Sunflower Seeds

Welcome to WAND's Sunflower Seeds!

Here you will find stories from people who have been positively affected by WAND's work. Some seeds stories are from people who started their professional lives at WAND and are flourishing in their work for a better world. Others share how WAND has helped them pursue personal goals of working for a safer world. To share your seed story, please email Rachel Wisch at rwisch@wand.org.

 

Naila Bolus interned with WAND in 1987, began full-time as WAND’s assistant field director when she graduated Tufts with a degree in International Relations, and later became the political director, helping found the Women Legislator’s Lobby (WiLL).  Naila went on to serve as co-director of 20/20 Vision and Executive Director of Ploughshares Fund. She is currently President & CEO of Jumpstart, a national early education organization.

 

 

Amanda Formica started out as an intern in WAND’s National and DC offices in 2004, and is a WAND member. Amanda attended George Washington University, is currently serving in her second year of service with Lutheran Volunteer Corps in Washington, DC, and is a case manager at Miriam's Kitchen. She recently traveled to Durban, South Africa for the U.N. Climate Negotiations as a delegate with SustainUS.

 

 

Ariela Gross received the WAND Leadership Award in 1983 for her work in the nuclear weapons freeze movement. She received a law degree and a Ph.D. in History from Stanford, and is now the John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History, and Co-Director of the Center for Law, History and Culture, at the University of Southern California.  A prize-winning author, Ariela has written two books on the history of law, race and slavery.

 

 

Steven Kopstein  volunteered at the start of WAND, and left in 1984 after graduating with honors from Suffolk University, and has maintained a sense of social responsibility throughout the years by donating portions of profits to charity, helping survivors of airline disasters and working with families of 9/11 victims. Steven owns Manhattan-based SKNY Real Estate, where he includes positive social change in his work.

 

 

Heather Silber Mohamed was a WAND intern from 1997-1998. After graduating from Tufts, she worked for the offices of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Congressman John F. Tierney (D-MA-06) and former Congressman Marty Meehan (D-MA-05).  Heather earned a M.Sc. in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an A.M. in Political Science from Brown University, where she most recently completed a Ph.D. in Political Science.