ICRI Board

Amy Conley

Amy is an assistant professor of Child and Adolescent Development at San Francisco State University. She holds a B.A. in Child Development and Public Policy from Boston University and a Masters and PhD in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Her teaching, research, and practice experiences are in the areas of child and family policy, family support, and child maltreatment prevention, both domestically and internationally. As the director of Romanian Children’s Relief from July 2000 to November 2001, Amy was responsible for three programs that served approximately 300 children monthly in two hospitals and an orphanage in Bucharest and Bistrita, Romania. During her tenure she lead the effort to design and implement a foster care support program for children transitioning from institutional care to family life, a program that has been recognized by the government of Romania as a best practice in foster care.

Lorna Corbetta

Lorna is the Director of Development for the College of Humanities and the Arts at San Jose State University. Raised on the Peninsula, she completed her undergraduate work in French and Italian at the University of Colorado, Boulder, then spent several years in Italy as a teacher of English language. Upon returning to California, Lorna worked in the academic library world for 15 years while earning graduate degrees in Library Science and Art History. Bringing fundraising expertise and long experience in higher education, Lorna joined the ICRI board in July 2008.

Chris Ellison, Secretary

Chris Ellison is a partner at Ellison, Schneider & Harris, a California law firm specializing in energy, water and environmental law. Since admission to the California bar in 1977, Chris has specialized in energy matters, concentrating on transactional, regulatory and arbitration work on behalf of energy suppliers, customers, trade associations and regional reliability organizations. After working for the California Energy Commission, the California Department of Justice Environment Section and another private law firm, Chris helped found Ellison, Schneider & Harris in 1990. Since then, he has been a leading participant in the restructuring of the electric industry to promote open access transmission, customer choice, reliability standards, competition, licensing of new power plants and the promotion of renewable energy. Chris also serves as an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association.

Chris has actively participated before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the California Energy Commission, the California Public Utilities Commission and other agencies regarding a variety of energy and related environmental issues. He has been active within several Western electricity forums on matters of transmission access and electric reliability. He was selected by the California Bar Association to serve on its Committee on the Environment. He has been selected by other attorneys for inclusion in “Best Lawyers in America” (2006), selected for “Northern California Super Lawyers” (2005, 2006) and by Sacramento Magazine for “Best Lawyers in Sacramento” (2006).

Jane Ferrier

Jane Ferrier has had a thirty year career working with early learners and their families. She is a native Californian and began her career in a San Francisco Bay area public school district directing early childhood and after school programs for children ages 2 1/2-12 years. She has vast experience teaching early childhood and adult learners in Asia, Europe, South America, Africa and the United States. She has been contracted by International Schools Services to develop and start up new preschools in Indonesia and China. Her final year working in China was spent serving as Lower Elementary Vice-Principal where she developed a more age-appropriate program for preschool through Grade 1. Throughout her career, Jane has made a priority of her commitment to parents, engaging with them one-to-one and in groups to provide support and strategies for dealing with everyday concerns of parenting.

Stephanie Hill, Chairperson

Stephanie Hill is the Founder and Executive Director of the Crescent Park Child Development Center in Palo Alto, California. Crescent Park is a non-profit early childhood program recognized for its unique environments and family-centered, multi-aged classroom settings. Stephanie has been involved in center start-up and management of both large and small early childhood programs for over 20 years, ranging from Family Child Care programs where she founded the first Family Childcare Association and child care food program in San Benito County, to Stanford University where she served as Program Coordinator for the Stanford Arboretum Children’s Center.

Stephanie founded Crescent Park Child Development Center in July 2000 and has been instrumental in promoting high quality professional development opportunities for the early childhood community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Stephanie participated in the Northern California delegation to Reggio Emilia in May 2008 and continues to serve as an advocate for high quality education for children, teachers and families.

