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Fellowship News

Posted Apr 19, 2009

Introducing the 2009-2010 Revson Fellows

We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2009-2010 Revson Fellowship:

•    William Gallagher, Anti-Crime Sergeant, N.Y.P.D.
•    Carrie Gleason, Coordinator of Retail Action Project, Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union
•    Courtney Killingsworth, Associate Director of Programs, Global Kids, Inc.
•    Sarah Ludgwig, Co-Director, Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project
•    Zahida Pirani, Director, New York Civic Participation Project (NYCPP)
•    Joe Pressley, Senior Director of Policy and Government Relations, Harlem United Community AIDS Center
•    Barbara Slatin, Principal, PS/MS 188 Island School

Bill Gallagher is a Sergeant in the New York City Police Department. As a ten year NYPD veteran, Bill has served in various commands in The Bronx and Harlem. He was a first responder on September 11th. He holds a B.A. degree in Political Science as well as a Juris Doctorate, and is a licensed Attorney. He will focus his Revson Fellowship on Criminal Justice issues.
 
Carrie Gleason Carrie Gleason is the Coordinator of the Retail Action Project (RAP), an innovative community labor partnership she developed for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU, UFCW). RAP is dedicated to winning economic justice for New York City retail workers through strategic organizing, leadership development, and services. Carrie has led and won several campaigns to win union contracts and secure the payment of unpaid wages for low-wage workers.  As a lead organizer for UNITE HERE Local 6, she helped mobilize local immigrant communities for the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride in 2003. She is a graduate of Cornell University.

Courtney Coco Killingsworth is an Associate Director of Programs at Global Kids, Inc, a non-profit committed to educating and inspiring urban youth to become successful students as well as global and community leaders.  She helped start the High School for Global Citizenship, a small public high school in Brooklyn, which opened its doors in 2004. In 2008, Courtney won the PASEtter Award for her work in after-school education. She is a principal dancer in Ase Dance Theater Collective, a Brooklyn-based neo-folkloric dance ensemble. She attended UCLA and Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Sarah Ludwig is the Founder and Co-director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project (NEDAP).  NEDAP is a financial justice resource and advocacy center that works with community-based groups in NYC to promote economic justice and eliminate discriminatory economic practices that harm neighborhoods and perpetuate inequality and poverty.  Sarah is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, and holds a joint degree in law and urban planning from NYU.

Zahida Pirani is the Project Director of the New York Civic
Participation Project (NYCPP), a labor-community collaboration that works to promote immigrant and worker rights in New York City. As a community organizer in Queens, she established the organization's unique model for union-community partnership at the neighborhood level. Before joining NYCPP, Ms. Pirani worked with several organizations in the South Asian and Muslim communities to challenge the implementation of discriminatory immigration policies after 9/11. She holds a Bachelors degree from U.C. Berkeley and an M.A. in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the New School for Social Research.

Joe Pressley is the Senior Director of Policy/Government Relations for Harlem United Community AIDS Center.  Dedicated to bringing positive social, economic and health changes to New York's oppressed and disenfranchised, Joe has served as the Community Organizer and then Executive Director for the New York AIDS Coalition. Spanning nearly two decades, he has worked closely with HIV/AIDS advocates and Black and LGBT communities educating hundreds about political processes and facilitating ways in which their needs and issues could be heard.  Joe holds a degree in Urban Social Sciences from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program at Hunter College and lives with his partner in Brooklyn.

Barbara Slatin Ed.D., Principal of PS/MS 188, has had an extensive career as an educator in NYC public schools with a strong commitment to equity and excellence for all students.  As principal of a high needs, K-8 public school on Manhattan's Lower East Side, she was able to turn the school around, raising achievement scores and developing a rigorous talent development program.  Recognizing the importance of the whole family to student success, she developed a Full Service Community School model providing extended learning time, parent education programs, health and mental health services. The Revson Fellowship will enable Barbara to expand her efforts to include workforce development.