U.S. Executive Board
Alex Aleinikoff, JD
Treasurer
Alex Aleinikoff is a professor at The New School in New York City and Director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility. Before coming to The New School, Alex served as United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees (2010-15) and was a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he also served as dean and Executive Vice President of Georgetown University. He was co-chair of the Immigration Task Force for President Barack Obama’s transition team in 2008. From 1994 to 1997, he served as the general counsel, and then executive associate commissioner for programs, at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). He brings with him immeasurably valuable experience with asylum law. Married to our founder, Dr. Rachel Cohen, Mr. Aleinikoff has been an enthusiastic supporter of CTP from the beginning, and looks forward to helping us in our mission to offer survivors the best possible treatment!
Ann Blume
Co-President
Ann Blume is a community leader living in Seattle, Washington. She currently serves on Seattle University’s Board of Trustees and the College of Arts and Sciences Leadership Council. Ann also was on the SightLife Board, the University of Washington’s Center for Infant Mental Health and Development Council and Teens in Public Service Board. After graduating from Cornell University with a Biology and Nutrition degree in 1978, Ann moved to Washington D.C. where she helped implement the first generation of personal computers as a staff assistant to Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon. Ann met her husband, Bruce, while working in the U.S. Senate. In 1982, Bruce and Ann founded the Blume Company, a Seattle real estate development business which has helped transform Seattle’s South Lake Union, University, Eastlake and Fremont neighborhoods. The parents of five children, they share a passion for family, public policy, and philanthropy.
Cynthia Pacutho
Cynthia Pacutho is a communications practitioner, sales and marketing expert and advocate for special needs children, based in Kampala, Uganda. With nine years’ experience in profitable business growth, efficient customer portfolio management and effective stakeholder management in the logistics industry within Africa, she now utilizes her expertise as an independent consultant in the not-for-profit sector. She’s worked with organizations including the Forum for Women in Democracy Uganda, Malaria Partners Uganda, and the Ugandan National NGO Forum. Cynthia is a member of the Uganda Women Writers’ Association Readers’ & Writers’ Club and volunteers with the New Life Foundation Uganda and the Society for Social Transformation Uganda.
Eva Ross
Eva Ross started her career as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company and has spent the past decade in different strategic and operational roles in the technology industry. Eva worked for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) in Accra, Ghana on a project to support over 300,000 smallholder cashew farmers and for the Global Agri-Development Company (GADCO), an award winning agri-food start-up, in rural Ghana. Besides that, she has worked on projects in Nigeria and South Africa. She is an angel investor and advisor to multiple start-ups and founders across Europe and the United States. Eva is originally German but currently lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters.
Mary M. Luke, RN, MS, MBA
Mary Luke has 35 years of executive management experience in women’s reproductive health, rights and development programs. She held executive leadership positions in NGOs in women’s reproductive healthcare, opening offices and managing programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Mary brings expertise in strategic planning, advocacy, program and budget management and fundraising to the board. She began her career in reproductive healthcare at Planned Parenthood in San Francisco and went on to a 24 year international career in women’s reproductive health and development. She currently serves on the Board of Directors at UN Women USA and PowHer NY and on the Advisory Board of Women of Color in Fundraising and Philanthropy.
Mary Briese Matheron
Co-President
Mary Briese Matheron is a retired fundraising professional and one of the founding board members of Common Threads Project. During her professional career, Mary held a variety of leadership fundraising positions at three of the top U.S. law schools: the University of California Berkeley, Yale, and Georgetown University. In between stints at Georgetown and Yale, Mary served as a consultant on leadership giving to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Prior to entering fundraising, she worked in college athletics as the first full-time women’s basketball coach at Georgetown University during the early days of the university’s compliance with Title IX.
Maureen Brotherton
Maureen Brotherton currently sits on Seattle University’s Board of Trustees and Achon Uganda Children’s Board. Service includes past President of Seattle Rotary Service Foundation Board and continued membership in Seattle Rotary/Rotary International. Maureen was past chairman of Seattle University’s Board of Regents an Seattle University’s College of Arts and Sciences’ Leadership Council. When her children were young she served for several years on Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Uncompensated Care Board as well as The Villa Academy Board of Trustees. She has a BA in Society and Justice, University of Washington and a master’s degree in Not-for-Profit Leadership from Seattle University. Maureen co-founded, with her daughter Tia, Teens In Public Service (TIPS) in 1997. Maureen and her husband, Joe, are the proprietors of Doe Bay Resort & Retreat located on Orcas Island.
Patricia Friedman, MD
Secretary
Patty Friedman is a retired pediatric geneticist who has been active in her retirement with a variety of volunteer activities. In addition to her work as a geneticist, Patty is a trained forester and naturalist and a certified yoga instructor. She fulfills her interest in patient care with hospice work and her love of the outdoors with work for the Audubon Naturalist Society. She as been a great supporter of Common Threads since its beginning and she looks forward to being more active now that she is a board member.
Sone-Seeré Burrell, MA, MS
Sone-Seeré Burrell is an artist and art therapist living in Richmond, VA. She completed her undergraduate degree in Graphic Design and Technology at North Carolina A&T, where she was also a member of the E. Gwynn Dance Company. Sone-Seeré relocated to Washington DC for several years where she worked as a high school art teacher. Desiring more specialized training to address the needs of students, Sone-Seeré went on to earn her MS in Mental Health Counseling and MA in Art Therapy from The George Washington University. It was at GW where she was introduced to story-cloth making, a modality which she still finds powerful in both her personal and professional life. She served as the student liaison for the multicultural committee for AATA (The American Art Therapy Association) circa 2015. Sone-Seeré has worked as an artist, instructor and art therapist, providing services and experiences in residential facilities, hospital settings, school systems, and in the community. Her personal art journey has been an integral part of her world, engaging in creative expression as a community muralist, commissioned portrait artist, live painter for special events, and quilter.
