NRCAT's Board of Directors - 2023
NRCAT staff page: You can read about NRCAT's Executive Director, Rev. Ron Stief and the rest of NRCAT's staff.
Rev. Aundreia Alexander, Esq.
Rev. Aundreia Alexander is the Associate General Secretary, Action and Advocacy for Justice and Peace, National Council of Churches. She leads the National Council of Churches in its initiative to reverse the rising trend of mass incarceration in the United States. Before her move to the NCC Rev. Alexander served as the National Coordinator for The Office of Immigration and Refugee Services with the American Baptist Home Mission Societies of American Baptist Churches, USA. She led the denominational efforts to advocate for comprehensive humane immigration reform and addressed human rights and religious liberty issues related to the diaspora of the ethnic peoples of Burma.
Advocating for justice and systemic change has always been important to Rev. Alexander and she is serious about being where she feels God is calling her. She believes that God has called her to serve as a prophetic voice that challenges structures and systems that diminishes and dehumanizes others. Rev. Alexander is also a workshop facilitator and trainer in the areas of Conflict Transformation/Mediation skills and speaks at conferences and churches on spiritual nurturing for those living with cancer. She serves as the minister for Social Justice at the St. Pauls’ Baptist Church in West Chester, PA and the chaplain for the Valley Forge Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She is from Missouri where she practiced law with the Missouri Attorney General’s office before moving to the east coast to attend seminary. She has a B.S. in Accountancy and a J.D. both from the University of Missouri in Columbia and a M. Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary.
Elizabeth Beavers
Vice President
Elizabeth Beavers is an attorney and analyst focusing on foreign policy, national security, human rights and civil liberties. Beavers is a consultant focusing on foreign policy and national security projects. She formerly served as the Indivisible Project's Associate Policy Director, leading Indivisible's strategic grassroots advocacy to protect issues of peace, democracy and rights under threat by the Trump administration.
Also, Beavers was a Senior Campaigner for the US section of Amnesty International, focusing on endless war, closing the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, and building accountability for U.S.-sponsored torture. She also advocated for anti-militarism and pro-civil liberties policies from a faith lens at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Beavers commentary on these issues has been featured in numerous television, radio and print news outlets, including Al-Jazeera, the New York Times, The NY Daily News, USA Today, and US News and World Report. Her work to de-militarize U.S. police was featured in the award-winning documentary Peace Officer.
Rebecca Linder Blachly
Rebecca Linder Blachly is the Director of the Office of Government Relations of the Episcopal Church, where she oversees the office's work on domestic and international policy issues, with a particular emphasis on reconciliation, the environment, and refugees and migration. Prior to joining the Episcopal Church in September 2016, Ms. Blachly was the Senior Policy Advisor for Africa in the Office of Religion and Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. From 2007- 2008, Ms. Blachly was Acting Chief of the Strategic Communication Division at U.S. Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany. She served as the Special Assistant to the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and as a Research Associate in the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Blachly has conducted fieldwork and research throughout Africa and the Middle East, and she has published on civil-military relations in complex environments, humanitarian assistance, and disaster response. She is the recipient of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Ms. Blachly received her B.A. in philosophy from Williams College, and her M.Div. from Harvard University.
Dolores Canales
Dolores Canales is the Community Outreach Director for The Bail Project. Previously a Soros Justice Fellow, Dolores is the co-founder of California Families Against Solitary Confinement (CFASC) and worked as a youth coordinator for the Orangewood Children’s Foundation. She is the founder of Family UNIty Network and serves on the Advisory committee of Social Workers Against Solitary Confinement and the Steering Committee for the Unlock the Box campaign.
Dolores brings a wealth of leadership experience in organizing with those personally affected by incarceration, drawing from her own experiences as well as having a family member who is incarcerated. She currently serves as a Commissioner on the Probation Oversight Committee, appointed by Board of Supervisor, Janice Hahn and is a core member of the California Mandela Campaign. Dolores lives in Norwalk, California with her husband Jack.
Imam Saffet Abid Catovic
Imam Saffet Abid Catovic is a long-time US Muslim Community Organizer/Activist and Environmental Leader. He was a national organizer of Bosnia Task Force – USA a coalition of the major National and Regional Muslim Organizations advocating for an end to the Genocide in Bosnia during the early 1990s. He served in various senior level capacities in the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina including Minister Counselor at the Mission of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United Nations - NYC and Deputy Federation Contract Administrator at the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the United States in DC. from 1992-2001.
Imam Catovic is chair of the Parliament of the World's Religions Climate Action Task Force and serves on the Parliament's Board of Trustees. He is a member of the Statewide Clergy Council of Faith in New Jersey. He serves as Imam Chaplain at Drew University Madison, NJ where he also received his MA in Religion and Society, specializing in Religion and the Environment and is currently a Doctorate of Ministry student, and has an MBA.
