, Government Relations & Strategic Partnerships at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT)
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
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.
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
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