Gretchen Alther, a senior associate in UUSC's Rights in Humanitarian Crises Program, is a dedicated advocate for human right and social justice. Since July 2006, she has developed and implemented programmatic responses to natural and man-made disasters, supporting survivors of the August 2005 hurricanes that devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast, the May 2008 cyclone in Myanmar, and more. 

Prior to joining UUSC, Alther served in a variety of program-development and management positions focused on assisting marginalized communities in countries that included Guatemala, Colombia, and Nepal. She lived and worked in Latin America for six years and is fluent in Spanish.

Alther is a graduate of Texas A&M University with a bachelor's degree in Latin American studies. She received a master's degree in sustainable international development from the Heller School for Social Policy at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.

Anna Bartlett is an associate in UUSC's Civil Liberties program. In this position, she seeks to protect civil liberties that have been eroded since Sept. 11 in the name of the global war against terror, focusing especially on the impact on Muslims in the United States and Muslim human-rights activists in the Middle East and Afghanistan. She also works to end torture and support torture survivors.

Bartlett has been with UUSC since 2004. Her background at UUSC includes programmatic support, experiential learning, and youth programming. As part of the Civil Liberties unit, she is excited to explore various ways to support young people in the United States and Middle East in their struggles for the fundamental rights of freedom of speech, religion, and participating in fair and open governments.

Bartlett has a bachelor's degree from the University of Dayton in sociology and Middle Eastern history. Iin Dayton, she also got her start  as a social-justice advocate; her interest in Middle Eastern affairs was first sparked after spending a summer studying abroad in Morocco.

Rita Butterfield is UUSC's senior associate for major gifts on the West Coast. Based in California, she works to strengthen the ties between UUSC and its supporters in the western region of the United States.

As a longtime Unitarian Universalist, Butterfield has served in a variety of volunteer roles at the congregational and district levels, including as the Pacific Central District's representative to the Annual Fund Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Butterfield's social-justice work has included organizing partner church relationships for the First Church in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and recruiting volunteers for the No on 8 campaign in Sonoma County.

Butterfield has a PhD in social psychology from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Before joining UUSC, she taught psychology and human development at Sonoma State University and the Santa Rosa Junior College.

Wendy L. Flick is manager of UUSC's Haiti Relief Program. She travels to Haiti frequently to continually assess the needs of survivors, to identify and support grassroots partners in serving marginalized and neglected populations in the recovery process, and to develop long-term strategies with partners for Haiti's reconstruction.  

Flick's work in the Programs Department is part of UUSC's integrated Haiti response, which also includes the additional components of policy, advocacy, and volunteers. The policy aspect strives to ensure that Haitian voices are included in the international conversation about the reconstruction of Haiti. The volunteer program will enable members and supporters to participate firsthand in rebuilding the homes, communities, and livelihoods of survivors whose lives were shattered by the devastating earthquake.

Previously, Flick served as director of programs for the Pond Foundation from 2000 to 2009, collaborating with Haitian-led grassroots organizations to create sustainable development programs in permaculture, renewable energies, food security, and potable water. She has also been involved extensively in women's-rights work in Africa for the past decade, including on the issue of female genital mutilation. Flick is a graduate of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government with a master's degree in public administration. 

Ariel Jacobson is a senior associate in UUSC's Economic Justice Program. The program, grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, develops strategic partnerships and builds movements in the United States and abroad, focusing on promoting workers' rights and living wages and seeking to influence state and national policies that advance progressive social change.

Jacobson works collaboratively with several grassroots partners. These include a worker justice center in northwest Arkansas, a national network of informal workers and a women-led child labor project in Kenya, a training and leadership program for women in Central America, an outreach project that advocates for women maquila workers in Mexico, and research and reporting on emerging labor policy in China.  

Prior to joining UUSC, Jacobson worked with social-justice and human-rights organizations focusing on women's rights, indigenous people's rights, immigrants' rights, grassroots neighborhood development, and youth leadership development. She holds a bachelor's degree from Brown University in Providence, R.I., and a master's degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Patricia Jones is manager of UUSC’s Environmental Justice Program, which promotes the human right to water in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Before joining UUSC, Jones was a researcher working with international donor agencies and governments on legal tools for resolving conflicts over transboundary water resources. She has published reports in her field of international water law.

Jones holds a PhD and master of law (LLM) degree in international water law from the Centre for Water Law, Policy, and Science at the University of Dundee (United Kingdom). She earned her law degree (JD) from the Washington College of Law, American University, working for its Center for Human Rights & Humanitarian Law. She worked for 18 years at El Centro de la Raza, a multiracial community-based organization in Seattle, Wash., focusing on development and social justice locally and nationally and U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.

Rev. Brock Leach is UUSC's vice president for mission, strategy, and innovation. In this position, his primary responsibilities are to strengthen the agency’s impact, develop tools for measuring the effectiveness of its programs and launch the College of Social Justice, a program designed to build the capacity of Unitarian Universalists and other UUSC members and supporters to catalyze justice.

An ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, Leach joined UUSC after a 24-year career as an executive with PepsiCo Inc., having served as president and CEO of its Frito-Lay North America and Tropicana divisions. Most recently, he was PepsiCo's chief innovation officer, leading the corporation's health and wellness initiative to develop healthier products across all corporate divisions. In that capacity, he also helped found several private-public collaborations to work against childhood obesity. In addition, he has extensive nonprofit leadership experience as a volunteer, having served on the boards of the Y of the USA and the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and on local boards of Habitat for Humanity and Head Start. He is a community minister affiliated with the UU Church of Sarasota and a trustee of the Florida District of the Unitarian Universalist Association. 

