CREATOR & LEAD FACILITATOR
Pati Hernández is a mother, activist, dancer, puppeteer, and Dartmouth College adjunct professor. Originally from Chile, she immigrated to North America in 1983. Her professional focus is the exploration of political and social problems through the arts. She is the creator and facilitator of Telling My Story, a program she developed in correctional facilities and rehab centers in Vermont in 1999 and implemented at Dartmouth College in 2005.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Madison (Murphy) Barney (she/her) is an Indigenous sister, author, doula, organizer, and public health storyteller. She is the founder of Our Medicine LLC, a consulting practice focused on creating a more equitable world through storytelling and Muungas Doula Services, a Reproductive Justice focused doula practice rooted in birth and postpartum as ceremony. She also authors Our Medicine, a weekly exploration of our individual and collective gifts that can serve as the medicine to heal and build our world into a more just, balanced, and communal ecosystem. Murphy graduated from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2020. Since then, she has been devoted to using storytelling as a tool for health equity. This is a large chunk of her current role at StoryCorps.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Laura Di Piazza (she/her); originally from Brooklyn, NY and a UV resident since 2008. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Goddard College. She’s a Calligrapher and Calligraphy instructor at Dartmouth College since 2009 and also for numerous clients since 1999. As an abstract artist her current series highlights Black American leaders. Laura has organized and led several community programs/events that have centered critical issues such as poverty, racism, segregation, and media representation
Emily Eisner (she/they) first participated in Telling My Story as a Dartmouth College student in 2012 and helped facilitate another program at Dartmouth in 2014 which worked on breaking down the social walls between students and custodial staff at Dartmouth. Emily holds a PhD in economics from University of California, Berkeley where she studied individual adjustments to economic change such as technological change or deep economic recessions that can cause economic and emotional distress. Emily grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, in a family dedicated to public service, social justice, and labor rights. These values – instilled by her parents – continue to influence her work and effort towards economic justice and community building/healing. Emily is currently acting as the Executive Director of Telling My Story.
Kimberly Knowlton-Young is a clinical social worker specializing in trauma recovery, parent-child mental health and social justice. Before moving to Vermont and opening a private practice she worked at Children’s Hospital Boston for 10 years in three different roles. At The Brazelton Touchpoints Center she had the tremendous honor of working with Early Care and Education programs across the country including eight American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start and Early Head Start Programs. At Family Connections she partnered with the Roxbury Head Start Program to deliver culturally appropriate depression prevention strategies to their community of children, families and staff. She then moved to the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program where Kim provided outpatient family centered individual and group therapy to youth ages 11 – 23 struggling with substance dependence and trauma.
In the upper valley Kim also serves on the Board of ALLTogether, a Substance Misuse and Suicide Prevention Coalition, and regularly collaborates with WISE to provide therapeutic groups for teen survivors of sexual assault in NH and VT.
Madeline Levangie (she/they); grew up in Newton, Massachusetts and graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelors degree in June of 2021. Madeline currently lives in Portland, Oregon and works as a preschool teacher.
Ivy Schweitzer is Professor emerita of English and Creative Writing, Ivy Schweitzer is Professor emerita of English and Creative Writing, and past chair of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Her fields are early American literature, women’s writing, gender and culture and, most recently, public digital humanities. Beginning in 2007, she helped developed and co-taught academic courses at Dartmouth with Pati Hernandez using the TMS program. She has also co-facilitated several programs using TMS in the Upper Valley. She is a co-producer of the full-length documentary film titled It’s Criminal: A Tale of Prison and Privilege, based on a course she and Pati co-taught in 2010.
John Steidl spent his early career in the Semiconductor industry before migrating to management consulting where he focused on the impact of culture on organizational effectiveness and capacity for change, in organizations ranging from medical practices and hospitals to automotive manufacturers and the US Navy. John recently retired from Dartmouth College, where he spent the last 10 years working for the EVP & CFO in various capacities focused on project management, org effectiveness and change. Two of his institutional projects at Dartmouth included the transition of the fall term to start 2 weeks earlier, and the creation of the House System. In addition to his work for TMS, John has served on the board of The Howe Corporation and volunteers for the WISE crisis line supporting survivors of gender-based violence.