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CEO and Founder
Dr. Steven Watson is a historian specializing in the dynamics of twentieth-century American avant-garde cultural figures. After earning his Ph.D. from Stanford, he spent nineteen years as a staff psychologist at a community mental health clinic.Venturing into journalism and independent publishing, he authored six books on the avant-garde, collaborating with notable publishers like Random House and Pantheon. Watson has organized two exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery and directed the PBS documentary Prepare for Saints. He also presented Artifacts at the Center Pompidou in Paris. For more information, visit www.steven-watson.com.
Co-founder, team leader
Sarwar is a film-maker and CEO of Eckova Productions (U.S.A. and Pakistan). He filmed and co-produced many humanitarian films in Pakistan, including about the Special Olympics/Pakistan. He led Film-making for Social Change in 2009 and 2010 in Pakistan for training young film-makers in documentary film production. He is a founding member of Special Olympics/Pakistan, and organized and conducted several regional and national Games as well as taken two delegations of Special Athletes to participate in international games in Minneapolis and New Haven.
treasurer
Sandra Sherman, who holds a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, was formerly a Senior Attorney in the U.S. government and a professor of English literature. She has published four books on 18th century literature and culture, including major studies of the financial revolution and poor relief. She is also co-author of several books on neuroscience, including Origins of Human Socialization and The Altruistic Brain, and on psychiatry (e.g., Through a Screen Darkly: Psychiatric Reflections During the Pandemic and Towards Happiness — A Psychoanalytic Approach to Finding Your Way). She is an authority on early culinary texts and the author of Invention of the Modern Cookbook.
advisor and IT expert
Linda Saetre is a multilingual, senior-level tech and media executive, experienced in project management and geopolitics. She has built partnerships and longstanding relationships among teams and investors, and with government entities, and transitioned from film and TV production to social entrepreneurship. Her team won an Oscar for March of the Penguins. She also advised a non-profit founded by Olympians to lobby the U.S. Congress. www.platocom.net
Director
John Watson holds an MBA from Stanford. He was Vice President and General Manager of General Foods, and a senior marketing executive at several major corporations. His experience in the non-profit sector is extensive, and ranges across large organizations that help the disabled to regional economic groups and housing collaboratives. He is also active in church and interfaith outreach groups.
Director
Caroline Miller is a veteran journalist, and since 2010 has been editorial director of childmind.org, a website with extensive resources on children’s mental health and learning disorders. She also teaches graduate seminars in journalism at New York University and, in national election years, an undergraduate seminar on journalism and politics at Columbia University. She was Editor-in-Chief of New York magazine from 1997-2004, and held the same position at Seventeen and Lear’s. At Variety, she was Executive Editor.
advisor
Mara Krechevsky is a senior researcher at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she has been involved in educational research for over 30 years. She is an expert in early childhood education and has focused much of her work on documenting and supporting young children’s learning and development in a variety of settings.
Krechevsky has co-authored influential works, including “Visible Learners” and “Making Learning Visible,” focusing on environments that foster collaborative learning and showcase children’s thinking. She collaborates with educators globally to develop innovative teaching methods that nurture children’s curiosity and capabilities. Her research significantly impacts early childhood education, advocating for practices that honor children’s voices and promote their active participation in learning.
ADVISOR
Dr. Jean-Elie Gilles has successfully integrated his hometown of Jacmel, Haiti, into UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network. After a prestigious teaching internship in France, he settled in the U.S. and pursued a Doctorate in Francophone Literature. He has been a lecturer in Creole and Francophone Studies at the University of Florida, and has taught French and Haitian Literature at Pace University, New York, and Kean University in New Jersey.
While living in Haiti, he was a professor of literature at several universities, and a cultural organizer of the Alliance Française de Jacmel.
He has published “Jacmel, its Contribution to the History of Haiti, Tomes I, II and III;” as well as several novels, short stories, and essays.
Advisory board member
Caroline Beauregard is a professor of art therapy at the University of Québec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue-UQAT and a researcher at the Institut Universitaire Sherpa and at ERIFARDA in Canada.
At the intersection of art therapy and education, her work focuses on the impact of school-based creative expression workshops on immigrant and refugee children’s development, emotional well-being, social connectedness and creativity, taking on a perspective of empowerment and agency.
She specializes in creative expression programs in schools with immigrants and refugees, construction and expression of identity, psychosocial intervention through art in schools, and the psychological impact of armed conflict and trauma. She holds numerous degrees, including a Ph.D. from the University of Montreal. Link to bio.
DIRECTOR
Ann Rakoff holds a doctorate in Child Development and Special Education from Columbia University. She has experience as a Parent Educator and Research Assistant at The Early Childhood Development Center in NYC, as well as Head Teacher for preschool children with developmental challenges. Additionally, she has been a Girl Scout Leader, Community Director, Assistant Girls Soccer Coach, and Director of an afterschool ice-skating club.
Ann served as the Executive Director of the Fordham Law School Corporate Law Center for nine years, organizing programs and advising focus groups on diversity and corporate compliance. Following this, she volunteered as a Research Assistant at the Communication Sciences Lab, working with mothers and infants at The New York State Psychiatric Institute. She is a member of the UN-affiliated
Committee on Migration, Subcommittee on Children in Migration; the Amal Alliance Advisory Board; the Citizens’ Committee for Children; and the Board of Directors, FJK Dance.
534 W. 112 Street,
P.O.Box 250765
New York, NY 10025
CPI is a nonprofit tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S, Internal Revenue Code.
Registered Charity: EIN 85-0677829
Link to CPI’s Annual Report 2024 here
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