CRITICAL MINDED - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Program Manager, Sponsored Projects Program
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Director of the Business and Community Law Clinic
Anne Choike is the Director of the Business and Community Law Clinic (BCLC) and an Assistant Professor (Clinical) at Wayne State University Law School, where she teaches the BCLC and Advanced BCLC. Previously, she taught at the University of Michigan Law School, as well as the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning in its Michigan-Mellon Project on Egalitarianism in the Metropolis. Through that project, she collaborated with architecture faculty to develop and co-teach an international, interdisciplinary experimental travel research studio in Detroit, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Choike's co-edited book, Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Corporate Law (to which she also contributes as a co-author), is anticipated to be published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press. She has also published and presented her work on community-led system design in corporate law; community development laws that promote stakeholder governance and engagement in corporate law; and gender diversity and disparities in corporate law.
Prior to academia, Choike practiced law at Jenner & Block LLP and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, where her legal experience included strategic transactions in the content, media and entertainment industries.
Job Titles:
- Network Liaison, Sponsored Projects Program
Anne (they/them) is a Midwestern artist who facilitates the technical end of the Sponsored Projects Program as a creative problem-solving partner. They also liaise between AMP and the wider field of fiscal sponsorship, serving on the Advisory Board for the Fiscal Sponsor Conversations and co-coordinating the Fiscal Sponsor Network Gathering. Anne's work at AMP is rooted in their belief that media changes minds.
Prior to working with AMP, Anne earned their Bachelor's Degree from Oberlin College in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. They have applied this lens to their work at the ACLU of Indiana, in the service industry, and in the office of forever First Lady Michelle Obama.
Anne writes morning pages, spends time by the lake, makes zines, tends to their beloved community in Detroit, and seeks out the best honey-based desserts. When they're not having introvert artist time, Anne can often be found attending readings and concerts.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director, AMP Seeds
Brenda Hernandez (she/hers/ella) leads the curation and production of the AMP Seeds Series and maintains a portfolio of presenters. She has extensive experience in art education, youth development, as well as event and exhibition production. Brenda has led community and youth centered initiatives at the Chicago Humanities Festival, Mozilla Foundation and Yollocalli Arts Reach; and serves on the board of the Public Media Institute and Contratiempo Magazine. A proud Mexicana, she enjoys living in the Southside of Chicago with her partner and dogs Conchita and Kirby.
The inspiration media can unleash that leads to powerful evolution is a fascination for Caitlin Ruggles (she/her). With her B.S. in Communications from Eastern Michigan University, dreaming up a more just, collaborative, and expressive world is part of the equation that gives her passion. As Finance and Grants Manager at AMP, she translates and navigates around heavy financial language and restrictions for those who spark our desire to act.
Prior to her time at AMP, Caitlin spent over a decade freelancing on sets in the film and television industry around Detroit and managing retail spaces. She spent almost another decade working in non-profit finance for the largest independent film theater and performance arts center in the U.S. In 2021, she opened her own inspections business focused on sustainability, honesty and accessibility after her experience working in construction finance and administration.
Job Titles:
- Network Liaison, Sponsored Projects Program
Job Titles:
- Artist, Writer
- Digital Communications Specialist
Chiara Francesca Galimberti is a queer disabled artist, writer, organizer, community acupuncturist, former teen mother, first-gen college grad, and Italian immigrant to the occupied Indigenous territories currently known as the United States. Chiara has been involved in movements for justice for over two decades, with a focus on gender violence prevention, healing justice, and politicized artmaking. They have written and spoken on a wide variety of topics including disability justice, building anti-capitalist systems, accessible healthcare, and using art as a tool for structural change.
