Dr. Ellen Frank
Founder and Director
Dr. Ellen Frank, PhD
In 2004 Ellen founded the Ellen Frank Illumination Arts Foundation, Inc. (EFIAF), a non-profit global organization dedicated to the transformative power of art to build a culture of understanding and peace. She conceived of its flagship initiative CITIES OF PEACE, ILLUMINATED including its peacebuilding and human rights educational, mentorship and arts training programs and its commitment to Cultural Diplomacy. As Artistic Director, with participation by artist interns and scholars from more than 33 countries, Ellen has directed the creation of 12 CITIES OF PEACE ILLUMINATED paintings, the CITIES OF PEACE TREASURE SUITE and additional EFIAF projects and initiatives. Highlights include invitations to exhibit and to create new CITIES OF PEACE paintings for the 75th Commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz in Auschwitz, the 100th Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan, and the 10th Anniversary of Kosovo Independence in Pristina. Dr. Frank has presented CITIES OF PEACE ILLUMINATED in conferences worldwide. CITIES OF PEACE has been exhibited more than 20 national and international venues, accompanied by panels on art as a tool for peacebuilding.
Artist, scholar, writer and teacher, Dr. Frank has received awards in painting, book design, scholarship and, most recently, as an innovative global peacebuilder. These awards include Fulbright Specialist for Peacebuilding and Reconciliation (2018), US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and World Learning; Award for Excellence, NATO Award for Excellence for Cities of Peace Illuminated; a Fulbright Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, Ford Foundation Fellowship, Pollock-Krasner Award in Painting, New York State Council on the Arts, and a New York Foundation for the Arts grant.
Dr. Frank studied art history and connoisseurship at Yale University, the Courtauld and Warburg Institutes, and holds an interdisciplinary doctorate in English Literature and the Visual Arts from Stanford University. In 2015, she received an Honorary Doctorate for Cities of Peace Illuminated from the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University. She co-founded the interdisciplinary department of Literature and the Visual Arts at the University of California, Berkeley; she designed and taught interdisciplinary studies at Barnard College, Rutgers University, and School of Visual Arts. Dr. Frank’s first book, Literary Architecture: Essays Toward a Tradition (University of California Press), received numerous awards, including the New York Institute for Graphic Arts 50 Best Books; Ronce& Coffin Club Design Award; and “Best Book in 50 Years” by University of California Press.
Board Members
Sheri Rosenblatt
Sheri Rosenblatt joined Cities of Peace in 2019. She is president and founder of fit2market, a marketing communications company in New York launched in 2013. Earning a BS in nursing from New York University, an MS in education from City University of New York, and an MBA in marketing from Fordham University, she is skilled in client relations, marketing communications, and brand stewardship. Joining Cities of Peace, Sheri will work on raising awareness of the organization, ensure the brand is represented consistently in all channels and drive brand equity.
In July 2018, fit2market received its certification from WBENC – the largest certifier of women- owned businesses and a leading advocate from women business owners and entrepreneurs. Sheri was honored as a Rising Star by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association in 2009 for her peers.
Advisory Council
Fred Mandell
Fred Mandell PhD is the Chairman of the Board of The Global Institute for the Arts and Leadership and founding principal of the Kalon Leadership Group, LLC. A former senior executive for a Fortune 500 company, Fred built top performing sales and marketing organizations, ran a multi-billion- dollar investment company and helped implement global strategy. He teaches the number one rated leadership program at MIT Sloan
As an artist Fred's sculptures, paintings, and drawings are held in private and corporate collections.
Peter Geffen
Peter Geffen is founder and President, Kivunim, founder of The Abraham Joshua Heschel School in NYC, former Director of the Israel Experience Program for the CRB Foundation and an Israel education specialist. A social activist since serving as a civil rights worker for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965-66, Peter has been deeply involved in Arab-Jewish co-existence work since the early 1960's. Peter served as Executive Director of The Center for Jewish History from 2003-05. He has designed and conducted international travel programs for teenagers and adults since 1969 including the Kivunim summer teachers' programs that have served over 1500 participants since
1999. Peter was the recipient of the Covenant Award in 2012, the highest recognition given to a Jewish educator.
Very Reverend Dean James Kowalski
Dean Kowalski was the 9th Dean of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York, from April 2002 – June 2017, elected soon after 9/11 and a month before a devastating fire struck the Cathedral. Following repairs, the Cathedral was restored and rededicated in November 2008. Cities of Peace was the Cathedral’s first exhibition following its restoration; the exhibition and accompanying international symposium “epitomized the institutional mission to
engage – through liturgy, art and discourse – in ‘the great conversations of our times’” and into advocacy for more just societies.
