Elika Dadsetan-Foley is VISIONS’ new Executive Director as of March 2nd, 2020. She is joining VISIONS following years of work as a director, in nonprofits and higher education, years teaching as a professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, and a decade of work in development and humanitarian contexts in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Most of her work abroad included access to education and child protection, as well as juvenile justice, restorative practices, and psychosocial programming all over the world. While her original plan was to travel the world fighting injustice, she’s looking forward to growing her roots in Boston and focusing on VISIONS’ diversity, equity, and inclusion work. She is Persian-American, was accidentally locked out of Iran because of the revolution, discovered unconditional love in her dogs, rebelled against her parents by getting a law degree instead of becoming a doctor, and takes Taco Tuesday religiously. She lives in the South Shore with her partner Sean, and their dogs, Server and Oreo.

Ms. Maha Hafez Witherington was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1956. She attended the Sacred Heart Catholic School for 12 years. After earning her high school diploma, she immediately joined the faculty of arts. In 1978 she graduated with a Bachelor Degree in English literature. She transitioned to the USA in 1990. She pursued her professional career with the U.S. Army as a civil servant in 1988 in Cairo, Egypt. Her assignments were varied to include Bilingual Secretary, Executive/Confidential Assistant, Administrative Officer, Protocol Officer, Public Affairs Officer, Office Manager, Congressioanl Coordination Officer, and Action Officer, Supervisor and Mentor. She served Diplomatic and Official assignments in Egypt, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Washington D.C. (The Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery). She served the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt as an Office Manager and the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as a Public Affairs Officer. She became a proud member of the Department of the Army (DA) Staff in 2005. Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA) is the executive part of the Department of the Army at the seat of Government.  It is the highest level headquarters in the Department and exercises directive and supervisory control over it. HQDA is composed of the Office of the Secretary of the Army; Office of the Chief of Staff, Army; the Army Staff; and specifically designated staff support agencies. Her leadership and organizational skills gained over the past 34 years in the U.S. Government in the USA and overseas are remarkable. She a Native Arabic speaker, she has mastered English and French; spoken and written. Fair in Italian and German. She is well trained and licensed in the fields of: Administrative/ Office Management, Motivation, Diversity, Human Resources, International Public Relations, International Culture, International Protocol, Governmental Affairs, Office and Time Management. She is an active volunteer in the USA and globally since 1980. She retired in 2016 and in 2021 she decided to go back to work. She is a proud wife to a former Army Officer and an Army mother to a daughter Officer. She is a proud mother of 2 daughters and a son and grandmother of two granddaughters. Maha's mantra is "Never say Never!"

Yuying Chen-Wynn is an EdTech Product Executive with over 20 years of experience in D2C, B2B products and services across US and international markets.  Her current focus is on transforming learning using AI-first, data driven product strategies so companies can reach more learners and effectively leverage global strategic partnerships to rapidly scale.  Her career has taken her through Microsoft, SAP, EF, Age of Learning and now at Barnes and Noble Education.  Her passion for EdTech was ignited early in her college days at the MIT Media Lab for Epistemology and Learning under Mitch Resnick working on the design for the first generation LEGO Mindstorm CPU and small dancing robots.  She is also a mom of three and an avid ballroom competitor.

Trisha J.C-McMurray hails from the language and cultural services industry and is based in Northern New Jersey. Linguistic and multicultural program coordination have been the focus of her career, concentrating on language training, volunteer translation and interpretation. She is a graduate of Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ where she majored in Spanish. She started her career as an elementary Spanish teacher. Her mission was to both teach language and expose students to the diversity of Latin American and Caribbean cultures. As a global citizen energized by bringing cultures together around a shared goal, she successfully conceptualized and planned language programs and events based on diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. The result of her planning and execution provided participants with an exposure to the products, practices and perspectives of Mexico, Central & South America, the Caribbean, Spain & Guinea Equatorial. It was during this time that she realized she was more than a teacher in the classroom after conceptualizing, devising and coordinating a school wide Latin American celebration with food, music and regalia from the British, Spanish and Portuguese regions of Latin American and the Caribbean. Also, after an opportunity for newspaper reporters to come to the school and interview students with a subsequent publication in the Star Ledger, she knew that fulfilling her passion was beyond the classroom and subsequently between her early 20s to age 31, she sought to reconcile the lack of diversity among Latino and Caribbean languages and cultures as well as other ethnic groups against more positive representations through career, entrepreneurship initiatives through magazine publication, restaurant related and language business initiatives and academia. For awhile, she was also a volunteer liaison between Spanish-speaking patients and English-speaking staff at a healthcare facility.

After years of seeing the diversity of Latino and Caribbean language, culture and people go unnoticed, with inspiration from Christy Haubbeger, founder of Latina Magazine, she enrolled in the Masters in Publishing at NYU in New York City.