Job Titles:
- Treasurer of the Board
- Lead Consultant With Fiscal Management Associates
Dana is a Lead Consultant with Fiscal Management Associates (FMA). She has spent the past 12 years working with and for nonprofits and foundations across the country to help strengthen their financial and operational infrastructure and secure necessary resources. Currently, Dana leads the Chicago-based Midwest team for FMA. Her experience at FMA includes overseeing the MacArthur Arts & Culture Loan Fund, which provides consulting and loan financing for arts and culture organizations across Chicago, as well as the Chase Stronger Nonprofits Initiative, which serves organizations led by and serving communities of color in cities across the Midwest. Dana received her bachelor's degree in Political Science from Amherst College in 2006 and spent a semester at the University of Cape Town in South Africa in 2005.
Beyond her professional and academic experiences and in addition to her role on the board for Allied Media Projects, Dana serves as a board member of 2nd Story, a Chicago-based organization that crafts story-sharing experiences to build empathy, advance racial equity and promote positive social change.
Rev. Elena Rose Vera (she/her), a Filipina-Ashkenazi trans woman originally from rural Oregon, joined Trans Lifeline's executive team in May 2018. A longtime organizer, educator, and performing artist, she holds an M.Div. focused on social justice and community care work and was ordained as a minister by the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, a historic civil-rights church in San Francisco. Rev. Vera is proud to bring her deep commitment to love, support, and liberation for trans people everywhere to her work with Trans Lifeline.
Job Titles:
- Human Resources Coordinator
Elysse (she/hers) is an artist and former educator based in Detroit. Elysse has worked as AMP's Human Resources Coordinator since the summer of 2022. After graduating, Elysse spent the first portion of her career working, creating and organizing with youth in Ypsilanti, MI before moving back to her hometown. Her transition into Human Resources reflects her passion for creating a community that centers, attends to, and prioritizes the care and wellness of each individual and relationship.
Outside of AMP, Elysse enjoys nature, cooking, gardening, knitting, reading, naps, biking, hiking and exploring new places with her daughter.
Job Titles:
- Editor
- Member of the Board
- Researcher
Emi Kane (she/her) is an educator, researcher, editor, and organizer. She works for a small foundation and a large university on issues related to health and migration, reparations and redistributive justice, and how people think and learn. She also organizes with survivors of violence and abuse to create safer spaces and develops curriculum to address surveillance in social movements. She is a former National Collective member for INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and helped co-found Survived and Punished.
Job Titles:
- Network Liaison, Sponsored Projects Program
Katelyn Rivas (she/hers) curates ecosystems where the arts are the root of individual and collective liberation and equity. Katelyn has worked in socially engaged public art and arts based community development as a teaching artist and project manager. She has been community organizing for over 12 years specializing in youth led movements, food justice and arts for healing and transformation. In 2019, she founded the Detroit branch of The Free Black Women's Library. Katelyn is a poet, scholar and nature enthusiast. She has an MA in Urban Studies and Community Arts. She enjoys exploring and eating great food with her family and friends in Detroit.
Job Titles:
- Network Liaison, Sponsored Projects
Kim D. Hunter has published two collections of poetry: borne on slow knives and edge of the time zone. His poetry appears in Rainbow Darkness, What I Say, Black Renaissance Noire, 6X6 #35, and elsewhere. He received a 2012 Kresge Artist Fellowship in the Literary Arts and he works in Detroit providing media support to social justice groups.
Job Titles:
- Accounts Payable Administrator
Kristin Green (She/Her) Is a part of the Cash Money Dragons team aka the accounting department. Kristin joined AMP in June of 2022, and is excited to be a part of AMP and to be a part of the fight for Social Justice by getting everyone paid in a timely manner.
Prior to AMP Kristin worked in the accounting department in the construction industry where she was a recipient of the "Division of Excellence" award. Kristin has worked in various areas of accounting for 20 years.
Job Titles:
- Development Manager
- Writer, Illustrator
Leila Abdelrazaq (she/her) is a Chicago-born Palestinian author and artist who has been working in AMP's Development department since May of 2020. As Development Manager, Leila works to help redirect resources to movements and efforts towards liberation, using her skills as a storyteller to provide sponsored projects with feedback and writing support on their grant applications and fundraising strategies. She also manages AMP's grants database, helping to keep track of grant records for all of AMP's sponsored projects.