Dean Kowalski served parishes in Newtown, Hartford, and Darien, Connecticut. He is a board member of Episcopal Charities/Diocese of New York, the Center for Interreligious Understanding and the Advisory Board of The Episcopal Actors’ Guild of America. He has been a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a fellow of the American Leadership Forum and a participant in several interfaith conferences abroad sponsored by Peace Research Institute Oslo, most recently in Iran. In 2015 he traveled to South Korea as part of the Conference for World Peace & Reunification of Korea.
Lisa Sotto
Named among the National Law Journal’s “100 Most Influential Lawyers,” Lisa Sotto is the Managing Partner of the New York office of Hunton and Williams LLP. Her practice focuses on privacy and cybersecurity issues. She assists clients in identifying, evaluating and managing risks associated with privacy and
information security practices.
Sotto advises clients on GLB, HIPAA, COPPA, CAN-SPAM, FCRA, VPPA, security breach notification laws, and other U.S. state and federal privacy and data security requirements (including HR rules), and global data protection laws (including those in the EU and Latin America).
She provides extensive advice on cybersecurity risks, incidents and policy issues, including proactive cyberincident readiness.
Jenean Partridge Paschalidis
Jenean Paschalidis is the Senior Advisor of Enterprise Risk Management at UNICEF (the United Nations Agency whose mission is to advance the rights of children globally). She is responsible for providing enterprise risk advisory services for executive management, and for the development, implementation and management of the Enterprise Framework and addressing risks/risk related matters for offices in over 190 countries and territories.
With expertise in the domains of risk, policy, quality, information security and technology and programs and project management, Jenean has served in the capacities of: Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Director of Risk, Policy and Compliance, Barclays Capital, London; ICT Security and Risk Consultant, United Nations Development Programme, New York; Senior Risk and Acquisition Analyst, SAIC, Baltimore; and Marketing Specialist, Electronic Commerce Services and Technology Applications, United States Postal Service, Washington, DC.
Ms Paschalidis has a Master’s degree in International Management (University of Maryland University College), Master’s degree in Program and Project Management (Florida Institute of Technology) and a Diploma in Instructional Design (United States Air Force- Air University).
Her awards include: President’s Award for Excellence, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Meritorious Service Honor Award, United States Postal Service and Best Practices in Information Security Department Award, E-Business Forum.
Heather Dune Macadam
Heather Dune Macadam brings to Cities of Peace Illuminated her expertise as a Holocaust Historian. Her first book was Rena’s Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz, about the 716th woman in Auschwitz. In 2012, the Digital Edition went viral and became an instant best seller, topping Holocaust and Memoir lists on Amazon.
Over the past 20 years, Rena’s Promise has been nominated for the National Book Award, the Christopher Awards, the American Jewish Awards and the National Library Association Awards, published in the United Kingdom, Holland, Brazil,
Turkey, Japan and Germany (where it was book of the month in Sept. 1997). In honor of Rena’s memory, Ms. Macadam continues to be active in fighting against Holocaust denial social networks by disseminating the story of the first women in Auschwitz on YouTube and on the Rena’s Promise fan club on Facebook.
She has been published by The New York Times, National Geographic, The Guardian UK, The Daily Mail, Marie Claire, Newsweek among other national and international publications, and was a commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered.
Ms. Macadam holds a Masters in Creative Writing and has received a Presidential Grant for Research and a PEN American stipend. She and Rena were named Outstanding Writers of the Year in North Carolina in 1995. Ms. Macadam is the director and president of the Rena’s Promise Foundation and Rena’s Promise Intl. Creative Writing Camp 4 Teens. She divides her time between New York and Herefordshire, England, and is a frequent visitor to the Hay Literary Festival.