Our Year-Round Team

Full-Time Staff

Executive Director:

Lara Mendel
lara©mosaicproject•org

Lara Mendel co-founded The Mosaic Project with Board President, Gogi Hodder, in late 2000. Lara traces the idea for Mosaic back to her par­tic­i­pa­tion at the age of 15 in a 4-night/5-day sum­mer camp that addressed issues of dif­fer­ence. She stayed involved with the pro­gram through­out her teenage years. This expe­ri­ence con­vinced her that wait­ing until peo­ple are in high school to address issues of dif­fer­ence is wait­ing far too long. She noted that prej­u­dice, fear, and anger had already become so entrenched in some of her peers that vio­lence eas­ily erupted. She became deter­mined to some­day reach out to younger stu­dents to address diver­sity issues in a pos­i­tive way and pre­vent prej­u­dice, fear and anger from tak­ing hold.

This deter­mi­na­tion was strength­ened dur­ing a col­lege pro­gram which brought Jewish stu­dents to Germany. Meetings with for­mer Nazis, as well as vis­its to con­cen­tra­tion camps where mem­bers of her extended fam­ily were killed, solid­i­fied her com­mit­ment to fight all forms of hatred.

After grad­u­at­ing from Stanford in 1990 with a B.A. and M.A. in Anthropology, Lara worked in vio­lence pre­ven­tion and envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion. She then worked for seven years as Program and In-Country Director for Global Routes, a non­profit pro­mot­ing cross-cultural and self-understanding through com­mu­nity ser­vice pro­grams for youth. During that time, she ran pro­grams in rural Ecuador, Costa Rica, Kenya, and India as well as directed the pro­grams from the Berkeley-based office. In addi­tion to being an avid trav­eler, Lara is an expe­ri­enced back­packer and mar­tial artist. She is a black belt in Kajukenbo Kung Fu.

The Mosaic Project is the cul­mi­na­tion of her expe­ri­ence, per­sonal and pro­fes­sional, and rep­re­sents her vision for social change.

Administrative Director:

Eden Chan
eden©mosaicproject•org

Eden is the Administrative Director for The Mosaic Project and holds down the fort in the Oakland office. Prior to join­ing Mosaic, Eden was a Program Coordinator for the San Francisco Food Bank, man­ag­ing city con­tracts and devel­op­ing pro­grams and part­ner­ships with SF non-profits to “feed the pro­grams that feed the peo­ple.” Before that, Eden dis­cov­ered her love for social work and Bay Area non-profits with the Glide Foundation/Glide Memorial Church in SF’s Tenderloin dis­trict. There, she truly expe­ri­enced Glide’s com­mit­ment to “mir­a­cles through action” while over­see­ing admin­is­tra­tion and daily oper­a­tions for the Janice Mirikitani Family, Youth and Childcare Center. Throughout all this, Eden has remained involved with the East Bay Asian Youth Outreach Ministry, which pro­vides com­mu­nity pro­grams for newly immi­grated fam­i­lies in Oakland Chinatown. Eden’s diver­sity of expe­ri­ences and per­sonal pas­sion for cul­tural com­pe­tency work has brought her to The Mosaic Project, where she is excited to wear var­i­ous hats (rather styl­ishly) to sup­port Mosaic’s vision of “peac­ing it together.”

Eden received her BA in Classics from New York University and loves her dog, Bikram yoga, and 90’s hip hop.

Youth Leadership Project Director:

Gyasi Parker-Ross
gyasi©mosaicproject•org

Gyasi Kofi Parker-Ross has stud­ied social jus­tice, alter­na­tive learn­ing, and peace since he was young. Gyasi’s ele­men­tary and mid­dle school, Omowale Ujamaa (lit­er­ally trans­lated ‘chil­dren com­ing home’), taught him indi­vid­u­al­ity within a com­mu­nity frame­work at a young age. In high school, he was highly moti­vated by the adults around him and has always shared that ‘fol­low your dreams’ atti­tude with oth­ers. Gyasi’s goals are fos­ter­ing com­mu­nity empow­er­ment through peace­ful meth­ods and being a cat­a­lyst for pos­i­tive youth devel­op­ment.

Gyasi has a deep love for music and a BA in Performance Jazz Guitar and World Music from San Francisco State University. He is not only Mosaic’s Youth Leadership Project Director, but also the cur­rent Resident Rock Star for the Outdoor School. Gyasi is a singer/songwriter and mem­ber of “Dirty Boots”, a hip-hop, rock, R&B, and soul band. Dirty Boots helps to run an open mic for high school stu­dents in San Francisco’s Mission District, empow­er­ing them to express them­selves through music.

Gyasi served as a Programs Coordinator for AmeriCorps VISTA at HandsOn Bay Area (HOBA), a vol­un­teer recruit­ment and event man­age­ment orga­ni­za­tion. During his ser­vice, he orga­nized an intern­ship pro­gram cen­tered around youth in media, coor­di­nated large events for Project Homeless Connect, and was the lead coor­di­na­tor for HOBA’s Be the Change Day 2010.

Gyasi is ded­i­cated to spread­ing peace, love, and joy through his work with The Mosaic Project, his music, and his life.

