Staff
Katrina Browne, Executive Director
James DeWolf Perry, Interim Managing Director and Director of Research
Kristin Gallas, Director of Education and Public History
Christie Lee Gibson, Executive Assistant & Office Manager
Madeline McNeely, Director of Special Projects
Marga Varea, Events and Development Director

Lead consultants
John Bell, Business Affairs and Information Technology
Lisa Sharon Harper, Faith-Based Liaison
Tulaine Shabazz Marshall, Project Director, Amistad/Traces Partnership, Caribbean Heritage Tour

Katrina Browne, Executive Director, is producer/director of Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, a first-person documentary film about her slave-trading ancestors from Rhode Island, the hidden history of New England’s complicity in slavery, and questions of repair and reconciliation today. With Katrina’s leadership over the course of nine years, over 500 people and institutions were involved in the making of the film and the dialogue process surrounding it. While still in rough-cut form the film helped contribute to the Episcopal Church’s vote to atone for its role in slavery. Traces of the Trade premiered in 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival, and aired on PBS’s award-winning P.O.V. series, reaching over 1.5 million Americans. Awards include: 2009 Emmy nomination for Research, Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, Women Film Critics Association, Henry Hampton Award of the Council on Foundations. Previously, Katrina worked as senior staff at Public Allies, an AmeriCorps program, now operating in fifteen cities, that she co-founded in 1991 to recruit more young people and people of color into the public interest sector. She has an M.A. in Theology from the Pacific School of Religion, where she wrote a thesis comparing the role that Greek tragedies played in civic life in ancient Greece to the untapped potential of film to catalyze civic dialogue today.

James DeWolf Perry, Interim Managing Director and Director of Research. James is a descendant of U.S. senator James DeWolf of Bristol, R.I. (1764-1837), the leading slave trader in U.S. history. James was nominated for an Emmy Award for original historical research for the PBS documentary about the DeWolf family, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, in which he appears and served as the principal historical consultant. He has spoken about the history of slavery, and has led discussions about the nation’s legacy of slavery and race, at high schools and universities and with corporate, educational, religious and community groups across the country. He attended law school at Columbia University and has done graduate work in political science in Harvard University, where his research has focused on international institutions and the evolution of norms in international relations, including the history of the transatlantic slave trade and its abolition. James previously chaired the board of directors for the Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery.

Kristin L. Gallas, Director of Education & Public History. With a bachelor’s in Secondary History Education (The University of Vermont) and a Master of Arts in Teaching in Museum Education (The George Washington University), Kristin brings knowledge of both formal and informal learning environments to the Tracing Center staff. Her professional experience includes six years as the education officer at the Montana Historical Society in Helena, Mont. and three years at the USS Constitution Museum in Boston. Kristin has also worked for Boston Ballet, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Shelburne Museum. While in Montana Kristin conceived and developed the documentary film series Montana Mosaic, a teaching resource on 20th century Montana history (funded by an NEH grant). She also worked with Montana PBS on the production of the documentary History Camp, which aired on KUFM- TV. Through her projects in Montana and Massachusetts, Kristin worked with multiple state and national standards for various education disciplines. A contributing author to Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Montana History Volume 2, she also writes theatrical scripts based on historical documents. Outside of work, Kristin is a choreographer for musical theatre productions and teaches figure skating lessons.

Christie Lee Gibson, Executive Assistant & Office Manager. Before coming to the Tracing Center and Ebb Pod Productions, Christie worked in Rhode Island for Opera Providence and the USS Saratoga Museum Foundation in office operations, customer service, development, event coordination, and organizational planning. At Brown University, she was a founding board member and concert and community service chair of Brown Opera Productions, a student group designed to foster classical singing, produce a fully staged opera and numerous outreach events throughout the year. In 2006 she completed an administrative internship with the Atelier Lyrique of the Paris Opera in conjunction with an extended research paper about the dynamic between public and private music education in France. Christie has had additional positions in administration and customer service in the hospitality and retail industries. She is an active opera singer and actress and occasionally moonlights as a stage director or costume designer. She has been with Ebb Pod Productions since August 2008.