Beyene Negewo

Beyene is the former Ethiopian Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland. He is also a retired Senior Policy Advisor for the City and County of San Francisco, and served as a Senior Advisor to the World Bank on economic development in Papua New Guinea. Beyene holds a Doctorate in Public Policy from Stanford as well as additional degrees in the fields of political science, educational planning and international development. Beyene has more than 25 years of professional experience tackling complex social and policy problems throughout North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Jeff Pallin

As an undergraduate student at Boston University in the late 60-‘s and early 70’s, Pallin found solace as an avid student of mathematics, history, philosophy and logic, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in Mathematical Logic. Graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin led him back to his first life love, music, and he pursued a career as a professional musician during the 70’s. When the disco boom created havoc, Jeff was hired by a local music store and then joined Bose Corporation as a sales rep, working his way up to National Sales Manager in 5 years. He left Bose to get his MBA, full time, from Boston University, where he graduated with High Honors, concentrating in Operations and Control. A 20+ year career in the for-profit world led him to seek a better connection outside that world – from part time teaching at the graduate level at local universities and increased activity as an Account Director at the Taproot Foundation, to being appointed in March 2009 to the ICRI Board, where he now assists in marketing and finance oversight.

Eugene Schneider, Treasurer

Gene has been a member of ICRI’s board since 2004, and currently serves as the Treasurer. Originally trained as a civil engineer, Gene held a variety of jobs ranging from airplane pilot to truck driver before deciding to attend law school in his thirties. He now runs a private law practice in Oakland, specializing in probate, trusts, and estate planning. Gene and his wife enjoy taking cross-country road trips in their 1973 Volkswagen Bug to visit their four children and three grandchildren.

Guenet Sebsibe

Guenet is the faculty field supervisor for the graduate students in the Infectious Disease and Epidemiology/Biostatistics MPH programs at the UC Berkeley-School of Public Health. Guenet holds both an M.D. and an M.P.H. degree, and her clinical medicine experience has ranged from studying the prevalence of Schistosoma Mansoni in the highlands of Ethiopia to ophthamological research in New York City. Since graduating from the M.P.H. program at UC Berkeley, Guenet has been working with local community-based and international organizations in research and program development activities. She has worked as the Health Services Program Specialist with the City of Berkeley Public Health Clinic, developing and managing the anonymous HIV/AIDS/STI testing and counseling sites. Guenet has also worked for the Center for Health Improvement at Blue Shield of California, designing prevention & disease management programs and conducting data analysis, as well as the Alameda Alliance for Health, where she served as the Cultural & Linguistics Services Manager and QI analyst. Guenet is a longtime member of ICRI’s board, and one of her lifelong passions is experiencing world cultures up-close by traveling to exotic places as often as possible.

Shyaam Shabaka

Shyaam has over 33 years of leadership experience in the fields of public health and sustainable urban agriculture. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Eco Village Farm Learning Center in Richmond, California, and previously served as the Director of Health Planning, Education, and Promotion for the City of Berkeley Public Health Department. Shyaam has worked on a wide range of projects to promote environmental, social, and economic justice in low-income urban American communities and in Sub-Saharan Africa. Highlights include serving as a United Nations election observer for the first democratic elections in South Africa and attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development as a Ford Foundation delegate. Shyaam has completed numerous consultancies for governments and non-profit organizations working to eliminate poverty and improve public health, including the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Department of Community Health, the City and County of Los Angeles Redevelopment Agency, and the West County Partnership for the Public’s Health. Shyaam has made an enormous contribution to ICRI through his many years of service to the organization, including over 10 years as the Board Chair.

Nanine Watson

Nanine has over forty years of experience in the fields of child care, education, real estate, and philanthropy. She is the Founder and Director of the Richmond Children’s Academy Preschool, which currently serves approximately 35 predominantly low-income African-American children. She previously founded and directed the Carl Munck Language League, an innovative language school operating under the auspices of the Oakland Unified School District. Nanine also has worked as the Director of Volunteer Services for Providence Hospital and as the Deputy Chief of Protocol for the City of Oakland. Nanine has a long track record of service on the boards of local and national non-profit organizations, including the Travelers Aid Society/Guild, the Oakland Symphony, the Association of Directors of Volunteer Services, and the Director’s Coordinating Council of the Association of Hospitals and Hospital Systems. As the Vice-President of the Board of Directors for the Oakland-based Allen Temple Housing and Economic Development Corporation, Nanine was actively involved in developing housing opportunities for seniors and HIV/AIDS patients. Nanine recently founded Watson and Associates, a corporate childcare center development consultancy.