The New LA Board of Directors are volunteers who govern the school. The board meets monthly throughout the school year. Meetings are held at the school and are open to the public. A meeting calendar can be downloaded by clicking: 2011-12 Board Meeting Dates
Joseph Miller – Co-Chair
Joseph Miller is the President of The Runyon Group, a real estate firm that develops dynamic real estate projects and provides management and advisory services to select clients in the Los Angeles area. Prior to starting The Runyon Group, Joseph was a member of the acquisitions and development team at The KOR Group, a privately held real estate development firm in Los Angeles. Outside of his work at Runyon, Joseph is involved with several community and philanthropic ventures. He currently serves on the Boards of The Society of Young Philanthropists and Camp Ramah in California. Joseph holds a B.A. in History from the George Washington University.
Heidi Segal – Co-Chair
Heidi Segal is a lawyer admitted to practice in the state of New York. Prior to moving to Los Angeles in 2007, Heidi worked in public policy with the Vera Institute of Justice in New York focusing on criminal justice, social justice, juvenile justice and child welfare issues. While at Vera, Heidi launched and directed the Institute’s Youth Justice Program (now the Center for Youth Justice) where she worked with government and community stakeholders around the United States on improving outcomes for youth involved in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems, by connecting research to policy, including the development of educational policy. As the inaugural director, she oversaw the Program’s grant writing, fundraising, development, strategic planning, and delivery of services. She worked to incorporate school officials into conversations about broader issues such as child welfare and the adjudication of status offenses, and has worked extensively with diverse populations and community leaders. Before working at the Vera Institute of Justice, Heidi was a Senior Staff Attorney at the Legal Aid Society of New York City, first in the Criminal Defense Division and later in the Capital Division. She received her J.D. from New York University School of Law, and her B.A. in Political Science and Sociology from Vassar College. Heidi currently serves on the Education Commission for Temple Israel of Hollywood, where her son attends nursery school, and where she is the co-chairperson of the Parent Association.
Zoë Blumberg Corwin, Ph.D.
Zoë Corwin directs the Pathfinder U college access digital media project through the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at the University of Southern California. Zoë’s research interests focus on race, gender, class and access to college. She is co-editor of Preparing for College: Nine elements of effective outreach with SUNY Press and has published several monographs designed for practitioners outlining effective college preparation strategies. She held Haynes and Spencer Foundation dissertation fellowships while working on a qualitative study examining college access and persistence for youth in foster care. Previous to her doctoral studies in sociology, Zoë taught middle and high school Spanish and global studies. She holds an MA in Spanish from Saint Louis University in Madrid, a single subject secondary education credential & BCLAD certificate from the California State University, Northridge and a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Deb Christenson
A mid-western native, Deb Christenson currently works with teachers at Wildwood School as the Director of Curriculum at the middle and upper school campus. Committed to learner-centered classrooms and project-based learning, Deb helps teachers develop performance assessments and differentiated instruction through classroom observations and follow-up conversations. She started teaching in small, rural classrooms and has taught humanities in both public and independent schools for over thirty years before becoming an administrator five years ago. She has been involved in creating two brand-new secondary schools, Wildwood secondary and a school in New Hampshire. Both those experiences were part of the Essential Schools movement, which is important to her educational philosophy – that teachers are coaches in the learning process and students are workers, in charge of their own learning. Deb holds a BS degree in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Two grown daughters and a new grandson join Deb’s colleagues in teaching her new lessons every day.
Larrow Kaufman
Larrow Kaufman has had one or more children at New LA since day one. His daughter Loreal was a member of the first graduating class of 2011, his daughter Rebekah is in the seventh grade, and he has two younger children waiting to attend New LA! Larrow is the Sales Manager-Aftermarket Sales at Hitachi Automotive Systems Americas, Inc. He has been very involved at New LA since the beginning, and has also volunteered in many community organizations including service on the Local School Leadership Council at Linwood E Howe ES, Chairperson of the Booster Club at Paseo Del Rey ES, Official Board Chairperson at Venice Church, and as Board Member and Chairperson of the Local Community Support Organization of Hitachi Automotive.