Outside of AMP, Leila is a writer, illustrator and graphic novelist who publishes, exhibits, and gives workshops around the world. Her debut graphic novel, Baddawi, was shortlisted for the 2015 Palestine Book Awards. She spent many years deeply involved in Palestine, abolitionist, and arts organizing in Chicago. Leila currently directs her creative practice towards imagining what Palestinian liberation might look like beyond the violence inherent in statehood. She is a lover of zines and self-published ephemera.
Job Titles:
- Manager, Allied Media Conference Program / Development Department
Job Titles:
- Co - Director
- Co - Executive Director
MARS. Marshall (They/He) serves as one of the co-executive directors of Allied Media Projects. Their vision for leadership centers on the practice of liberation within the personal and professional, emphasizing how we deepen a culture of care for our staff and model a more human-centered way of working together to support a vast network of people and projects making media for liberation.
MARS. received their Master of Social Work degree from Wayne State University where they studied innovative practices for community building and leadership. Since joining AMP in 2017, they've facilitated pivotal moments in the history of the Allied Media Conference including the 20th Year Anniversary, the Year in Chrysalis, and the conference's return to an entirely virtual space in 2020 due to the global pandemic.
Outside of their work at AMP, MARS. is a writer who also experiments with film photography. He's received fellowships from Kresge Artists in Detroit, Lambda Literary Arts, and Crescendo Literary Arts. He is the author of the chapbook, FLOWER BOI.
Job Titles:
- External Communications Manager
Monica Kish, she/her, is the Accounting Manager at AMP. She loves staying organized and solving problems, while helping to keep track of project/program finances so the leads can focus on achieving their missions. Monica began her work in bookkeeping at AMP in 2011 and joined the team as the office manager and accounting assistant in 2014. She received her Certified Nonprofit Accounting Professional Certificate in November 2019.
Monica earned her M.B.A. from Wayne State University in 2008 and has been working in accounting for nonprofits for over 20 years. She launched her business, Monica K. Kish MBA LLC, in 2010 with the goal of helping individuals and organizations with an arts / social justice mission to navigate IRS red tape. In 2016, she closed her business to focus on work at AMP. Monica is driven by a desire for equity and justice. She loves gardening, swimming, and reading. Monica does all of these things in an attempt to help to create a better world, right here and now and in the future.
Job Titles:
- President of the Board
- Board President of AMP
Moya Bailey is the Board President of AMP and an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Northeastern University. Bailey is a scholar of critical race, feminist, and disability studies. Her co-authored book, #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice was released on MIT Press in 2020. She currently curates the #transformDH Tumblr initiative in Digital Humanities. She is also the digital alchemist for the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network.
Job Titles:
- Program Director, AMP Seeds
- Writer
Nandi Comer (she/her) is a poet, writer, and teacher. Along with the youth of Detroit Summer's Live Arts Media Project she attended her first AMC in 2006. Since, she has participated in AMP in various capacities including a volunteer and the AMC advisory board. In 2014 and 2015 she was the AMC Volunteer Coordinator. She specializes in literary arts and youth education with particular interests in adolescent arts engagement. She is the former After School Program Coordinator for River Rogue Public Schools and former Community Projects Coordinator for InsideOut Literary Arts Project.
Outside of youth education and her work at AMP, Nandi is active in the Detroit literary community. She serves as an editor for various literary arts journals, news papers and magazine and has published two collections of poetry, American Family: A Syndrome and Tapping Out.
Job Titles:
- Network Liaison, Sponsored Projects
Olivia (She/Her) assists AMP's HR department in ensuring that AMP and its network of sponsored projects have the multi-talented humans needed to grow and evolve our work, and that these humans are well cared for. Preceding her time at AMP she graduated in 2013 from Wayne State University with a B.A. in Sociology. During those college years and beyond, she worked for various non profit organizations that supported youth arts programs, access to education, food insecurity and homelessness. When she's not working she enjoys cultivating community and creating a cozy home. She loves to bake delicious desserts, getting lost in fictional stories and moving through yoga flows, dance and hiking. She is dedicated to living her most authentic life and supporting others in doing the same."
