Board of Directors

Donna Park

Education Fund Chair

Donna Park spent more than 30 years working in the global pharmaceutical industry. She was the first data manager to receive the Career Achievement Award from the Biostatistics and Data Management Technical Group at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association. She has been successful in working across disciplines, countries, and companies to bring about organizational change and implement global systems with new standards and well-defined processes.

After she retired, she decided to devote herself “to work for a democratic world federation to bring about world peace, eliminate nuclear weapons, protect universal human rights, and restore and sustain our global environment.”

She is a past member of the Cincinnati Peace Committee sponsored by the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center and received the Margaret Fuller Peace Award in 2018. She is also an advisor to the Young World Federalists and received their Young At Heart award in 2021.

When not serving on the CGS Board, Finance Committee, Leadership Committee, Development Committee, and Strategy Committee, she does triathlons, noting, “At my age you only have to finish in order to get a medal!”

Matt McDonough

CGS Action Network Chair, CGS Education Fund Vice Chair

Matt McDonough is a green energy consultant who has been committed to the cause of world federalism for more than four decades. Following two tours as an Air Force rescuer in Vietnam, he joined the World Federalist Association in 1974 and became president of the Amherst, Massachusetts, chapter. He has since served on regional and national CGS boards.

He “continues to believe that the salvation of the planet is reliant on the establishment of a democratic federation of nations and will continue to spread the word to anyone who willing to listen!”

Evan Freund

CGS Action Network and Education Fund Treasurer

Evan Freund worked as a healthcare delivery executive until 2001, developing and delivering services for inner-city Chicago populations. After retiring, he became a volunteer project manager, consultant, and executive coach with Executive Service Corps of Chicago, assisting many nonprofits in planning, recruitment, and fundraising.

He has served as a leader of the Chicago chapter of CGS for more than 20 years, and on the national Board since 2014. He is also co-chair of the Interfaith Criminal Justice Task Force, which advocates for criminal justice reform in Illinois.

Brenda Bertsch

CGS Education Fund Secretary

Brenda Bertsch is a dentist and founding member of the Greater Cincinnati Chapter of CGS. She has been a member of the national CGS organization since 2010. Her passion and concern for health and well-being is the driving force for her commitment to work for world peace and justice. She feels that “sustainable peace and justice must be found through the establishment of a world government, based on the principles of federalism and democracy.”

Now retired from private practice, she continues to work with clinics and nonprofits. She and her family love hiking and camping across the U.S., about which she says, “If we had a world government, we could drive all over the continent — another goal of mine!”

Elizabeth Blackburn

Elizabeth Blackburn is an international program manager and education specialist, contributing to inclusive projects in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Nicaragua, and the United States. She holds a dual master’s degree in International Governance and Diplomacy; as well as International Development Management from the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po and the London School of Economics. Before her development career, she trained at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University where she produced nationally recognized documentaries focusing on societal issues in Arizona, which earned a Rocky Mountain Emmy and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia award. She also was awarded the U.S. Department of State Fulbright grant to Kazakhstan where she taught human rights, girls’ rights and community journalism classes. She is passionate about building bridges between communities and always staying curious. In her free time, she enjoys travelling and analogue photography.

Tom Camarella

Tom Camarella has served on the Board since 1984. He serves on the Board of Southern California Americans for Democratic Action and has served in leadership roles with Jobs With Peace and the Progressive Democrats of America, among other organizations. He has “spent his whole life trying to implement the ideals of preventing war, curbing the military industrial complex, and promoting civil and human rights, equality, and environmentalism.”

Larry David

For nearly three decades, Larry David was a volunteer for the World Federalist Association, where, as Board Chair he was a leader in transforming the organization into CGS. He is an entrepreneur and project leader experienced in small business development. As co-founder of College Survival, Inc., he oversaw the development and marketing of seven editions of Becoming a Master Student, the best-selling college textbook in America. He is currently chairman of the Board of a medical device company CytoLogic, which is developing a new type of cancer therapy.

Lee Davis

Lee Davis’ interest in world federalism began in graduate school days at Cornell University in the late 1950s when she heard a talk by Norman Cousins. She became involved in the movement in 1986 with the foundation of the Orono Peace Group, which became a dedicated CGS Partners Group. She led the transition of the Orono Peace Group into the Maine Chapter of CGS.

She was a biology professor at the University of Maine for many years, with a focus on animal behavior, specifically female courtship behavior. She belongs to and supports numerous wildlife and conservation organizations, and for several years was a member of the board of the Natural Resources Council of Maine. She is also involved with Earthwatch Expeditions, which engage people in scientific field research and education to promote the understanding and actions necessary for sustainability of ecosystems.

