Advisory Board

Barry Balmat is director of the Pittsburgh office of the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization providing independent and objective analysis of complex issues facing the public and private sectors around the world.

Gregg Behr is Executive Director of the The Grable Foundation. He also serves as Founding Director of The Content of Our Character Project, a nationally-acclaimed ethics initiative, and is a trustee for the Mentoring Partnership of Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Catherine DeLoughry is Project Manager for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, which, with its affiliates, leads a collaborative effort to bring new jobs, capital investment, and a better quality of life to the ten-county region of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Jim Fishkin is director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy and professor of Communication at Stanford University. He is best known for developing Deliberative Polling—a practice of public consultation that employs random samples of the citizenry to explore how opinions would change if they were more informed.

Joseph Kirk is Executive Director of the Mon Valley Progress Council and chairman of the Mon/Fayette Expressway and Southern Beltway Alliance, a coalition of businesses, economic development organizations and labor groups.

Allyson Lowe is director of the Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy, and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Chatham University. The Center is devoted to advancing the status of women in public life by developing leadership potential in students and in women across the Commonwealth, while studying the interactions of public policy and women.

Tracy McCants-Lewis is president of Urban League Young Professionals of Pittsburgh, a nation-wide network of young professionals who provide leadership development, economic empowerment, and community volunteer opportunities for other young professionals. The organization educates young professionals to take leadership roles within the National Urban League, the civil rights movement, and society-at-large.

Evelyn Murrin is involved in the League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan political organization that encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.

Kathy Risko is board chair for the Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Program (PUMP), which advances issues affecting young and young-thinking people in Pittsburgh in order to make the region a more dynamic, engaging, and diverse place in which to live.

Dan Simpson, a retired U.S. ambassador to Somalia, Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is now Associate Editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.