Catherine Lhamon
Catherine Lhamon is the Director of Impact Litigation at Public Counsel Law Center, where she brings civil rights litigation with a poverty focus. Before joining Public Counsel in October 2009, Ms. Lhamon was Assistant Legal Director at the ACLU of Southern California, where she directed the racial justice program and practiced for ten years. Ms. Lhamon’s law practice has specialized in race-based civil rights cases addressing education reform, school desegregation, police racial profiling, municipal mistreatment of the homeless, employment discrimination, and police misconduct. California Lawyer magazine honored Ms. Lhamon as an Attorney of the Year for Civil Rights in 2004 and the Daily Journal newspaper named Ms. Lhamon one of the Top 20 California Lawyers Under 40 in 2007 and twice honored Ms. Lhamon as one of the State’s Top Women Litigators in 2010 and 2007. Before coming to the ACLU of Southern California, Ms. Lhamon was a Supervising Attorney in the Appellate Litigation Program at the Georgetown University Law Center. Immediately after law school, Ms. Lhamon clerked for Judge William A. Norris on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Ms. Lhamon received her JD from Yale Law School and her BA from Amherst College.
Jessica Mackenzie
Jessica Mackenzie works for an industrial real estate developer dealing with issues such as site selection, land use feasibility, project approvals, finance, and construction management. Previously, Jessica was an environmental planner and architectural historian at Christopher A. Joseph and Associates, a local urban planning consulting practice. She specialized in the due diligence and entitlement guidance for a range of real estate development and rehabilitation projects. Jessica is particularly passionate about the role dynamic neighborhood schools can play in their communities. Jessica is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional, and has provided green building guidance for numerous development projects. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA and is currently pursuing a dual master’s degree in urban planning and real estate development at USC.
Jonathan Mathis
Jonathan Mathis is a Provost Fellow serving as a Research Assistant in the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis (CHEPA), with Dr. William Tierney. He earned his BS in Business Administration for Enterprise Management from American University. While at American, he participated in the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Scholars Program, conducting research on new teacher induction and mentoring programs for school systems in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Jonathan served as an Admissions Counselor, Coordinator of Multicultural Recruitment, and Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) Counselor and Recruiter for the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Oneonta. After two years in Oneonta, Jonathan returned to Washington, DC to serve as the Transition Counselor for Maya Angelou Public Charter School-Evans Campus. He earned his Masters of Science in Administration for Educational Administration (K-12) from Trinity University of Washington, DC. His research interests include charter school design, issues of access and equal educational opportunities, as well as transferable elements of school culture and climate, from secondary to post-secondary educational institutions.
Julia Meltzer
Julia Meltzer is an artist and filmmaker and director of a non-profit arts organization, Clockshop. Clockshop produces public arts projects and a series of conversations that take place annually between artists, writers and civic leaders. She has been awarded grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and was a Fulbright Fellow in Damascus, Syria in 2005-06. She is a third generation partner and board member of the Sieroty Company, a family owned and operated real estate company in Los Angeles. Julia received her BA from Brown University and her MFA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Susan Nickerson
After growing up in Long Beach, California and graduating from UCLA, Susan Nickerson pursued work in the entertainment industry, eventually starting her own visual research company. Armed with energy and a drive to solve problems, no matter how difficult, she built the premier research and clearance agency for the television advertising market and claimed her first Emmy-award-winning spot within a few years. Nickerson Research continues to be a sought-after participant in major advertising projects, with credits including the Apple “Think Different” spot and the Adidas “Impossible is Nothing” campaign, featuring Muhammad Ali boxing his daughter, Laila. Susan’s daughters attend Carthay Center Elementary School where she is the co-president and co-founder of Friends of Carthay Center, a grassroots effort to renew her community’s support of their neighborhood school. She is committed to embracing the diverse and wondrous Carthay neighborhood she and her family call home. Susan holds a B.A. in Theater from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Peter Sheehy, Ph.D.
Peter taught United States and modern world history in the high school division of the Horace Mann School in New York City for nine years before moving to Los Angeles in 2010. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia in 2002. His dissertation explores how the rise of psychotherapy in America shaped perceptions of individual identity and social relations, and informed intellectuals and policy experts’ approaches to social and political problems. In New York City Peter served as a consultant to The Library of America to train public elementary and middle school teachers in the use of primary source historical documents. He also worked as a volunteer tutor for low-income New York City elementary school children at Project GO. Last year he joined the Program Committee of the Grace Church School (JK-8) in New York City to assist with their development of a high school division. He currently is assembling a United States history document reader for Oxford University Press.
Richard Weil
Richard Weil is Director of Finance and Administration and CFO of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles. Since joining MOCA in December 2008, Richard has played a key role in stabilizing the museum’s finances. Prior to MOCA, Richard worked in the for-profit world, most recently as a consultant to venture-backed startups. Richard’s broad experience includes working with companies involved with video game commerce, paid search advertising, law book publishing, gift certificates, electricity transmission, and derivatives pricing and risk management. Richard graduated from Columbia College in 1990 and is a CFA charterholder.