Rev. Jimmie Ray Hawkins
Treasurer
Rev. Jimmie Ray Hawkins is the Director of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Office of Public Witness in Washington, D.C. Prior to his current position he served twenty years as the pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Durham, NC, 1996 – 2016 and five years as the senior pastor of Grace Presbyterian, Holmes Memorial and Trinity Presbyterian churches in Western Virginia (Peaks Presbytery).
Hawkins has served on the boards of Church World Service, the National Council of Churches and currently Union Presbyterian Seminary. He has chaired several interfaith/ecumenical and non-profit boards: NC NAACP Executive Committee, Durham Congregations in Action, the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, and the Religious Coalition for a Non-Violent Durham, Housing for New Hope, and End Poverty Now. He received his Master of Divinity from the Interdenominational Theological Center at Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary (Atlanta, GA).
Rev. Dr. George Hunsinger
Founder
George Hunsinger is the Hazel Thompson McCord Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. In January 2006 he founded the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. A former assistant to the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., he has a long history of anti-war and human rights activism. He is an ordained minister (Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.) and president of the Karl Barth Society of North America. He is the 2010 recipient of the Karl Barth Prize awarded by the Union of Evangelical Churches in Germany.
George holds degrees from Stanford (A.B., cum laude), Harvard Divinity School (B.D. cum laude), and Yale (M.A., Ph.D.). Among his recent books is: Torture Is a Moral Issue: Christians, Jews, Muslims and People of Conscience Speak Out (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008). He is married with two children and two grandchildren.
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater
President
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater is the Executive Director of Friends in Deed, a local, religious-based non-profit addressing homelessness and poverty in the greater Pasadena area. After 5 years in congregations on the east coast, he served 12 years as senior rabbi of Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, where he established himself as an activist, interfaith leader, forming and sustaining coalitions for justice, peace and dialogue. In the summer of 2016, he worked for NRCAT as a California Organizer, brining together a broad coalition of interfaith leaders to successfully pass SB1143, a state bill to limit juvenile isolation and room confinement.
He has served on the board of T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. He is a published writer and his works can be seen in Huffington Post, Times of Israel, The Jewish Journal of Southern California, Jewschool, Tikkun and other blogs. On the side, he runs a life-cycle company performing weddings, funerals, baby namings and other creative rituals.
When not working, Joshua rides his motorcycle, hikes in the hills around his home, plays percussion, teaches Jewish meditation, and enjoys playing and watching sports. He loves live music and being with his family. He lives in Pasadena, CA with his wife, Franci, twin teenagers, Noah and Ella, and his dog Luna.
Rev. Kendal McBroom
The Rev. Kendal L. McBroom is the director of Civil and Human Rights at the General Board of Church and Society. He is responsible for managing and developing the agency’s legislative and policy advocacy in support of civil and human rights. He also works as a strategic thought partner and collaborator with United Methodist faith and secular coalitions to develop and implement strategies that advance GBCS priorities. Before joining GBCS staff, McBroom served as the senior pastor of Turners Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in High Point, North Carolina and is an ordained elder in the AME Church.
McBroom holds a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies from Hampton University, Master of Divinity, and Master of Public Policy from Duke University. He is completing his Doctor of Ministry degree in Transformational Leadership at Boston University School of Theology. McBroom loves being with family and friends, traveling to the Caribbean Islands and playing golf.
Jasmeet Sidhu
Jasmeet Sidhu is Senior Researcher for the End Gun Violence Campaign at Amnesty International USA. Jasmeet led AIUSA’s research into the United States’ obligations to prevent gun violence and its impact on human rights for AIUSA’s End Gun Violence report: In the Line of Fire- Human Rights and the US Gun Violence Crisis. Jasmeet is a lifelong human rights activist, attorney, and advocate. As a practicing Sikh—whose family and community members have been targeted by hate violence—her current focus on gun violence was motivated by the August 2012 attack on a Sikh gurdwara (temple) in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where six people were shot and killed and several others injured in an act of hate violence.
Jasmeet has worked with numerous social justice movements, including Amnesty International, Alliance for Justice, GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network), Human Rights First, and South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). Jasmeet’s work has focused on human rights- including immigrant rights; LGBTQ rights; impacts of racial, religious and ethnic profiling; and post-9/11 hate violence. Jasmeet has also worked with grassroots organizations across the country developing advocacy strategies; providing legislative guidance on election-related activity and lobbying campaigns; and researching and analyzing domestic and international human rights issues. Jasmeet received her LLM in International Law, specializing in Human Rights from American University Washington College of Law, her law degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, and her undergraduate degree from Duke University.