Leach has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Colorado, Boulder, an MBA from the University of Chicago and a master of divinity degree from Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago.

» Read the web article "UUSC Appoints New Vice President."

Shelley Moskowitz coordinates UUSC's policy-advocacy work and provides information to educate UUSC members and supporters on how best to influence the course of U.S. policy. She says, "It's great to represent such a strong voice for justice and human rights. Not too many people in D.C. get to wake up in the morning and feel as good about their work."

Moskowitz has represented grassroots voices for justice on Capitol Hill since 1987. She began her career as a public-interest advocate working with Neighbor to Neighbor, a California-based national grassroots organization. During the Campaign to Stop Contra Aid in the 1980s, she lobbied congressional swing votes. Later, she helped build a bloc in Congress to support a negotiated peace in El Salvador.

Moskowitz's focus shifted to domestic health-care justice issues during the 1990s. She played an important role in the grassroots movement for national health insurance and against health care privatization.

Rachel Ordu Dan-Harry serves as an associate in UUSC's Environmental Justice Program. Fueled by her experiences growing up in Nigeria and observing injustice against women and children, she works to advance the human right to water and other forms of environmental justice.

While working as an attorney in Nigeria, Dan-Harry volunteered with the International Federation of Women Lawyers, an organization that protects the rights of women and children, where she learned the necessity of community engagement and public-policy advocacy for creating change. She also participated in campaigns for the cancellation of the foreign debts of countries in the Global South from 2004 to 2005.

Dan-Harry has a bachelor's degree in law from the University of Benin, Nigeria, and is certified to practice law in Nigeria. She also earned a master of laws degree in intercultural human rights from St. Thomas University in Miami, Fla., and has written articles about Nigerian women in politics and the impact of foreign debts on the realization of economic, social, and cultural rights in sub-Saharan Africa. She interned with UUSC's Environmental Justice Program between 2006 and 2007.

Cassandra Ryan serves as UUSC's senior advisor for major gifts and capital campaign preparation. Overseeing UUSC's program for engaging individual supporters, Ryan works to advance UUSC's fundraising and advocacy initiatives and regularly conducts congregational and membership outreach in the Northeast.

Ryan has worked for social justice throughout her career, with more than 20 years of experience in working with nongovernmental organizations. Before moving to New England and joining UUSC in February 2011, Ryan lived in New York, where she served as the director of major gifts at the Center for Reproductive Rights, major gifts officer at Millennium Promise, and assistant director of major gifts at the American Civil Liberties Union. Ryan began her career at Amnesty International, where she worked for 12 years.

Ryan holds a master's degree in international political economy and development from Fordham University and a bachelor's degree in political science and economics from SUNY Oneonta.  

Evan Seitz is the associate for experiential learning and youth services in the UU College of Social Justice. His responsibilities include developing the Haiti Volunteer Program and leading JustWorks service-learning trips. Prior to joining UUSC, Seitz worked as a community planner, helping neighborhoods rebuild after catastrophic natural disasters. He holds a bachelor's degree in environmental design from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Kara Smith is the associate for grassroots mobilization at UUSC. She helps UUSC members get involved in social justice and human rights on the global level through providing educational opportunities, workshops and webinars, and advocacy opportunities. Smith's favorite part of the job is witnessing the passion and compassion UUSC members have for those fighting for their rights all over the world and in their own backyard. 

Smith graduated with a bachelor's degree from Simmons College in women's studies and political science. After extensive campus organizing in racial justice, voting rights and registration, GLBT issues, and prison reform, she committed herself to social-justice work for life. Smith graduated from the New School with a master's degree in historical studies and sociology with a focus on social-justice movements in U.S. history — she considers herself a lucky academic because she uses what she learned in school every day. She came to UUSC after a short career in housing and substance-use direct-service work and believes that all work in service of others is the foundation for a just society and world. 

Lauralyn Smith is UUSC's senior associate of member development. Smith develops Guest at Your Table and Justice Sunday, two of UUSC's congregational programs. She also manages UUSC's National Volunteer Network, which includes more than 625 local representatives, regional coordinators, and national cochairs who serve over 500 congregations.

A longtime Unitarian Universalist, Smith has an extensive history of volunteer work and leadership in her congregation and in the Ballou Channing District of southeastern Massachusetts. She is an alum of the North East Leadership School, a training program for lay leaders of UU congregations.

Smith has a master's degree in business administration from Suffolk University, with a concentration on organizational development and nonprofit management. Her prior experience includes graduate and postgraduate medical-research administration and working for a company that organizes national and international conferences.

Martha Thompson is manager of UUSC's Rights in Humanitarian Crises Program. Under her direction, UUSC responds strategically to disaster situations where human rights are threatened, focusing on the rights of those who are already marginalized in society or are neglected by traditional relief strategies. She has facilitated UUSC's response to numerous natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies caused by war and conflict.

"The people I have been privileged to work with have taught me the importance of placing those whose rights are being affected at the center of the response to the crisis," she says. "Our human-rights work has to support their participation, their voices, and their ability to act."

Prior to joining UUSC in 2005, Thompson lived and worked in Latin America with both national and international nongovernmental organizations for 18 years, principally in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala with populations involved in armed conflict and persons living in refugee camps. She worked in Cuba for four years, developing Oxfam Canada's program there. Her experience includes work on repatriation, gender and conflict, public health, disaster response, and community participation. With a master's degree in public health, Thompson has taught on the subjects of aid and gender in conflict situations at both Tufts and Brandeis Universities in Massachusetts. She has also published extensively on gender in conflicts, work in conflict situations, and disaster preparedness and response.