Job Titles:
- Director, Sponsored Projects Program
J. Sarah Gonzales (she/her) believes in the intersection of art and activism as a critical place for community survival. Prior to her role at AMP, she was involved in community work and youth organizing for over 20 years focused primarily on issues of QTPOC liberation. Sarah is a writer, photographer and avid horror film enthusiast.
Job Titles:
- Director of People & Culture
Job Titles:
- Operations Manager
- Operations Manager / Accounting & Finance Department
- Operations Manager for AMP
Soh (he/him) is the Operations Manager for AMP. He coordinates office needs, and provides various forms of administrative support for AMP Sponsored Projects and programs. He is looking forward to moving AMP into the LOVE Building.
Prior to joining AMP, Soh was a teaching artist at the Detroit Institute of Arts and Pewabic Pottery. He had also been with Avalon International Breads, and resided at the Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership. He currently serves on the Board of Education for the James & Grace Lee Boggs School, and supports local political candidates with campaign finance compliance and reporting.
Allied Media Projects is committed to fostering a healthy, exciting workplace environment in which talented humans combine forces to accomplish incredible things. As we manage more and more funds for our fiscally sponsored projects, we need to grow our accounting capacity to meet this growing need. Our accounting team works with an emphasis on collaboration, creative problem solving, and excellent service to our fiscally sponsored projects.
Job Titles:
- Development Director
- Director, Development
As Development Director, Sophia (They/Them/Theirs) leads a team of rain-makers and "glucose guardians" to organize the resources AMP staff and sponsored projects need to carry out their brilliant work. Since joining AMP in 2016, they have personally stewarded the flow of over $25 million to people and projects making media for liberation, in Detroit and beyond.
Sophia has been fundraising since college, when they started throwing house parties to raise money for the housing co-op they lived in while studying Critical Theory at UT Austin. Writing grants was an easy next step after stints in book publication, magazines, and freelance journalism. In 2015, they drove an ancient Volvo from California to Detroit, and never left.
By night, Sophia DJs as BEIGE with AMP sponsored project Seraphine Collective, and is active on the North American "queer techno underground" dance music circuit.
Job Titles:
- Co - Director
- Co - Executive Director / Human Resources
- Co - Executive Director of Allied Media Projects
Toni Moceri (she/her/hers) is the Co-Executive Director of Allied Media Projects. She joined AMP in 2016 as the Director of the Sponsored Projects Program to provide fiscal sponsorships to projects cultivating media for liberation in Detroit and nationally. Over the six years she directed the program, AMP facilitated access to over $60 million of funding and provided administrative services to support our network of sponsored projects to actualize their liberatory visions.
Toni brings two decades of nonprofit and public service experience to AMP. She served as a Macomb County Commissioner representing the residents of Warren, MI for three terms, from 2009 - 2014, a role that is surprisingly similar to her current work supporting the sponsored projects network. Toni believes it is our collective responsibility to create a world where we can all thrive.
Toni meditates, dances, dabbles in writing, design, gardening and countless other things, loves to eat sun ripened berries, and yearns to travel more.
Toni has a Master of Research in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the London Consortium and completed postgraduate studies in urbanism and design at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Germany. In 2011, she was a recipient of the Marshall Memorial Fellowship.
Allied Media Projects is committed to fostering a healthy, exciting workplace environment in which talented humans combine forces to accomplish incredible things. Our HR department works to ensure that AMP and its network of fiscally sponsored projects have the multi-talented humans we need to grow and evolve our work, and that these humans are well cared for. We strive to make HR more humane, equitable, and transformative. AMP currently has 30 core organization staff and an additional 50+ staff via our fiscally sponsored projects.