Madeline McNeely, Director of Special Projects, has been a leadership coach, consultant, trainer and facilitator for executive leaders and organizations in the non-profit and corporate sectors since the early 1990s. She has worked with over fifty organizations ranging from small community-based non-profits to large international corporations. Madeline’s professional mission is to move leaders and organizations into condition to do meaningful work for decades. At the heart of Madeline’s coaching and consulting practice is an expertise and passion for racial justice and anti-racist organizing. Her coaching and consulting focus combines anti-racist personal and organization transformation. As a coach, she works with white people to deepen their understanding of racial identity development, white privilege, how to be an effective ally to people of color and what it takes to lead in multi-cultural and multi-racial settings. She consults to organizations helping them develop anti-racist principles, practices and accountability structures through organizational development, strategic planning, individual and team coaching. She is a former president of the Rutland Corner Foundation and is also a member of Trinity Church Boston’s Anti-Racism Team, where she is leading a multi-year anti-racism institutional change process. She has a B.A. in Development Studies from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. and an M. Ed. from the Temple University Dance Department where she studied dance, cultural studies and social justice education.

Marga Varea, Events and Development Director, was born in southern Spain and holds a master’s in Journalism and Media Studies from Complutense University (Madrid). Marga worked in the film and television industry in Spain for seven years as a screenwriter, script supervisor, and producer and was the founding partner of a thriving production company in Madrid (Great Ways), and the co-founder of a film festival (Cortogenia). She was the line producer of a student category Emmy Award winner “Dos Mas” (2001) and the writer of the feature film “Proyecto Dos” (2008). After relocating to the U.S. in 2003, Marga joined Junta for Progressive Action, a social justice organization working with the Latino community in New Haven, Conn., gaining experience as a fundraiser and events organizer. From 2004 to 2007, she was involved with the Boston Latino International Film Festival as a production and special events coordinator. In 2006, she became development director at Centro Presente, a Boston-based immigrant rights organization where she dedicated three years to raise the visibility of the organization and generate financial sustainability for its mission.

Lead consultants

John Bell, Business Affairs and Information Technology. John’s professional experience includes ten years at two New York City investment banks and another ten as head of his own firm structuring financial transactions for corporate, governmental and not-for-profit clients. Much of his work has focused on financing that helps meet public interest goals. John holds an M.B.A., an M.P.A., and a graduate certificate focused on the nexus of religion and public policy from Episcopal Divinity School.

Lisa Sharon Harper, Faith-Based Liaison. Having worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as an arts specialist and as the Greater Los Angeles director of racial reconciliation, Ms. Harper co-wrote the Ethnic Reconciliation tool “Race Matters” Handbook. She also conducted staff training in ethnic reconciliation through Intervarsity’s National Institute of Staff Education and Training (NISET). Ms. Harper earned her master’s degree in Human Rights, with a concentration in Religion & the Media, from Columbia University in New York City in 2006. She is an editor-at-large for the prolific magazine Sojourners, and a contributor for Urban Faith and Conspire magazines. Ms. Harper co-founded and co-directed the Envision: The Gospel, Politics, and the Future conference on the campus of Princeton University in June 2008. She is also co-founder and executive director of NY Faith & Justice, a movement of churches, organizations and individuals dedicated to following Christ, uniting the church and ending poverty in New York through spiritual formation, education, and direct advocacy. Her Shalom Talk Series has been a catalyst for ethnic reconciliation and systemic justice across the country and she received Sojourners’ inaugural Organizers Award and the Harlem “Sisters of Wisdom” Award. She was recently celebrated on Rick Warren’s website Purposedriven.com as one of the site’s inaugural seven “Take Action Heroes.” Ms. Harper’s thesis play, An’ Push da Wind Down, from the USC School of Theatre’s MFA Playwriting won the 1996 Kennedy Center / American College Theatre Festival “Michael Kanin National Student Playwriting Award” and is published through Samuel French, Inc. Ms. Harper is author of Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican … Or Democrat (The New Press), a power-packed look at the roots of evangelical faith, how evangelicals strayed so far from those roots, and what is bringing them back.

Tulaine Shabazz Marshall, Project Director, Amistad/Traces Partnership, Caribbean Heritage Tour. Tulaine has sixteen years of management and organizational development experience in strategic planning, staff management and coaching, corporate philanthropy and grant management, national expansion, project management, program design and assessment, budget management, partnership cultivation, presentation/training design and meeting facilitation. Through working on advocacy and public policy for low-income youth and families, alternative education systems, teacher training, and youth and adult education, she has earned her reputation as a “world class” educator, communicator, and trainer with a demonstrated ability to convey concepts to diverse audiences at all organizational levels. She has held high-level positions at the United Way of Massachusetts, YouthBuild USA, Citizen Schools, and the International House of Blues Foundation. Tulaine is the author of several articles and essays on organizational development and school management, including “Staff Management” and “Family Engagement Strategies.” An adjunct professor at two universities, she co-designed the nation’s first master’s degree in Education with a concentration in Out of School Time. Additionally, she is an accomplished cellist, playwright, producer and director.