Chair, Board of Directors
Member, Audit Committee
Member, Executive Committee

Tim is the mayor of the Village of New Paltz, NY, where he lives with his family. He has been an active supporter of Writopia Lab and has served on the board since its inception in 2007, advising on everything from short-term problem solving to general business development. After business school at NYU, Tim served as Vice President at Eagle Advisors for a decade where he made investment management decisions for the multi-billion dollar family office of the founder of a large software company. Tim holds a Bachelor of Arts from Siena College and an MBA in Finance from NYU Stern. His children have been attending WriCampia every summer since they were toddlers in 2014 and now, in high school.

Member, Benefit Committee

Kevin R. Free is a writer/performer/director and OBIE Award winning producer whose work has been showcased and developed in many places, including the Moth Radio Hour, The Fire This Time Festival, The New Black Fest, The Blackboard Reading Series, the Estrogenius Festival, and the New York International Fringe Festival. The former Education Director of Queens Theatre in the Park, Kevin has also directed several productions performed or written by young people, including several plays in Writopia Lab’s World Wide Plays Festival, The Wiz, The Robber Bridegroom, Godspell, Barnum, and Starlight Express. More at www.kevinrfree.com.

Secretary
Member, Audit Committee

Lisa Isaacs holds degrees in English and American Literature from Bard College and Washington University. After stints in entertainment and technical writing, she graduated from Brooklyn Law School and became a practicing lawyer. She concentrates her legal practice in special education and disability rights. Prior to establishing her own firm in 2011, she directed the Education Program in the Disability Rights Center at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and Family Law and General Practice at Legal Services, New York City. She practices and maintains offices in Yardley, Pennsylvania and New York City.

Member, Executive Committee

A champion for inclusion and equity, Michelle Herbowy currently directs a competency-based leadership program for aspiring principals for the New York City Department of Education. Michelle is a lifelong learner and educator with over two decades of experience working alongside families, teachers, and school leaders as a former special educator, school principal, and central office leader in upstate New York and New York City. Michelle has expertise in serving our most vulnerable students and collaborating with stakeholders to create classrooms where teachers take risks to be their best and students strive to reach their highest potential. As a former professional developer for EL Schools and NYC Outward Bound, Michelle has a passion for literacy in the context of adventurous, meaningful curriculum, and has witnessed its power to cultivate engaged student citizens. A champion for inclusion and equity, Michelle currently directs a competency-based leadership program for aspiring principals for the New York City Department of Education. Michelle earned a BA in Early Childhood Education and Human Services at the State University of New York at Buffalo, an MS in Elementary and Special Education at Syracuse University, and a CAS in Educational Leadership at the State University of New York at Oswego.

Chair, Audit Committee

Warren Hrung is currently the Head of Research at the American Bankers Association. He graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Economics and holds a PhD from UC-Berkeley, also in Economics. Warren began his career as a tax economist at the US Department of the Treasury before joining the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he held various analytical and leadership positions in multiple groups until 2022. He also spent two years on a secondment to the International Data Hub at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Warren served as President of the Harvard Club of New Jersey from 2013-2014 and also served as head of the Club's Audit Committee for many years. He is also a past President of the Society of Government Economists.

Member, Fundraising Committee

Jennifer Divina is the Manager of Donor Research and Reports on the Development Team at Brooklyn Botanic Garden and has worked as a book editor and occasional writer for over twenty years. Jennifer grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. As a child, she was often lost in a book, identifying flora and fauna in the woods, or performing on stage or behind the scenes as a part of her high school drama program. After a brief career in costuming at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and other regional, Off-Broadway, and summer-stock theaters, she moved to New York City and earned her B.A. in English Literature from Columbia University. An internship at Russell & Volkening Literary Agency led to a career in publishing. As a member of the editorial department at Viking Penguin, she discovered her strength in helping authors find their voice and navigate the sometimes-intimidating publishing world. For the past 18 years, she has worked as an independent editor and occasional writer. Jennifer has logged many hours volunteering in elementary schools, focusing on literacy, parent engagement, and fundraising. She is an active member of NY Cares, through which she has volunteered for a local food pantry and the Arab American Family Support Center in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. For five years she was a voting member of the Off-Broadway Alliance’s nominating and award committee for their Family Theatre Award. She lives in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, with her husband and two teenage daughters, one a WriCampia camper.

Fundraising Committee

Theresa (she/her) has spent the past two decades working to understand global poverty and injustice and to support efforts on the ground aimed at transforming political, economic, and social systems in order to better the lives of individuals.
Theresa received her BA in Anthropology and Gender Studies from Scripps College and her PhD in Anthropology from Northwestern University. In the U.S. and abroad, Theresa has worked with, advised, and founded various non-profit and for-profit organizations in fields ranging from girls and education to women and family planning to youth and technology to donor organizing in philanthropy. She is the founder of and board chair for 128 Collective, a progressive think tank working toward a climate-safe world for everyone. This work brings climate-curious donors together to co-fund ambitious science-driven projects focused on shifting power relations and fueled by movements of intersectional actors who have the most to gain from a just transition.