Faculty & Staff
Rachel A. Cohen, Ph.D
Founder, Executive Director
Rachel is a clinical psychologist who has been in practice for over 30 years. She founded Common Threads in Geneva Switzerland in 2012. Now based in New York, she is a consultant specializing in psychosocial support for survivors of trauma. She has designed recovery projects in the developing world, training local staff and implementing interventions in post conflict areas including Bosnia, South Sudan, Uganda, Ecuador and Nepal. She earned her doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1986, and a certificate in global mental health from the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma in 2010.
Vesna Golic, MA
Deputy Director
Vesna specializes in implementation of community approaches in assisting refugees, from grass-root level to international programs. She has been involved in assisting refugees since 1995 when she coordinated humanitarian aid and psychosocial programs in former Yugoslavia. From 2000-2006 she served as a Director of Group 484 - an NGO in Serbia that promotes the rights of forcibly displaced people. From 2008-2013 in Australia she led community development programs with resettled refugees and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia. She formed and led capacity development program for NGOs serving refugees in Malaysia in association with UNHCR. Vesna joined Common Threads Project in 2020, as one of the creators of the exhibit The Fabric of Healing, and later as a Senior Advisor for Strategy. She has an MA in international development.
Lisa Raye Garlock, ATCS, LCPAT
Art Therapy Consultant
Lisa is a full-time faculty member in the graduate Art Therapy program at George Washington University. She has presented workshops and given lectures on art therapy topics in the U.S. and abroad. She is a credentialed art therapy supervisor (ATCS) and is a Licensed Clinical Professional Art Therapist (LCPAT). She has worked with adults, adolescents and children in hospitals, schools, community-based organizations and shelters. In addition Lisa is an accomplished artist, exhibiting work in a variety of media, with a current focus on arpilleras. She studied printmaking and textiles at Rochester Institute of Technology and earned a Masters degree in Art Therapy from Nazareth College of Rochester.
Catherine Butterly, BA, DIP PSYCH, HDIP, CFT, MSC
Senior Adviser for Trauma Theory and Training
Catherine is a Psychotherapist, Family and Play Therapist and has trained in a number of Body-based approaches to working with Trauma. She has been a practitioner, lecturer, clinical supervisor and trainer for many years and is the Programme Coordinator of the M.A in Counselling at Webster, University, Geneva. Catherine has been a part of Common Threads for the past 8 years, training in Bosnia, Eastern Congo and New York . She has been involved in project planning, training, supervising, grant writing and theory building. Catherine has spoken about the work of Common threads at a number of International Conferences - in Geneva, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Novi Sad in Serbia and Dublin. Prior to working in Geneva, Catherine worked in Zimbabwe for 8 years. She collaborates with a number of organizations working in challenging environments including in refugee communities in Greece and has run Mind/Body stress management programs for U.N organizations and others. She passionately believes in community oriented approaches to healing and the intrinsic power of Common Threads work to be a witness to silenced atrocities. She loves to quilt.
Jamuna Maharjan Shrestha
Senior Consultant for CTP Programs in Nepal
Jamuna is a senior Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) practitioner. She currently works as a freelancing expert with several organizations in Nepal and abroad. She worked for several years at TPO Nepal as a clinical manager where she supervised colleagues and led the Sajha Dhago (Common Threads) program since 2014. She has been working in the mental health and psychosocial service field for over 25 years with various populations including refugees, torture survivors, conflict-affected people, and trauma survivors. She has worked with women and children, SGBV survivors, LGBTQ, trafficked survivors, and families alike. She is a globally certified Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) service provider and Common Threads facilitator. She has run the 21 circles of the Sajha Dhago program with women across Nepal.
Christie Schmid
Seattle Program Coordinator
Bio coming soon!
Isabel Enriquez
Ecuador Program Coordinator
Isabel Enríquez is a Sociologist from Ecuador, who graduated from Pontificia Universidad Católica in Quito, Ecuador in 2017. After working for a few years in a local public organization, she continued her studies and obtained a master’s degree in peace, conflict and human rights in Granada, Spain in 2020. She worked with a local ONG specialized in migration, gender equality and human trafficking and she has dedicated her career to promote and defend woman, human and nature’s rights.
Nissim Ram
IT Consultant
Nissim Ram is an IT and development consultant who specializes in Web and JavaScript development. He is passionate about streamlining processes for non-for-profits on the organizational end so that the experts can provide assistance to the communities who need it most. As a graduate from Brandeis University in history and anthropology he has a wide range of interests and is always excited for moments when the humanities and digital world intersect. He travels between the New York and Boston area. In his free time he enjoys music production and following world soccer.
Caroline Donnelly Moran
Administrative Officer
Caroline is an administrative officer with a background in art history and experience in education, program development, and writing. While in college, she co-founded a student-run initiative to increase civic education opportunities for local middle schoolers and completed two senior theses projects. Outside of work, you can find Caroline listening to an audiobook, biking around town, or checking out a new bakery. She has a B.A. in art history and urban studies from the University of Pennsylvania.