Her academic career has inspired her world federalist activism: “Given the nature of our species, I believe that the only way that we can prevent war is by forming a world federation. We have the behavioral flexibility to create such an organization.”

Hannah Emerson

Hannah Emerson is studying international relations at Webster University in St. Louis. She has worked toward improving city services and opportunities for underprivileged communities in St. Louis and Kansas City and worked with refugees in Germany during the height of the European migration crisis to assist in integration into the community.

She serves on the CGS program committee for peace studies and youth outreach and following completion of her degree programs she plans to work in public service toward increased international cooperation and improving communities around the world.

Sovaida Ma’ani Ewing

Sovaida Ma’ani Ewing is the founder and director of the Center for Peace and Global Governance, a virtual think tank and online forum that pools and proposes principled solutions to pressing global problems through publications, podcasts, lectures, workshops, and targeted consulting. She is an international lawyer with two decades of experience in private and government practice both in England as a barrister-at law and the U.S. as a licensed attorney. She has worked for nearly 20 years as an independent scholar writing and lecturing in the area of global governance and collective security.

She was born to a Baha’i pioneer family in Kenya, and has lived in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S. She has held a number of positions on various Baha’i elected and appointed institutions and has served on the Board of the Foreign Lawyers Forum, the Board of the Baha’i Justice Society, and the Board of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington.

David Gallup

David Gallup is president and general counsel of the World Citizen Government, a global public service human rights organization founded in 1954. He is the editor-in-chief of World Citizen News and author of the World Citizen Blog.

He is the past secretary of the United Nations Association Task Forces on UN Restructuring and on Cultures of Peace and has been published in and interviewed by many major global media outlets. He is also the convenor of the World Court of Human Rights Coalition.

Justin Haner

Dr. Justin K. Haner is a political scientist and research fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. From traditional security concerns to artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, his scholarship focuses on the transformative power that international law and organizations can have on solving complex global and regional security issues. Committed to ensuring his work resonates beyond the classroom, he campaigns on the dire need to reform the United Nations, including as a co-drafter of the People’s Pact for the Summit of the Future and an active contributor to the Coalition for the UN We Need. Justin is also a committed public servant with twelve years of combined experience in the military and local government. As a former Captain in the US Army Infantry, he led a mechanized rapid reaction force just south of the Korean DMZ and was selected to serve as Executive Officer to the United Nations Command Honor Guard. He currently serves as an elected Representative for Town Meeting and appointed Capital Budget Committee board member in Walpole, MA, where he works on a variety of local issues from promoting racial and gender inclusivity, to reducing his town’s environmental impact.

Gail Hughes

Gail Hughes began her career as a Peace Corps volunteer English teacher in Lesotho, and later taught Development Studies in Botswana. She went on to teach global studies, sociology, and interdisciplinary social science at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and served as a faculty member in adult and higher education at Capella University, a completely online national university, until her retirement.

She is the coordinator of the World Federation Virtual Book Club and is a past president of CGS-Minnesota.

Eston McKeague

Eston McKeague is the president and co-founder of the Young World Federalists, an international organization dedicated to modernizing the movement bringing the message of world federation to a new generation.

He holds a B.A. in Global Affairs with minors in Economics and Religion and Culture from Western Washington University and currently lives in Berlin, Germany. His world federalism is rooted in his belief that “for too long, global decision-making has been in the hands of a few powerful countries and companies. We must redistribute global power and economic wealth if the human species is to address our common challenges.”

David C. Oughton

David C. Oughton has been a Board member of both the St. Louis Chapter of CGS and the national organization for many years. He has taught hundreds of courses in philosophy, the world’s religions, peace studies, and Holocaust studies at Saint Louis University and other schools in the St. Louis area. He is passionate about promoting the need for a democratic world federation of nations in order to outlaw war, eliminate genocide, and solve our global problems. He argues that the religions of the world have the responsibility of building a firm foundation for a future world federation by promoting the teaching of a world community, world citizenship, humatriotism, the Declaration of a Global Ethic, and the Charter for Compassion.

Allen Pietrobon

Dr. Allen Pietrobon is an Assistant Professor and Program Chair of the Global Affairs department at Trinity Washington University. His latest book, Norman Cousins: Peacemaker in the Atomic Age, explores the secret diplomatic missions the prominent journalist (and former President of the United World Federalists,) Norman Cousins conducted behind the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War. Allen previously served as an Assistant Director of Research at the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, and as a research assistant for Daniel Ellsberg on his book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. Allen is an award-winning historian and public speaker who believes in making education more accessible to people outside of universities, so he works to give public presentations for groups across the United States on wide-ranging topics.

