Staff

Siobhan Hayes, Senior Program Associate, liaises with WLP partner organizations in Central Asia, South East Asia, and the Middle East and helps coordinate the joint programs in these countries. Siobhan received her MA in International Education at The George Washington University, where her research focused on gender, intercultural conflict, and multicultural education. She received her BA in Philosophy at Fordham University and has taught in Thailand and the U.S. Her past work includes serving with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Los Angeles, providing counseling and aiding homeless women and men to gain employment, and providing research assistance on a project investigating women’s health care in the US prison system at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Tyler Lopez, Administrative Assistant, provides key administrative and programmatic support for all areas of WLP's work. He received his BA in International Studies with a concentration in World Politics and Policy at Virginia Tech. While working towards his degree, he tailored his coursework to focus on international human rights and political economics. Prior to joining WLP, he worked as a legal assistant at an international patent law firm and interned at the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Marion Marquardt, Technology Program Associate, coordinates WLP's ICT empowerment projects. She is responsible for developing training materials and technology tools to facilitate communication and knowledge-building among WLP partners, and to support and strengthen the technology capacity of partner organizations. Marion received her B.Sc and M.Eng. in Computer Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and M.Phil. in Technology Policy at Cambridge University where she focused on gender and ICT. She has worked as Lead Program Manager at Microsoft Corporation for many years, coordinating the deployment of international content management suites as well as managing data warehousing, data mining, and online reporting systems.

Jennifer Pendleton, Senior Associate for Advocacy, liaises with WLP partner organizations in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia and helps coordinate the joint programs in these countries. Jennifer holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in Public Policy Studies from Duke University. Her work has included collaboration with a Ghanaian NGO on a community-based campaign for health care access among impoverished urban migrants, and promoting improved post-conflict legal responses to gender-based violence during the Rwandan genocide. Prior to joining WLP, Jennifer served with the United States Peace Corps in Morocco, working with a group of rural women to form a small business enterprise and coordinating gender and development programming with local and regional Moroccan associations.

Shohreh Shadman, CPA, Director of Finance, oversees WLP’s financial policies and procedures. She manages administrative and financial functions including human resources and facilities management, and helps evaluate and strengthen the financial capacity of WLP partner organizations. Shohreh has more than twenty years of experience in accounting and finance in private and public accounting firms. For the last eight years she was Controller and Chief Financial Officer at NatureServe, a non-profit organization with an annual budget of over $10 million. She has an MBA in Finance from Northwestern University and an MS in Accounting from George Washington University. She has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1998.

Usha Venkatachallam, Director of Innovation and Technology at WLP, leads the partnership's efforts to create sustainable technology solutions and build the information and communication technology (ICT) capacity of communities in the Global South. She is the co-author of Making IT Our Own: Information & Communication Technology Training of Trainers Manual. She is the founder of Appropriate IT, a technology development company specializing in web and mobile application development and a founding member of Beaconfire Consulting, a company that serves nonprofits in the evaluation, design, and implementation of Internet technology. Usha has more than a decade of experience as a senior consultant in the non-profit technology sector, helping organizations such as Amnesty International, Heifer International, Human Rights First, and Oxfam USA creatively apply Internet technologies to advance their mission. Formerly she worked as a web developer at the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA).