Board Members, 2007

Erin Markel - Chair

Erin graduated from the University of Oregon with her degree in Political Science in 2003. She went on to start-up a women's center in Peru called Kanchay Wasi or House of Light in the native language of Quechua, which provides domestic violence, health, legal and therapeutic services to many women and children in the Sacred Valley of Peru. Ms. Markel returned from Peru to continue her studies in politics at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York, where in addition to her studies she has held an internship at Pro Mujer International, as the Development and Communications Intern and was elected as a Summer Fellow for the Council of Women World Leaders. She is currently researching identity and gender roles in international politics, management and development, while working as an Independent Consultant for the Council of Women World Leaders in Washington, DC.
 

Takako Miura - Vice-president

Takako Miura is the Vice-president of the Gender Policy Working Group and served as a Research Assistant at the Center for Work Life Policy.She has extensive international experience, having lived 7 years in the UK, 7 years in Germany, and traveled to 29 countries on 3 continents. She attended International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan.

In Tokyo she worked for CNN Tokyo and Violence Against Women in War Network. She spent four years as an Account Executive for the Global Communications Group at Weber Shandwick Worldwide. In this role she established media contact with the editorial department of Nikkei Woman as press officer for Schering, a German manufacturer of oral contraceptives and addressed key misconceptions about birth control pills and provided accurate information, resulting in positive exposure in feature article on gynecological issues. She developed the 2003 Executive Media Training Program for NTT DoCoMo, aiming to educate the CEO and Executive Vice-President in methods of dealing with international press members. She also led team that designed and implemented evening events for a visit from one of the world’s largest oil companies.

This summer Takako worked as an intern for General Electric Japan’s Corporate Communications department. She developed a press kit to promote GE Japan’s diversity initiative, planned and successfully executed publicity activities to promote GE’s Women’s Network Annual Summit 2007and arranged one-on-one interviews for Vice President & Chief Diversity Officer Deborah Elam. She also generated positive articles both in print and broadcasting media.
 

Liz Cullen - Communications Director

Liz Cullen is the Communications Director for the Gender Policy Working Group. (MIA, Economic and Political Development Concentration.)

Liz was the Regional Director of Certification for the Women Presidents’ Educational Organization (WPEO), an organization that supports women entrepreneurs in doing business with large corporations. Liz oversaw the New York and Washington, DC offices and key achievements include increasing corporate funding of the organization by 60% in the first year and maintaining a consistent 20% increase in succeeding years, implementing evaluation and incentive systems for staff, and developing a memorandum of understanding with the City of New York Department of Small Business Services to streamline their certification process. She is currently a consultant to WPEO, conducting audits of women-owned businesses to determine if they meet the criteria for certification by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the nation’s leading third party certifier of women-owned businesses.

After graduating from Dartmouth College, Liz lived in Portland, Oregon doing fundraising and advocacy for environmental groups. At SIPA, Liz began taking Chinese and spent the summer of 2007 studying in Beijing.