BOARD OF DIRECTORS
PHILLIP GIBBS has worked in the field of international issues for over twenty years with the United Nations, the World Bank, the US Agency for International Development, and numerous other major non-governmental organizations. His primary areas of expertise are program design, organizational development, team building, strategic planning, and program evaluation. He has worked in Somalia, Mozambique, Croatia, Nepal, Uganda, Kenya, and Namibia, as well as with numerous agencies and programs in North America, including positions as director of the U.S. Committee for UNICEF's Campaign for Child Survival and executive director of New Directions, an international issues legislative action organization. He is currently Program Development Consultant with National Geographic, where he is assisting with the development of a new global initiatives in the areas of post-conflict media training, climate action and poverty reduction, and protection of water resources. He is also a consultant to the Blue Campaign (Expedition: Blue Planet) and Blackstone Ranch Institute.
TARA WATERS LUMPKIN, PhD, is a co-founder of Perception International and coined the term “perceptual diversity” in 1994. She is an environmental and medical anthropologist, who has worked as an international development consultant for UNICEF, the United States Agency for International Development, and a variety of nongovernmental organizations. In addition she has worked as an environmental journalist, professor of writing and media, and has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and has won more than half a dozen writing prizes, fellowships, and grants. Dr. Lumpkin is a certified somatic experiencing practitioner, who has guided clients through the process of healing from trauma. She is President of the non-profit Perception International, which promotes environmental, cultural and perceptual diversity worldwide. In addition, she is Founder and Project Director of Izilwane whose mission is to connect human beings to other species and to the global ecosystem by creating new ways for human beings to perceive themselves in relationship to the natural world.
JOANNE MCKINNEY is a strategic and marketing consultant, living and working in Connecticut. Joanne oversees The Rwanda Project, traveling annually to Rwanda to work with the children and working outside of Rwanda to enhance the impact of their photography around the world.