Susanne Riveles

Dr. Susanne Riveles has taught Human Rights, Conflict Resolution, and African History at Catholic University in Washington, DC, and Howard University. She has published articles on international law, the right to asylum, and refugee law; she served as guest editor for ISSUE, the African Studies Association quarterly journal, focusing on Human Rights in Africa. From 1980-1993, she worked for Amnesty International (AIUSA), leading their Southern Africa Coordination Group. Her advocacy portfolio included many hundreds of prisoners of conscience, notably Nelson Mandela, Albertina and Walter Sisulu, Desmond Tutu, and Rev. Simon Farisani. Dr. Riveles directed the Africa Program for Lutheran World Relief for seven years before working for Church World Service as Director of Education and Advocacy for International Justice and Human Rights. For three years, Dr. Riveles directed a project for the Holocaust and war victims searching through German documents captured by the US army during WWII and at the liberation of German concentration camps. Since retiring from full-time work, she works as a consultant for the UN, USAID, and the American Refugee Committee. Dr. Riveles served on the Board of the International Alliance of Women for 16 years , she previously served as convener of the Commission for Women, Peace, and Security. She was part of the IAW delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women CSW for at least 6 years. Born in Berlin Germany, she has lived in Baltimore city since 2004, where she has served as member and president of the board of the Charles Village Community Benefits District.

Jane Shevtsov

Jane Shevtsov teaches math and statistics for life science students at the University of California Los Angeles. Her dissertation research at the University of Georgia in 2012 focused on the analysis, mathematical simulation, and effects of ecological networks such as food webs. Since then, she has primarily focused on teaching and curriculum development in math for life sciences and co-authored the textbook Modeling Life, published in 2017. She has also worked on developing life support systems for space habitats, both as a student intern at NASA and recently in collaboration with individuals in the private space industry.

She has been a world federalist since age 18 and has been involved with CGS for much of that time. Starting as an undergrad, she wrote or co-authored a number of articles on global government and world citizenship for the general public. She is the cofounder of the website World Beyond Borders.

Jerry Tetalman

Jerry Tetalman has been a peace activist since registering for the draft as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. He graduated from Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and later went on to receive a Masters Degree in Psychology from the University for Humanistic Studies in San Diego. He worked for a number of years in hospitals, but eventually changed careers to become a Real Estate Broker and Real Estate Investor. He co-authored a book about World Federalism in 2005, called One World Democracy: A Progressive Vision for Enforceable Global Law. He re-established the San Diego Chapter of Citizens for Global Solutions and was the Vice President of California Citizens for Global Solutions. He went on to work as the Development Director of the Democratic World Federalist, in San Francisco. In 2012 he ran for Congress in California’s 49th District, and he won the Democratic Primary but was unable to unseat the incumbent in the general election. He continues speaking and writing about peace, justice, and sustainability and the goal of a Democratic World Federation.

Reed Walters

Reed Walters is a digital artist and writer for the World Federalist movement in which they endeavor to bolster the support for a global democratic governance with inherent Socratic principles to better Humanity’s position as a species capable of utilizing its intellect for the continued prosperity of its posterity. Reed is working to get their B.A. in History with minors in Sociology, Political Science, and Philosophy at Georgia College and State University (GCSU), with their main academic goal being to one day earn a doctorate in History. Reed is constructing a World Federalist sector in Georgia to help the perpetual seeding of peace and unification across Mother Earth. Artistic motifs are an imperative that Reed utilizes in getting others of their generation interested and involved.

Larry Wittner

Larry Wittner is Professor of History Emeritus at the State University of New York Albany, where he taught courses on the history of U.S. foreign policy and international history for 36 years. Prior to that, he taught history at Hampton Institute, Vassar College, and (under the Fulbright program) at Japanese universities, including the University of Tokyo. He is the author of nine books and the editor or co-editor of another four and has written hundreds of published articles. Among his books — most on issues of war, peace, and international relations — is the award-winning scholarly trilogy The Struggle Against the Bomb (Stanford University Press), a history of the world nuclear disarmament movement. He has served as president of the Peace History Society, co-chair of the Peace History Commission of the International Peace Research Association, and co-chair of the Peace Action national board. His many lectures in dozens of nations have included talks at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and at the United Nations.

He has been awarded fellowships or grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, the MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Anne Broderick Zill

Anne Broderick Zill is the founder and director of the Center for Ethics in Action, an organization created to promote women’s leadership across disciplines with a spiritual, values-based perspective to make local and global public policies work better. She has also played leadership roles in many organizations and campaigns including the Women’s Campaign Fund, the Women’s Campaign Research Fund, the Fund for Constitutional Government, and International Action. She has been a foundation program officer with the Stewart Mott Charitable Trust for more than 30 years, focusing on peace, human rights, government and military reform, civil rights and civil liberties, and international reproductive rights.