Our Team
Jennifer S. Wortham, Dr. PH, is a religion, spirituality, and forgiveness research associate at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program. She earned her doctorate in public health at the UCLA, Fielding School of Public Health, and she is a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Jennifer served as a strategy and population health executive and consultant for leading healthcare organizations in the public and private sectors, and as the Executive Director of the Society for Healthcare Improvement Professionals. (Read More)
Jennifer Wortham, Dr PH
Founder and Chair
Mike Hoffman
Co-Founder and Co-Chair
Mike Hoffman is a childhood sexual abuse survivor. He kept the secret for over 30 years until finally coming forward to tell his story in 2006. He and his wife Kathy have been married for 26 years and have two beautiful adult children. Mike and his family live in the Edgebrook neighborhood of Chicago. (Read More)
Rabbi Diana S. Gerson is the Associate Executive Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis (NYBR), where she has served since 2005. A major focus of her work has been to advance the NYBR’s leadership role in confronting family violence, domestic violence, sexual abuse and the exploitation of children by reaching across faith communities. (Read More)
Rabbi Diana Gerson
Co-Founder and Co-Chair
Zach Hiner is Executive Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. As an advocate for survivors of sexual abuse, Zach began his career in the non-profit sector in 2010 as an assistant for Barbara Blaine and David Clohessy at SNAP before moving on to work in communications roles at Prevent Child Abuse America. Zach was the Director of Communications at PCA America before returning to SNAP in 2018 to take on the role as Executive Director. (Read More)
Zach Hiner
Co-Founder and Co-Chair
Tyler J. VanderWeele, Ph.D., is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Director of the Human Flourishing Program and Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Religion and Spirituality at Harvard University. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University in mathematics, philosophy, theology, finance, and biostatistics. (Read More)
Tyler J. Vanderweele, PhD
Co-Founder and Co-Chair
Since 1987, Susan Bissell’s career has focused on the rights, safety and security of children and she is currently serving on a number of Boards, teaching, and writing. Susan spent over twenty-five years working in various capacities for UNICEF, and from 2016 until 2018 led the establishment of the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children and its associated Fund. (Read More)
Susan Bissell, PhD
Co-Founder
Brendan W. Case, Th.D., is the Associate Director for Research of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard, where he works both to develop integrative research strategies that draw together explorations of human flourishing from across the social sciences and humanities, and to disseminate the Program's work through external partnerships and public events. (Read More)
Brendan W. Case, ThD
Co-Founder
Ashley Nicole Cook, is a national speaker, author, facilitator, and consultant who delivers high-energy and thought-provoking presentations. She is a survivor of intrafamilial and clergy sexual abuse. As a woman of faith, Ashley has garnered faith leaders' trust throughout the nation, and is recognized as a trusted and vital voice in critical conversations about child sexual abuse and its prevention.
Ashley Nicole Cook
Co-Founder
David Dankwah, is an associate pastor at the Empowerment Temple assembly of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Founded in Ghana by Dr. Mensa Otabil, the ICGC is a global evangelical and charismatic Christian church. Additionally, David represents faith and immigrant communities on the Pawtucket Memorial Hospital Trust Advisory Committee. (Read More)
David Dankwah
Co-Founder, Director of Faith and Religious Community Engagement
Pellagia Gambiza is the Executive Director of Shine on Sierra Leone. A Zimbabwean-born global citizen, she has over 15 years of global development experience in Sub-Saharan Africa, spanning from Sierra Leone to Zambia. She has held increasing roles of responsibility managing multi-country offices and high-impact interdisciplinary teams in the areas of health, education, microfinance, microenterprise development, and agribusiness. (Read More)
Pellagia Gambiza
Co-Founder
Darien Laird is a journalist and advocate for children, especially in the developing world of technology. Her most recent work is with WebSafety, a parental monitoring app that supports and educates families on safe internet practices. There she managed their social media and web content. She has worked as a reporter and producer for news organizations across the U.S. including CNN, ABC, Fox and NBC affiliates, working to educate families.
Darien Laird
Co-Founder, Director of Communications
Matthew T. Lee, PhD, is Director of Empirical Research at the Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. He is co-author of The Heart of Religion and co-editor of the forthcoming volume Measuring Well-Being (both with Oxford University Press). He is also a Distinguished Visiting Scholar of Health, Flourishing, and Positive Psychology at Stony Brook University’s Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics and he previously served as Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity.