Business Manager:

Brian Lowe
brian©mosaicproject•org

Brian pro­vides the strate­gic vision for the Mosaic Consulting Project and man­ages the day to day oper­a­tions. Brian brings with him a com­bi­na­tion of con­sult­ing, cor­po­rate finance, and non­profit expe­ri­ence. The high­light of his non­profit career thus far has been facil­i­tat­ing The Mosaic Project’s diver­sity cur­ricu­lum at the Outdoor School. Brian has worked with sev­eral other non­prof­its as well, includ­ing the Golden Gate Opera, where he man­aged stu­dent out­reach, and the Silicon Valley Triathlon Club where he devel­oped pro­grams and coached the ath­letes.

Prior to that, Brian was a cor­po­rate finance man­ager at Hewlett-Packard and Sitesmith Inc., per­form­ing var­i­ous finan­cial plan­ning and analy­sis func­tions. He was also a man­age­ment con­sul­tant for Price Waterhouse work­ing in the South and Mid-Atlantic domes­tic US regions.

Brian received a BS in Electrical Engineering from Duke University and an MBA from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell University.

Curriculum and Training Director:

Serian Strauss
serian©mosaicproject•org

As Mosaic’s Curriculum and Training Director, Serian’s pri­mary goals are to ensure our pro­grams’ excel­lence as well as to sup­port our part­ner schools. She helps teach­ers to infuse Mosaic val­ues and skills into school cul­tures and to cre­ate the health­i­est learn­ing cli­mates pos­si­ble. Her respon­si­bil­i­ties include man­ag­ing and expand­ing Mosaic’s In-School Project as well as devel­op­ing our Professional Development Project and Outdoor School Teacher’s Institute. After fif­teen years work­ing in edu­ca­tion, most recently as a 4th/5th grade teacher in one of Mosaic’s Oakland part­ner schools, this posi­tion brings together all Serian’s pas­sions and skills.

Born in Tanzania, East Africa to a Tanzanian mother and North American Jewish father, Serian devel­oped the abil­ity to bridge cul­tures and a deep appre­ci­a­tion for diver­sity early in life. The chal­lenge of mov­ing to the United States for col­lege at the age of 17 inspired a desire to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ties where every­one feels wel­come and included.

Serian first found her love for edu­ca­tion as a teenager in Tanzania where she taught orphans to read, phys­i­cally dis­abled stu­dents to swim, and home­less chil­dren to play soc­cer. It was the rela­tion­ships she built with these young peo­ple that sparked a pas­sion for teach­ing and work­ing towards a just, peace­ful world.

In the United States, Serian began her edu­ca­tion career teach­ing weld­ing to stu­dents with spe­cial needs. Since then, she has not only taught in tra­di­tional class­rooms, but has also directed after school pro­grams, cre­ated cur­ricu­lum for non­profit orga­ni­za­tions, facil­i­tated diver­sity train­ings through­out the coun­try , and taught self defense and mar­tial arts to youth and adults (she is a Black Belt in Kajukenbo Kung Fu). Serian received a BA in Ethnic Studies and Liberal Studies from Mills College and a Masters in Education with a teach­ing cre­den­tial from UC Berkeley.

Serian has been inspired by the work of The Mosaic Project since 2002 when she first vis­ited the Outdoor School. She imme­di­ately fell in love with the magic hap­pen­ing in the beau­ti­ful red­woods. She only meant to stay a cou­ple hours, but ended up stay­ing a cou­ple of days. Since then, she has worked sev­eral sea­sons as a Program Instructor at the Outdoor School, devel­oped Mosaic cur­ricu­lum, facil­i­tated many train­ings, writ­ten and recorded Serian’s Song (a Swahili peace song) for the Mosaic CD, served on our Board of Directors, and most recently, as a Mosaic part­ner teacher, brought her 4th-graders to the Outdoor School four years in a row.

Bringing her stu­dents to the Outdoor School was the high­light of Serian’s career teach­ing in an Oakland pub­lic school. She wit­nessed her stu­dents tak­ing risks, con­nect­ing with oth­ers, and com­mit­ting to being peace­mak­ers. She is pas­sion­ate about shar­ing Mosaic’s meth­ods as widely as pos­si­ble because she knows they work. She believes they are the most effec­tive means of cre­at­ing peace­ful com­mu­ni­ties.

Part-Time Staff

Development Director:

Rachel Katz
rachel©mosaicproject•org

Rachel Katz is a Jane-of-all-trades, who has a diver­sity of expe­ri­ences and skills to share with The Mosaic Project. She met Lara and Gogi when they were all mem­bers of a col­lec­tive that taught women’s self defense called Women Defending Ourselves in the early 90’s. They used many of the same expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing tech­niques that Mosaic uses today.

In 1996 Rachel co-founded and con­tin­ues to live at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, in north­east­ern Missouri. The goal is to build a small town where res­i­dents live eco­log­i­cally sus­tain­able and socially reward­ing lives, and share the skills and ideas behind that lifestyle.