Executive Committee

Amy Smith, Ph.D, is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and parent-infant psychotherapist. She holds a doctoral degree from Adelphi University, is an advanced candidate at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and just completed the Anni Bergman Parent-Infant Training Program. In her earlier work life, she was a literary assistant at Vintage Books and Random House. She was an associate producer of the documentaries Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey and I Am Secretly An Important Man, about the life of Seattle poet Steven Jesse Bernstein. She attended the Interactive Telecommunications Program at Tisch School of the Arts, then worked as a web producer at R/GA Interactive before switching fields. She is grateful to Writopia for the formative experiences her sons had there.

Board Member

Rebecca founded Writopia Lab in April 2007, and currently directs the national organization. You can read the founding story in The Village Voice. She designed the organization’s mission and no-barriers sliding scale model, as well as its instructional approach, which has been embraced by thousands of children, teens, schools, and nonprofit partners across the country. In 2015, she established Writopia’s Training Institute that serves the youth development sector and the Department of Education and established The Positive Literacy Collaborative in partnership with Goddard Riverside in 2019 both with the support of the Pinkerton Foundation. Rebecca has led the organization’s growth and impact in NYC, while establishing and overseeing its labs in the DC Metro region, NY Metro North, Chicago, Los Angeles, and The Bay Area.

She writes, presents, and curates panels for schools, events, and conferences on a variety of topics including “The Case for Youth Voice, Creative Writing, and Joy-Based Writing Programs in Schools and After School,” "Building Safe Spaces: The Power of Creative Writing for Kids Who Have Experienced Trauma," "How to Inspire Joy and Creativity through Thought Competition,” “Partnering for Literacy Impact”, and "How to Love Writing for High School and College Admittance." She oversees communications and development at Writopia Lab.

In the founding five years of Writopia Lab, Rebecca won multiple teaching awards including the Scholastic Awards' 2012 Ovation Inspired Teacher Award for submitting the most outstanding senior portfolios on the national level and for "developing a method of working with students that inspires them to create original work that embodies their unique, personal voice.... Because of [her] tutelage... these students are now empowered to bring that voice into the broader world..." She has also won the 2008, 2009, and 2011 National Gold Apple Teacher Award for "submitting the most outstanding group of submissions on the national level" to the Scholastic Art & Writing event.

Rebecca oversees impact assessment at Writopia. She studied at Harvard Business School's Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations for organizational leaders in 2015 and continues to oversee Writopia’s impact assessment team's practices as a Youth Inc partner. She won a 2021 scholarship to attend Columbia University’s certificate program in business excellence for nonprofit leaders and is currently completing her Master's in Urban Education Policy at CUNY Graduate Center.

Rebecca also serves on Writopia Lab’s Board of Directors and is thrilled to have a team of accomplished board members from various social and business sectors, to help shape the future of writing education, and Writopia’s literary arts, youth development culture.

Board Member

Jeremy Wallace-Segall is our Chief Operations officer, bringing together the efforts of our technology, human resources, media, finance, accounting, and facilities management teams to ensure that our program staff have the tools and human support to accomplish their goals. Jeremy joined Writopia Lab in 2009 with 15 years of nonprofit experience building databases and websites, leading design and layout teams for publications, and spearheading teams to create smooth passage through operational challenges. Jeremy is a foundational member of our fundraising events team, our sleepaway camp, and our compliance team. Since 2017, he has also run our Dungeons & Dragons program — and tons of epic adventures!

Jeremy has led the organization through vendor selection processes, web design and content charrettes, transitions between payroll providers, implementations of physical and electronic security systems, and leasing of spaces around the country.

Jeremy’s goal is always to provide tools and services that match not only the technical needs but also the working style of program teams while simultaneously ensuring that the tools and services bring each program team and the operations team closer together from the perspectives of data, workflow, and personal connection.

Jeremy has loved being part of Writopia Lab’s growth from it’s days in a synagogue basement to having 22 locations around the country and to now serving thousands online and he looks forward to being part of upcoming transitions in delivery, measurement, and growth of our services.

Emeritus Board Member

 Kim Hartman was a founding board member and served for 17 years on the board. She is the founder of KH Designs, an interior design firm in New York City. Prior to design, Ms. Hartman was Vice President of Human Resources and Facilities for Trust Company of the West. She also serves on the Board for the Bronx Charter School for Excellence, Temple Emanu El 's Mitzvah Board and UJA Manhattan Women's Philanthropy Board. Ms. Hartman earned a BA at Tufts University and an MBA in Finance from the Leonard Stern School of Business at NYU.