Matthew T. Lee, Ph.D.
Co-Founder
Fr. Gerard J. McGlone, SJ, PhD is a Senior Research Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Previously at Georgetown, he was an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine. He was also recently the Chief Psychologist, the Director of Counseling Services, faculty and staff psychologist at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, Italy. He has been Executive Director of several major treatment centers for clergy and religious in the United States-Saint John Vianney Center and Guest House, Inc.
Fr. Gerard J. McGlone, SJ, PhD
Co-Founder
Melissa Merrick, PhD, is President and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America), the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit organization dedicated to the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect. She has more than 20 years of clinical, research, and leadership experience related to the etiology, course, and prevention of child abuse and neglect.
Melissa Merrick, PhD
Co-Founder
Tabitha Mpamira is a mental health therapist, activist, motivational speaker, and consultant on sexual and gender-based violence with a long working history in the mental healthcare industry. In 2015, Tabitha founded EDJA to provide free medical, legal, and mental health services to survivors of sexual assault in East Africa. EDJA has sparked rapid change in Uganda by supporting hundreds of survivors and bringing perpetrators to justice.
Tabitha Mpamira
Co-Founder
Charles Mutscheller has more than two decades of social impact communications experience and a deep commitment to enriching his hometown of Chicago. Currently, as Chief Communications Officer at Prevent Child Abuse America, he has successfully articulated and amplified the organization’s commitment to reshaping how our country addresses child abuse and neglect prevention—shifting the narrative away from reactive, after-the-fact child welfare systems to a proactive, holistic model that supports child and family well-being.
Charles Mutscheller
Co-Founder
Haley McNamara
Co-Founder
Haley McNamara is the Director of the International Centre on Sexual Exploitation based in the UK, and a Vice President at the U.S. based National Center on Sexual Exploitation. She leads international efforts and joint campaigns to improve policies and education among global governing bodies, citizenry, and corporations regarding the full web of sexual exploitation issues. Her advocacy work has contributed to policy improvements in the private sector including at Google, Instagram, Snapchat, Hilton Worldwide, and more. She has advocated at the United Nations, led international coalition campaigns, presented to Danish, Colombian, Croatian, and Rwandan government officials, and more.
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik is the Executive Vice President of The New York Board of Rabbis, the largest interdenominational rabbinic body in the world. Presently Rabbi Emeritus, he has been the spiritual leader of Congregation Mount Sinai in Brooklyn Heights since 1972. A Chaplain of the New York City Fire Department and a former member of the New York Human Rights Commission, Rabbi Potasnik is committed to ensuring the security of all Jewish people and combating the violence plaguing this country.
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik
Co-Founder
Sarah Smart has a MSc in History from the University of Edinburgh. She has worked as a researcher in global development and women's history. She is especially focused on giving voice to those who have previously been silenced and marginalized. She is currently the Director of Research for the private foundation of mankind is my business.
Sarah Smart
Co-Founder
Stephen P. White is the executive director ofThe Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America, a program begun in response to the renewed crisis of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Project develops academic courses, sponsors research, and runs programming to educate the public and media about challenges associated with the abuse crisis. The Atlantic named The Catholic Project’s inaugural podcast, “Crisis: Clergy Abuse in the Catholic Church,” one of the 50 Best Podcasts of 2020.
Stephen White
Co-Founder
Mark Joseph Williams, a clerical abuse survivor, serves as special advisor to Cardinal Joesph W. Tobin, Archdiocese of Newark. Mark is a management consultant and forensic psychological clinician. He and his wife, Karen, have four grown children and five grandchildren. They are parishioners at Church of the Little Flower, Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, the westernmost faith community in Newark's Roman Catholic Archdiocese.
Mark Joseph Williams
Co-Founder
Sage Williams, MSc, RN, is a nurse by training and has worked as a sexual assault nurse examiner caring medically for pediatric and adult survivors of sexual abuse. She has experience working as a victim's advocate on the Utah County Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) and as a research assistant studying sexual assualt response in the criminal justice system at Brigham Young University's College of Nursing.