Brian Fay is the executive director of the Syracuse Northeast Community Center (SNCC). SNCC’s mission is to engage, grow, and connect neighbors, supporting them in moving from emergency to self-reliance, health, and well-being. We operate a full network of human services programs that support youth, elders, adults, and families, immigrants and refugees, and anyone who comes to SNCC in need.

Prior to joining SNCC in 2020, Fay was the director of strategic initiatives for the Syracuse Community Center Collaborative, of which SNCC is a member. Before joining the nonprofit world, Brian was an English and math teacher working with at-risk youth and first-year college students for over two decades. He was born and raised in Syracuse, New York. He and his family live in Syracuse’s Meadowbrook neighborhood. Brian is a board member of FOCUS Greater Syracuse, a member of the CNY Digital Inclusion Coalition, and a Syracuse Women’s Basketball season ticket holder.

Rev. Dr. Chloe Breyer has served as the director of the Interfaith Center of New York (ICNY) since 2007. An episcopal priest in the Diocese of New York, Breyer has served at Harlem churches for more than two decades, including as associate priest at St. Philip’s Church since 2012. In 2015, Breyer served as a community adviser to the court-appointed facilitator tasked with finding a remedy for police profiling in the “stop and frisk” lawsuits against the NYPD. More recently, Breyer was one of the clergy advisors on the transition teams of both the incoming mayor of New York City and the Manhattan district attorney. In addition to local religious peacemaking work, Breyer has also participated in interfaith dialogues and humanitarian aid initiatives in Afghanistan and Iran and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of The Close: A Young Woman’s First Year at Seminary (Basic Books 2000) and her op-eds have appeared in Slate, the NY Daily News, the International New York Times (Herald Tribune) and elsewhere. She received her PhD in Christian ethics from Union Theological Seminary in 2017 and her doctoral dissertation focused on interfaith activism, Christian peacemaking, and Islamophobia. She was included in the 12/05/22 Issue of City & State New York’s inaugural “Faith Power 100” list.

Dina Refki is the director of the Center for Women in Government & Civil Society (CWGCS) at the University at Albany. Refki studies and researches the interplay of gender with institutional structures in the US and international context. She applies gender mainstreaming and budgeting analysis from transnational perspectives. Prior to assuming leadership at CWGCS in 2009, she held different positions at the Center, including as director of the Immigrant Women & State Policy Program, which facilitated interagency collaboration, promoted dialogues with civil society and immigrant women at the state level, and worked to identify and address barriers to the integration of immigrant women in the social, economic, and political fabric of local communities. Refki studies the challenges of migration, the barriers facing immigrant women and their families, and the structural changes needed to better respond to the needs of immigrant women.

Ken Irish-Bramble is an MA student in the international migration studies program at CUNY Graduate Center. He was born on the French side of St. Martin and grew up on the island of Montserrat in the Eastern Caribbean. He has worked as an educator for over twenty-five years in both K-12 and higher education. Irish-Bramble is a graduate of the CUNY BA program and holds graduate degrees from NYU and Pace University.

Irish-Bramble has a broad interest in immigrant issues including issues surrounding immigrant assimilation and acculturation, enduring relationships with countries of origin, and the impact of Caribbean-American immigrants on the political development of the United States. He is currently conducting research on diasporic/expatriate voting rights and voting patterns of naturalized citizens in the United States. Irish-Bramble currently serves as a member of the faculty at Medgar Evers College (CUNY) and campus director of CUNY ICORP at Medgar Evers College. He has published two books, Bricks, Ballots and Bullets (2012) and Violence and Power (2018).

Adriana R. Mintarsih is a Fulbright scholar from Indonesia and a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University at Albany. During the spring 2025 semester, she will serve as a Women and Public Policy Fellow at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy, University at Albany. Her research primarily focuses on gender, family, and migration, topics on which she has authored several scholarly articles. Her dissertation examines the agency and emotional experiences of Indonesian young adults who remain behind when their parents migrate for informal work either within Indonesia or abroad.

Guillermo Martinez is the deputy director and intergovernmental liaison for the Institute on Immigrant Integration Research and Policy. He brings over 20 years of significant leadership, management, and communications experience in both the nonprofit and government sectors. During his time in the New York State Legislature, he served as the director of policy development for the New York State Assembly Task Force on New Americans and legislative and communications director for the New York State Assembly Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force, having served in that role as the longest tenured staffer in the organizations 35-year history. In those capacities, he helped research, draft, and negotiate over 200 pieces of legislation that are now state law, including programs such as the SUNY Hispanic Leadership Institute, the SUNY Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, the codifying of the Office of New Americans, the Immigration Services Fraud Prevention Act, the Idle-Free School Zone Act, Geriatric Mental Health Act, the Undocumented Immigrant In-State-Tuition Act, the School Energy Efficiency Collaborative Act, the establishing of the New York Latino Research and Resources Network (NYLARNet), and dozens of other laws, including consumer protection measures addressing online privacy, disaster preparedness, protecting children with disabilities, and the elderly. Prior to his time in the legislature, Martinez served as director of communications and legislative affairs for the Council of Community Services of New York State and worked at SUNY Oneonta’s migrant education program (ESCORT) assisting migrant farmworkers with the educational needs of their children in a region covering 23 states.