Rachel has always been pas­sion­ate about social jus­tice and the envi­ron­ment, and she has brought that to bear on her many dif­fer­ent pur­suits. She has been a web designer, a book­ing agent for musi­cians that sing about social issues, a book­keeper, and has worked in land man­age­ment and con­ser­va­tion.

Rachel brings many of the skills she has gath­ered to her role as Development Director. Whether it’s work­ing on the web site or writ­ing grant appli­ca­tions, Rachel gets the job done from her off-the-grid, straw­bale cabin in Missouri.

Bookkeeper:

Barbara Lubinski

Barbara Lubinski, Mosaic’s book­keeper, brings the exper­tise of nearly 35 years of non-profit finan­cial  man­age­ment to the orga­ni­za­tion.  Her work includes the NEST and SHARE foun­da­tions, Earth Trade, the Asian Law Caucus, Survivors International, Purple Moon Dance Project, Hand to Hand, and Yerba Buena Garden Festivals.  She is also Treasurer of the Board of AfroSolo Theater Company.   An English major and writer, she began her book­keep­ing edu­ca­tion as coor­di­na­tor of a rad­i­cal book­shop in Washington, DC in the early 70’s where the accoun­tant made every­one learn the basics of keep­ing finan­cial records with the admo­ni­tion that, “If you want to make a rev­o­lu­tion, you have to learn how to count the money.”  Barbara learned to count the money and count it well, but it is her activism that most clearly defines her life.

Barbara grew up in a poor white work­ing class fam­ily in Roanoke, the largest town in Appalachian Virginia.  Her Dad worked for the rail­road and was a union man with a healthy mis­trust of bosses.   His pas­sion was paint­ing, sculpt­ing and car­toon­ing.  Her Mom played and com­posed music, taught piano to neigh­bor­hood kids, and gave any­one in need a help­ing hand, or a sand­wich to carry with them.  Family life was immersed in music, art, books and good con­ver­sa­tion with a deep appre­ci­a­tion for new ideas and change. Her par­ents armed Barbara and her brother with a strong sense of fair­ness, a good work­ing class sen­si­bil­ity and a pow­er­ful ide­al­ism about mak­ing the world a bet­ter place.   Those val­ues fueled the fire of Barbara’s life-long activism.

Her activism began in 1968 with Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign, the com­mit­ment inten­si­fy­ing after his assas­si­na­tion.  It con­tin­ued with anti-war and women’s move­ment orga­niz­ing and sup­port of Black Power and the American Indian move­ments.  Barbara helped coor­di­nate the first International Women’s Day cel­e­bra­tion in Washington, DC, its first International Women’s film fes­ti­val, and DC’s first coop rad­i­cal com­mu­nity.  She was also part of a com­mu­nity group that “occu­pied” Georgetown University’s radio sta­tion for sev­eral years, broad­cast­ing pro­gres­sive news, cur­rent events, music and poetry.

Since those early days of rad­i­cal­iza­tion, much of the focus of Barbara’s polit­i­cal work has been in radio, pro­duc­ing and broad­cast­ing the sounds, voices, poetry and music of people’s move­ments to inform and inspire social change.  She worked for 5 years at KPOO Community radio, as co-news direc­tor and pro­ducer of “Common Woman”, 19 years at KPFA co-producing “Freedom is a Constant Struggle,”  and is a co-founder and pro­ducer at “Freedom Archives” which works to pre­serve and pass on the his­tory of peo­ples’ move­ments, locally, nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally.   Other polit­i­cal influ­ences have been sol­i­dar­ity work in sup­port of the strug­gles of El Salvador and Zimbabwe, orga­niz­ing work in sup­port of pris­on­ers and polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, women’s lib­er­a­tion and artic­u­lat­ing her own under­stand­ings through spo­ken word and poetry.

Barbara has lived a life filled with chil­dren, includ­ing 4 stepchil­dren she raised and many more she has men­tored and plays with reg­u­larly. She works out at the Berkeley Y and says her pri­mary rela­tion­ship is The Mosaic Project.  Her favorite quote is from Cornel West, “Justice is the pub­lic face of love.”

Resident Rock Star:

Brett Dennen

Brett Dennen is a singer/songwriter, cre­ator of The Mosaic Project’s musi­cal cur­ricu­lum, our Resident Rock Star, and our orig­i­nal “Chill Out Dude” (pos­i­tive dis­ci­pli­nar­ian).

He grew up in Oakdale, Califonia where he was home-schooled until the age of twelve. He grad­u­ated from UC Santa Cruz with a B.A. Community Studies and Social Change. He became involved in The Mosaic Project while still in col­lege, worked at our orig­i­nal pilot ses­sions in 2001, and has been with us ever since.

Brett has been instru­men­tal in cre­at­ing our pro­grams. Up until his music career took off in 2006, Brett worked at every one of our out­door school ses­sions. He now joins us when­ever he is able and serves on our Board of Directors. He has released three CDs (in addi­tion to the Mosaic CD, which we are proud to say was the very first CD he recorded) and spends most of his time tour­ing these days. Check out www.brettdennen.net, his Facebook, or his myspace page for his sched­ule and a lot more infor­ma­tion.