Staff and Board

STAFF

Jennifer Quigley, Executive Director

Jennifer Quigley has worked on the movement for freedom and justice in Burma in different capacities for ten years. Prior to joining the U.S. Campaign for Burma, she worked for the Women’s League of Burma and its member organizations on international advocacy and capacity building both while living in Thailand and in the U.S. Her work included advocating for and with women from Burma at the United Nations to both ensure the U.N. Security Council and other UN bodies pressure the military regime to end violence against women and bring peace and democracy to Burma and guarantee women from Burma are full participants in all stages and decision-making levels of the peace-building process.

As the Executive Director for the U.S. Campaign for Burma, she works to ensure international policymakers, including the US government, support the movement for freedom and democracy in Burma, provide support for human rights and humanitarian needs, as well as seek to bring justice and an end to crimes against humanity and impunity in Burma.

Rachel Wagley, Campaigns Director

Rachel Wagley has worked with Karen, Chin, and other Burmese refugees in the US since 2007. While an undergraduate at Harvard University, she developed a strong interest in international human rights and US-ASEAN relations. After graduating cum laude with high honors in 2011, she pursued a Fulbright fellowship in Thailand. Her work included teaching science and English in rural Uttaradit province and researching Thai and Burmese social and political theory. She learned to speak and read Thai and the local Thai-Laos dialect. She also blogged extensively on Southeast Asian culture with an emphasis on meso-level communitarianism. After her Fulbright grant concluded, Rachel traveled throughout Burma, Thailand, Laos, and China. During this time, she researched human trafficking and transnational labor and education challenges facing migrants and refugees from Burma. She then moved to the Thai-Burma border and taught social studies and speech and debate at Noh Bo Academy, an Anglican school run by Karen for Karen. There, she began developing her Burmese and Karen language skills. 

Myra Dahgaypaw, Campaigns Coordinator

Myra Dahgaypaw is a Karen human rights activist from Karen State, Eastern Burma.  She was an internally displaced person for about 12 years and a refugee for 17 years until she resettled to the United States. Myra has lost many family members and friends to the brutality of Burma’s military regime. Since the age of 13, Myra has played a strong role in her community as an organizer and a human rights advocate.

As a member of the Karen Women’s Organization and a board member of the Karen American Communities Foundation, Myra has testified before Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. She assists and advocates for refugees from Burma who are resettled in the US. Myra has participated in many panel discussions and conferences on Burma.

Brianna Oliver, Communications and Development Coordinator

Brianna Oliver has been part of the movement for freedom and justice in Burma for six years, particularly with her involvement in multiple student organizations at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.  During her four years at the university, she assisted with various events focused on current issues surrounding Burma to increase the involvement and knowledge base of the students, faculty and staff at ASU.  She has traveled extensively working with international development, disaster relief, indigenous movements and communications. Prior to her work at USCB, she lived in Sendai, Japan for one year assisting the tsunami disaster relief efforts in the Tohoku region.

As the Communications and Development Coordinator with the U.S. Campaign for Burma, she hopes to continue expanding the campaign to new venues to enhance the message and work of USCB.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

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.

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.

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.

Nickie Sekera

Andrew Lim
Andrew 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 five 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.

Gordon Welty
Gordon is the Executive Director of Burma Community Builders, a nonprofit organization which focuses on building schools and educating the internally displaced people of Burma. He founded the organization as a means of responding to Aung San Suu Kyi’s call to “use your liberty to promote ours.”

A former Marine in the infantry, Gordon developed a strong conviction toward peace while preparing to invade Iraq after the September 11, 2001 attacks. He is a Buddhist, and it was his experience with the destructive power of violence that led him to work for democracy and human rights in Burma. His other experiences include the position of Aide to the President at TreePeople, where he was a founding member of the organization’s award-winning strategic visioning team. Gordon is a graduate of UCLA.