Cohort Sistas Welcomes Inaugural Board of Directors
The mission of Cohort Sistas is to support Black women and non-binary people pursuing doctoral studies by providing resources, mentorship, and community to improve academic, professional, financial, and emotional outcomes. We are excited to welcome our inaugural board of directors who, through their varied experiences in academic, nonprofit, and corporate spaces, will help us accomplish our goal of increasing the number of Black women who matriculate and complete doctoral degree programs.
Dr. NobuLali Dangazele is a Lecturer at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). Her teaching and research interests are in Strategy, Leadership, Creative Economy, and Diversity and Inclusion. Following the completion of her Masters in Dramatic Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for which she was awarded a Mandela Rhodes scholarship, she started ShakeXperience®, an Applied Theatre company best known for the award-winning African adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. She later pursued a doctorate at Warwick Business School where she also co-Founded Nudgeathon®; a Nudgeathon™ is a two-stage crowdsourcing event in which decision groups draw on insights and methods from psychology, economics, design, and the performing arts to produce implementable solutions to major problems involving human behaviour. NobuLali believes that one’s authenticity should be a daily practice brought into their leadership style meaningfully impact the global village.
Dr. Laure Haak is a dynamic executive with global-scale experience across government, academia, non-profit, and corporate sectors. Founder and CEO of Mighty Red Barn, Laure has created and contributed to several tech start-ups, pioneered and scaled virtual teams and companies, and built communities of practice and collaborative work environments across government, academic, non-profit, and corporate sectors. As the founding Executive Director of ORCID, Laure led the establishment and growth of what is now a core piece of global research infrastructure, overseeing unprecedented growth of an end-user digital resource from zero to over 10 million users, 1000 members, and financial sustainability in 7 years. As a program officer for the US National Academies, she managed expert panels and the development and publication of research policy reports for the US government, academic, and association stakeholders, including reports on interdisciplinary research, international students, and women in academia. Laure received a B.S. and an M.S. in Biology from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the US National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Chinny Ogunro is the CEO of WellSpring Health, an integrated care consortium committed to delivering quality, affordable healthcare at scale. Previously, she was the Managing Director and co-founder of Africa Health Holdings (AHH), a healthcare investment and operations company born out of her doctoral research and her first company, CarePoint Hospitals and Clinics. Chinny also currently serves as Director of Health Research at the Center for the Study of the Economies of Africa, where her research has explored innovative business models for health care delivery in growth economies, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Her work in healthcare operations has delivered high-quality, low-cost healthcare to over 40,000 patients across West Africa and India. Chinny is an advisory board member at Growth Capital—the private equity fund arm of CCHub, a Steering Committee member of the Africa Leadership Academy’s Health Network, serves on the leadership committee of MIT Solve, and is frequently a guest lecturer at top international business schools. Chinny holds a Ph.D in Health Management (Technology and Operations Management, Strategy) from the Harvard Business School, a M.A. in Health Administration from Cornell University, and Bachelors degrees from Stanford University.
Dr. Wenimo Okoya (she/her) is a healing-centered educator, program developer, and researcher who has spent her career advocating for and partnering with communities of color. Bridging the health and education sectors, she has designed and implemented programs that support student health and well-being and currently works at the Jed Foundation as the Director of High School Program Implementation supporting schools in building their capacity to promote emotional health for students. She started her career as a middle school Science and History teacher and after seeing that both education and health disparities were affecting her students and their families, she decided that good teaching was not enough. This realization pushed her to pursue a Master of Public Health at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and a Doctor of Education in Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has spoken at over a dozen health and education conferences including SXSW EDU and teaches at Lehman College and Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Recently she was a fellow at the Blue Ridge Labs at the Robin Hood Foundation where she was able to found The Healing Schools Project, a program that heals teachers so they can heal their students.
Dr. Sofia B. Pertuz is a diversity, equity, and inclusion professional with over 25 years of experience in strategic planning, assessment, and inclusive excellence in higher education, nonprofit and corporate organizations. Sofia is a Managing Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Billie Jean King Enterprises and Senior Advisor for the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit that protects emotional health and prevents suicide for teens and young adults. She also serves as a board member for The Family Thrive, a groundbreaking online platform for busy families looking to live their best lives. Sofia has been an invited speaker for international audiences on topics in leadership, change management, social justice, and LGBTQ+ advocacy, including delivering keynotes in both English and Spanish. Sofia is the founder and moderator of the Latinas Completing Doctoral Degrees online doctoral support network with over 8500 actively engaged members. Sofia completed a bachelor’s degree in Organizational Communication from State University of New York at New Paltz and earned her Master’s and Ph.D. in Higher Education Leadership, Management, and Policy, both from Seton Hall University. Sofia also holds a Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion for HR from Cornell University and is a Senior Certified Professional through the Society for Human Resource Management.
Dr. Ashley Schloss is a scientist turned strategist. She is currently the Program Manager for Reboot Representation, a coalition of leading tech companies that have pooled their philanthropic investments to enable Black, Latina, and Native American women to graduate with computing degrees and improve diversity and representation in tech. Prior to Reboot, Ashley was an Associate McKinsey and company where her consulting work mostly focused on bio pharma strategy and operations. In addition to her core consulting work, she actively participated in multiple diversity recruitment efforts and contributed to the Delivering Through Diversity report. She also worked to increase the number of underrepresented PhD, JD, and MD candidates for McKinsey through the development of the Diversity Connect program. Prior to McKinsey, Ashley received her PhD from Yale and supported diversity by serving over 3,000 students in the Graduate School for Arts and Sciences as an appointed fellow in the Office for Diversity and Equal Opportunity. Within this office, she chaired the mentoring committee, managed a post-baccalaureate research program, and coordinated underrepresented students through the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. Ashley is based in New York City. She holds a BS from Temple University in Chemistry and a PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University.
Saron Tesfalul joined Bain Capital Private Equity in 2012. She is a Principal in the Consumer, Retail and Dining Vertical and is a member of the North American Private Equity team. While at Bain Capital, Saron has also rotated through the Technology and Healthcare verticals. She currently serves as a member of the firm’s training program and the recruiting team. Prior to joining Bain Capital Private Equity, Saron was a consultant with Bain & Company where she consulted in the consumer retail, healthcare, technology and telecom industries. Saron received her MBA from Stanford University. She graduated cum laude with an AB in Economics and minor in African Studies from Harvard University.
Judene Thomas (she/her/hers) is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Northeastern University pursuing her Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology. Her research focuses on understanding the onset and aggressive advancement of ovarian cancer with the aim of improving oncology treatment options and closing the disparities gap in oncology care. Judene is very passionate about inspiring and mentoring the next generation of scientists and global leaders and believes the Cohort Sistas platform provides an avenue to bring about transformative change in the academic sphere and beyond.
Dr. Ijeoma Kola is the Founder and Executive Director of Cohort Sistas. A historian of public health and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Notre Dame's John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, Ijeoma studies the history of medical, social, and cultural understandings of the relationship between health and Blackness. As a blogger for over ten years, Ijeoma has created multimedia beauty, style, travel, and lifestyle content inspiring over 100,000 millennial women of color and has produced digital marketing campaigns for hundreds of companies including Procter & Gamble, Best Buy, Adobe, and the American Heart Association. Ijeoma received her bachelor’s degree in History and Science from Harvard University, and a Master’s and Ph.D in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University.