She’s gone overseas to St. Lucia and interviewed Caribbean cuisine chef and restauranteur, Bobo Bergstrom and also met with SHE Caribbean magazine founder Mae Wayne to get tips on starting a magazine. She later interned at a major Latin magazine in New York City. This experience prompted her to continue an advanced degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies where she got her Master’s in 2009. Her specialization was hyphenated Latino and West Indian identity focusing on Afro Latino, Chinese Latino and Indo Caribbean people. After receiving her Master’s in 2009, she worked for Berlitz Languages, Inc. where she remained for 10 years before returning to the public school system. There she worked as a language instructor, helping people from diverse backgrounds to improve their English and Spanish proficiency. She delivered new programs for pharmaceutical and telecommunications firms, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, private education institutions and world travelers as a cruise ship language instructor on a prestigious cruise line. Trisha is also a graduate of Rising Tide Capital having embarked on an initiative to start her own Language Services company in 2017. Aside from her professional and business initiatives, she was a project coordinator for NJ and NY Cares as well as member of NY Circle of Translators and the American Translators Association.

Trisha speaks English and Spanish and hopes to pursue her interest in learning Brazilian Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese. Her interests are reading, travel, language and culture, salsa dancing, soca and samba music, cooking  and spending time with her husband and family. Some of the causes close to her heart are immigration reform (family separation and reunification) and positive representations of 1st generation Americans of immigrant parents.

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If you or anyone you know would like to be interested in sharing your immigrant experience on this podcast, call us at 240-232-5579 or e-mail us at [email protected]

Trisha J.C-McMurray hails from the language and cultural services industry and is based in Northern New Jersey. Linguistic and multicultural program coordination have been the focus of her career, concentrating on language training, volunteer translation and interpretation. She is a graduate of Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ where she majored in Spanish. She started her career as an elementary Spanish teacher. Her mission was to both teach language and expose students to the diversity of Latin American and Caribbean cultures. As a global citizen energized by bringing cultures together around a shared goal, she successfully conceptualized and planned language programs and events based on diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. The result of her planning and execution provided participants with an exposure to the products, practices and perspectives of Mexico, Central & South America, the Caribbean, Spain & Guinea Equatorial. It was during this time that she realized she was more than a teacher in the classroom after conceptualizing, devising and coordinating a school wide Latin American celebration with food, music and regalia from the British, Spanish and Portuguese regions of Latin American and the Caribbean. Also, after an opportunity for newspaper reporters to come to the school and interview students with a subsequent publication in the Star Ledger, she knew that fulfilling her passion was beyond the classroom and subsequently between her early 20s to age 31, she sought to reconcile the lack of diversity among Latino and Caribbean languages and cultures as well as other ethnic groups against more positive representations through career, entrepreneurship initiatives through magazine publication, restaurant related and language business initiatives and academia. For awhile, she was also a volunteer liaison between Spanish-speaking patients and English-speaking staff at a healthcare facility.

After years of seeing the diversity of Latino and Caribbean language, culture and people go unnoticed, with inspiration from Christy Haubbeger, founder of Latina Magazine, she enrolled in the Masters in Publishing at NYU in New York City.

She’s gone overseas to St. Lucia and interviewed Caribbean cuisine chef and restauranteur, Bobo Bergstrom and also met with SHE Caribbean magazine founder Mae Wayne to get tips on starting a magazine. She later interned at a major Latin magazine in New York City. This experience prompted her to continue an advanced degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies where she got her Master’s in 2009. Her specialization was hyphenated Latino and West Indian identity focusing on Afro Latino, Chinese Latino and Indo Caribbean people. After receiving her Master’s in 2009, she worked for Berlitz Languages, Inc. where she remained for 10 years before returning to the public school system. There she worked as a language instructor, helping people from diverse backgrounds to improve their English and Spanish proficiency. She delivered new programs for pharmaceutical and telecommunications firms, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, private education institutions and world travelers as a cruise ship language instructor on a prestigious cruise line. Trisha is also a graduate of Rising Tide Capital having embarked on an initiative to start her own Language Services company in 2017. Aside from her professional and business initiatives, she was a project coordinator for NJ and NY Cares as well as member of NY Circle of Translators and the American Translators Association.

Trisha speaks English and Spanish and hopes to pursue her interest in learning Brazilian Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese. Her interests are reading, travel, language and culture, salsa dancing, soca and samba music, cooking  and spending time with her husband and family. Some of the causes close to her heart are immigration reform (family separation and reunification) and positive representations of 1st generation Americans of immigrant parents.

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If you or anyone you know would like to be interested in sharing your immigrant experience on this podcast, call us at 240-232-5579 or e-mail us at [email protected]

If you or anyone you know would like to be interviewed to share on this podcast, call us at 240-232-5579 or email us at [email protected]