Larry Dohrs
Larry Dohrs’s first visit to Burma was in 1982. In 1985 he completed an MA in Southeast Asian Studies from University of Michigan, with a particular focus on the agricultural economies of Thailand and Burma. Throughout the 1980s he wrote economic updates on mainland Southeast Asia for the journal Southeast Asia Business. He travels to Southeast Asia every year, and has had the privilege of meeting with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of the democracy movement. He leads the Seattle Burma Roundtable in his hometown of Seattle, Washington State on a monthly basis for more than 10 years. He is currently an adjunct Professor for Economics at Antioch University in Seattle and Vice President of Newground Social Investment, also in Seattle.

Simon Billenness
Simon founded and led the New England Burma Roundtable from 1994 to 2005. He organized the successful grassroots lobbying for the passage of the Massachusetts Burma Law and spurred groups throughout the country to enact 20 similar municipal Burma selective purchasing laws. He has also led efforts to push shareholders to put pressure on corporations in Burma through shareholder resolutions and action at corporate annual shareholder meetings. Over 100 companies from North America, Europe and Asia have withdrawn from Burma under the pressure from these campaigns. Simon worked as a Senior Analyst at Trillium Asset Management, a socially responsible investment firm, Senior Policy Advisor for Corporate Engagement at Oxfam America, and as Senior Advisor for Special Projects and Shareholder Advocacy at the AFL-CIO Office of Investment. He is currently the Senior Campaign Representative for Corporate Accountability and International in the Beyond Coal Campaign at the Sierra Club.

Stephen Dun
Stephen Dun, an ethnic Karen from Burma, has many years of experiences in working with the Karen people and maintains good relations with other ethnic nationalities, such as the Karenni, Kachin, and Shan. He has helped establish better communications by setting up radio data networks for Burma. He has testified on numerous occasions before the US House International Relations Committee and Congressional Human Rights Caucus.

Sam Gregory
Sam Gregory is a video producer, trainer, and human rights advocate, and is currently the Program Director of WITNESS, the non-governmental organization that uses video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. He has been an activist on Burma for the past decade, and over the past five years has worked extensively with the grassroots organization, Burma Issues to support their work documenting and advocating around the situation in eastern Burma, including supporting the production and distribution of the videos “Shoot on Sight’, ‘Season of Fear’ and ‘Always on the Run’ to audiences worldwide. In 2005 he was the lead editor on Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism (Pluto Press), and he has conducted trainings on how to use video in campaigns for groups worldwide.

Veronika Martin
Veronika Martin is a Senior Program Manager for Protection and Refugee Affairs at InterAction. During her seven years in Southeast Asia, Veronika directed Women’s Education for Advancement and Empowerment (WEAVE), was the Director of Southeast Asian Programs for EarthRights International and directed the EarthRights School. Back in Washington, Veronika was an advocate for Refugees International and conducted humanitarian and human rights assessment missions to such diverse countries as Afghanistan, Angola, Thailand, and Tanzania. After ending her three years there as the Director of Human Rights, she was a Policy Analyst for East Asia and the Pacific at the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and most recently, a Senior Program Officer at the Initiative for Inclusive Security.

Andrew Samet, Esq.
Andrew James Samet is a Principal in Sorini, Samet & Associates, an international trade consulting firm. He served in the Clinton Administration as Deputy Under Secretary for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor and as U.S. representative to the International Labor Organization. Mr Samet also worked as legislative director to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York.

U Tin Maung Thaw
Tin Maung Thaw is a founding member and General Secretary of the Committee for Restoration of Democracy in Burma. Born in Rangoon, Burma, he graduated from Methodist High School in Rangoon and obtained his degree from the University of Rangoon, Institute of Economics after narrowly avoiding expulsion for participating in student protests against the military regime. He is a former staff member of the U.S. Congress.

Nora Rowley
Nora Rowley was born, raised, and educated and emergency medicine residency trained in the Chicago area. She practiced emergency medicine for 15 years, volunteered for Presidential and U.S. Congressional campaigns and then, quit medicine in Nov 2005 to do global humanitarian work. She volunteered for Doctors Without Borders, who placed her as a field medical doctor in Rakhine State, Burma from August 2006 to January 2007. Upon returning to the United States, early networking brought her to become an active member and a Chicago action point person for U.S. Campaign for Burma. She has organized several and participated in several marches, protests and petition signings for U.S. Campaign for Burma and other Burma oriented groups in downtown Chicago. She is heavily involved in helping with Fort Wayne, Indiana’s social services and existing large Burmese communities’ adjust to the much larger numbers of Burmese Refugees arriving for resettlements. She gives background cultural and political talks as well as advice on health related issues to the various groups and educational classes in Fort Wayne, IN.

Nickie Sekera

Michele Keegan
Michele is an associate attorney at Mayer Brown LLP in the General Litigation group. She has been involved with Burma advocacy for over 10 years, serving as a research officer with Altsean-Burma in Bangkok, Thailand and later as a consultant with the Burma Project/ Southeast Asia Initiative at the Open Society Institute, looking at issues of economic transitions in post-conflict states. Michele’s interest in Burma began while earning her undergraduate degree at American University where she helped pass a university code prohibiting the sale of goods made in Burma and both participated and led the student exposure trips to the Thai-Burma border. n 1998, Michele was one of the 18 activists who participated in a non-violent direct action in Yangon.

Andrew Lim
Andrew Lim graduated from Brown University, and is currently a student at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. He was a student leader in the Brown Chapter of the US Campaign for Burma, working closely with Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, former UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights. At the height of the Saffron Revolution, he hosted one of the largest rallies of recent Brown history, with keynote speakers Pinheiro and Fernando Cardoso, former president of Brazil. He is currently conducting research regarding the intersection of health disparities and human rights violations among refugee and internally displaced populations.

Jayson Morris
Jayson is a Development Director for Corporate and Foundation
relationships for Room to Read, an international educational
organization operating across Asia and Southern Africa. He has been
with Room to Read for four years, and before that was working in
investment banking. He left banking in 2001 and spent three years
backpacking around the world, including a powerful month in Burma.
Throughout his trip he learned first-hand about the challenges of the
developing world and has since dedicated himself to assisting
countries and communities in need. Jayson holds a BS in Business
Administration from Georgetown University.

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