Staff
Bruce Astrein
Executive Director
Based in the National Office, New York City
A longtime member of LFF’s board of directors, Bruce Astrein joined the staff as Executive Director in 2006.
Prior to this, he served for six years as the Senior Vice President for Programs at the Arizona Community Foundation, where he oversaw four major priority areas:
1) Children, Youth and Family; 2) Public Education Reform;
3) Integrated Community Development; and 4) Nonprofit Capacity Building.
For three decades, Mr. Astrein has worked toward the healthy development of children, youth, families, and their communities in Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New York. He has focused in particular on poverty and welfare reform; youth development; child care and family support; public education; employment and training; health care and human services; intergenerational and elder issues; and community development.
Jean Burditt
Connecticut EqualAccess Program Manager
Based in Connecticut
Jean Burditt is the EqualAccess Program Manager for the state of Connecticut. In this position, she works for both Libraries for the Future and the Connecticut State Library’s Division of Library Development.
Ms. Burditt has worked as a reference librarian at both Prosser and Simsbury Public Libraries in Connecticut. Her earlier career was in production at Houghton Mifflin Company. Ms. Burditt’s community involvement has focused on advocating for organ and tissue donation. She was named the Volunteer of the Year by the National Kidney Foundation of Connecticut in appreciation of her work in both fundraising and furthering organ donation awareness.
A Massachusetts native, Jean Burditt obtained her Bachelors Degree from Middlebury College and her Masters in Library and Information Science from Emory University in Georgia. Having lived in Massachusetts, Georgia, Texas, Missouri, and Minnesota, she currently resides in Connecticut.
Elizabeth Cooper
Fiscal Manager
Based in the National Office, New York City
Elizabeth Cooper comes to Libraries for the Future from Upper Bronx NAPRA, Inc., a non-profit organization that ran day care and other youth services, programs for seniors, and more. While a Fiscal Consultant for Upper Bronx NAPRA, Elizabeth was responsible for coordinating the fiscal operations for the organization’s many grants, as well as general accounting procedures. Before working in the Bronx, Ms. Cooper worked as a Coordinator for REO/Legal Processing, Special Assets, and the Accounting Department for Home Savings of America where she handled loan foreclosures and workouts. Ms. Cooper has a BS in Business Education from Coker College in Hartsville, South Carolina.
Alice Dontanville
Communications Specialist
Based in the National Office, New York City
Alice Dontanville brings to LFF experience in librarianship, education, and publishing. While in library school she interned with the preservation division at New York Public Library, worked on several archive projects—including one at the Apollo Theater in Harlem—and her training included work in preservation, archiving, metadata, and web design. Before joining LFF, Alice worked as a grant writer for Newton Learning, an educational company that runs after-school programs for disadvantaged students in grades K-8. She also spent several years as an editorial assistant at Bedford/St. Martin’s, a college publisher specializing in the humanities.
Ms. Dontanville holds an M.L.S. with a Certificate in Archives from Pratt Institute and a B.A. in History from Brown University. After graduating from Brown, she did several years’ coursework toward a Ph.D. in English at NYU, where her academic work focused on Middle English literature.
David LaGreca
Interim CEO
Based in the National Office, New York City
David LaGreca joined LFF in February 2008 as Interim CEO, as the LFF Board of Directors undertakes a search to replace longttime President Diantha Dow Schull, who elected to step down in December 2007.
Mr. LaGreca brings extensive experience in both profit and nonprofit organizational structures. He established a consulting firm, the LaGreca Company, in 1999 and has served three of his clients as Interim Executive Director in the past four years alone. Prior to this, Mr. LaGreca spent eight years as a consultant at the Volunteer Consulting Group (VCG)—a nonprofit organization that works regionally and nationally to strengthen the governing and management capability of nonprofit boards of directors. A graduate of the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, Belgium and a former priest, Mr. LaGreca received his MBA in Management & Marketing from the Columbia University School of Business.
Before joining VCG in 1991, Mr. LaGreca was the Administrator for the Department of Surgery, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, managing a department with a budget of over $27M and a staff of 130 employees. He also taught at Boston and Providence Colleges, wrote a newspaper column in Rhode Island and spent more than 15 years working with community-based health care organizations caring for terminal patients. David LaGreca currently serves on the Board of Governance Matters and on the Advisory Board for the MBA-Nonprofit Connection, and has contributed chapters to Secrets of a Successful Board; Secrets of Successful Fundraising, and Secrets of Successful Retreats. He divides his time between New York City and Rockland County, New York.
Amanda R. Latreille
National Director and New York State Manager, EqualAccess Libraries
Based at the New York State Library, Albany, New York
Amanda R. Latreille works with both Libraries for the Future and the New York State Library, providing training in LFF's signature program in NY and overseeing EA development and training in every state network. Previously, Ms. Latreille was employed by the NY State Library’s Division of Library Development, where she was involved in a number of statewide initiatives and projects, such as the New Century Libraries initiative, the New York Online Virtual Electronic Library (NOVEL) and the Statewide Summer Reading Program.
A native of northern New York, Ms. Latreille received a Master of Science degree in Information Science from the State University of New York at Albany. Prior to her career in librarianship, she worked as a registered professional nurse in the fields of family medicine, neonatology and obstetrics. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, and with High Honors from St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center School of Nursing in Syracuse, New York.
Caitlin Maloney
Program Manager
Based in San Francisco, CA
Caitlin Maloney helps oversee LFF's HealthAccess programming and the Family Place Libraries initiative. Prior to joining LFF, she worked with children of all ages in a variety of settings. From serving as an ESL coordinator for the Head Start program at the Morse Young Child Magnet School in Poughkeepsie, NY, to instructing swimming at Poughkeepsie’s YWCA, she has yet to turn down an opportunity to play and learn with young children. In addition, she received an academic internship in Classical Studies at the Advanced Studies Program at St. Paul’s School in 2004.
Ms. Maloney earned her BA in Religious Studies at Vassar College with minors in Ancient Societies and Latin American Studies and has begun coursework for an MA in Childhood Special Education. When not hard at work for LFF, she can be found walking her puppy, reading with her YES Reading tutees, or gardening on her balcony in San Francisco.
Diantha Dow Schull
National Director, Lifelong Access Libraries
Based in the National Office, New York City
After 15 years in LFF leadership, Diantha Schull retired as LFF President in December 2007, electing to focus her energies on overseeing Lifelong Access Libraries, a project she helped pioneer with former Lifelong Director Gloria Coles (who herself retired in 2007). She is also advising the Family Place Libraries team and the Age in America project, helping libraries extend their services across the lifespan and throughout their communities.
Prior to joining Libraries for the Future, Diantha Schull was Executive Director of the French-American Foundation, where she directed fellowships, awards and cross-cultural policy projects, including comparative studies of the French and Americans systems for Early Childhood Education and Urban Reinvestment. She has been Director of Exhibitions and Education at the New York Public Library, Director of Interpretive Programs at the Library of Congress, and Assistant Director of the Museum Aid Program of the New York State Council on the Arts. Ms. Schull has been an advisor to foundations, museums, corporations and government agencies.
Ms. Schull serves as a member of the Board of the Mid-Hudson Library Foundation, and is a member of the National Advisory Committee of The Children’s Partnership. She holds a Master’s Degree in Museum Studies from the State University of New York and is the author of Landmarks of Otsego County.
Hagar Shirman
Program Manager
Health Access; EqualAccess Massachusetts
Based at the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, Boston MA
Hagar Shirman helps oversee LFF's Health Access and EqualAccess Massachusetts Programs. Ms. Shirman’s work for LFF is supported in part by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, the agency of state government with the statutory authority and responsibility to organize, develop, coordinate, and improve library services throughout MA.
As a certified trainer for Webjunction's Spanish Language Outreach workshops in Massachusetts, Ms. Shirman brought outreach, marketing, and program development techniques to librarians across Massachusetts. She was featured in a 2007 Trainer Profile in Webjunction, an online community of librarians, for this work. A native of Israel, Ms. Shirman arrived in the US at age 10 and has since lived in New York, Kentucky, Seattle, and currently Boston, along with a year in Latin America, where she became fluent in Spanish.
Ms. Shirman earned a Bachelors degree in Art and Art History from the University of Washington in Seattle and a Masters in Library and Information Science from Simmons College in Boston.
Nina Sonenberg
Vice President, Communications
Based in the National Office, New York City
Nina Sonenberg has written for The New York Times Book Review, CBS News Productions, and PBS online. She is the author of two books, Art of the State: New York (Harry N. Abrams 1998) and Consuming Passions (New Harbinger Publications 1992), and was head writer for the New York Public Library’s Books of the Century exhibition in 1995, part of the library’s centennial celebration.
Dr. Sonenberg joined Libraries for the Future in 2004 to research and write Libraries for the Future: Innovation in Action, a history of the organization’s first 13 years. She continues to spread the word about innovative library programs and services through LFF's suite of websites as well as newsletters, conference reports, speaking engagements. and magazine stories. Sometimes spotted entertaining two young daughters at libraries near and far, Dr. Sonenberg holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Rutgers University and a BA from Harvard University.
Eleanor Stafford
Massachusetts EqualAccess Program Manager
Based at the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, Boston MA
Eleanor Stafford works in partnership with Hagar Shirman as Massachusetts EqualAccess Program Manager, a position that is supported by and housed at the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.
Ms. Stafford has extensive experience in curriculum development, training, teaching, and non-profit management, as well as in writing non-fiction and fiction. Prior to joining the LFF team in November 2005, she was a college learning disabilities specialist and a public school teacher. In addition to currently serving as the Massachusetts EqualAccess Program Manager, Ms. Stafford is also the lead trainer for Literacy Volunteers of Massachusetts (LVM) and the MTEL writing instructor at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, where she earned her MEd in 1998. She received a BA from Harvard University in 1993.
Raised in Connecticut, Ms. Stafford is the daughter of a fun-loving and community-responsive public library director.
Vandra Thorburn
Executive Assistant
Based in the National Office, New York City
Vandra Thorburn comes to LFF with a strong administrative background in corporate, legal and nonprofit work. She was an Executive Assistant at the Open Society Institute and Helen Keller International.
Sabrina Waldron
Program Manager
Based in the National Office, New York City
Sabrina Waldron helps oversee LFF's national Lifelong Access Libraries initiative. She comes to LFF with a background in education, world literature, and non-profit youth initiatives. She has taught students from middle school to college freshman. Her most recent position was as a staff assistant for various programs, including Aging and Disadvantaged Children and Youth, at The Atlantic Philanthropies. Ms. Waldron holds an M.A. in Comparative Literature from New York University and has completed coursework for the PhD. She also holds a BA in English from the University of Florida. Her academic work focuses on 19th and 20th Century Caribbean Literature.
William Zeisel
Operations Consultant
Based in the National Office, New York City
William Zeisel served as LFF's Managing Director from January 2005 through December 2007, when he transitioned to consultant status to offer LFF both management and program oversight. Dr. Zeisel is also a partner of Q.E.D. Associates, which has been providing consulting services in publication, management, and program development for the past sixteen years. He has consulted with the Jewish Museum, the International League of Human Rights, the Ellis Island Foundation, and the Exhibitions Division of the New York Public Library. He holds a PhD in history from Rutgers University and received his MA and BA from the University of Chicago.
updated March 2008 |
