The Team

  • Karen Ames

    Managing Director

    Karen Ames is the Managing Director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma. Her work on Burma began as an intern with USCB. Over the last ten years, she has worked on advocacy and raising awareness on the ongoing human rights violations in the country. In addition to advocacy work, she has worked with youth from Burmese diaspora as they pursued higher education in the U.S. She returned to USCB as the Communications and Development Manager for a couple years before stepping into the managing director position.

    Karen received a Masters in Southeast Asian studies with a focus on democracy and women's rights in the region from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also a contributing author for the publishing company ABC-CLIO. Her latest work discusses the positive and negative influences of various technologies in different countries around the world.

  • Caroline Mendoza

    RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

    Caroline Mendoza is an undergraduate human rights major at Columbia University. Caroline started work with the USCB in January 2020 as an intern and has continued to support the organization as a staff member. Previously, Caroline has interned and worked at the US House of Representatives, Search for Common Ground, the US Department of State, STAND: The Student-Led Movement for Mass Atrocities, and the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. Caroline has conducted research with the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University and hopes to continue studying conflict and global human rights issues.

  • Nay Thet

    GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN COORDINATOR

    Nay Thet began interning with USCB in September 2022 and has continued to support the organization as the Grassroots Campaign Coordinator.

    She is an experienced human rights activist and researcher who has consulted local and international governments and NGOs on development initiatives. Born and raised in Yangon, Burma, the focus of her career has been on supporting the country’s democratic transition. She has published national landscape studies for Burma on improving its informal education system and the agricultural economy. She has also collaborated with UN agencies to provide research training, and evaluate and improve their services.

    She received a fellowship for her work from Columbia University's School of International Political Affairs. She is currently studying in the Masters in Public Administration program, where she focuses on advancing human rights through policy, conflict resolution, and post-conflict statebuilding.

  • Kristen Allen

    SUPPORT STAFF

    Kristen Allen has worked with refugees from Burma since 2008 when she joined a local resettlement program in Kansas City. With a focus on empowerment and integration, Kristen partnered with ethnic community leaders from Burma to develop business plans, gain tax exempt status for non-profit organizations, and provide organizational support to a children’s learning program. Through those experiences, her interest in human rights in Burma grew and in 2021, Kristen graduated with merit from the University of London’s Refugee Law Initiative with an MA in Refugee Protection and Forced Migration. Striving to elevate refugee voices within her research, she centered her thesis, “Voices from the Diaspora: A Discursive Analysis of Rohingya Voice in Social Media,” on the human rights claims of the Rohingya related to The Gambia v. Myanmar before the International Court of Justice. Her support of US Campaign for Burma started in May 2021 as a contributor to the monthly analysis for the briefer. She currently serves as the Associate Director at Migrant, Immigrant, and Refugee Rights Alliance.

Board of Directors

Larry Dohrs

Larry Dohrs has been visiting, studying, writing and lecturing on SE Asia and Burma in particular for nearly 40 years. He has a specific focus on issues of business and human rights, protection of the vulnerable, and the right to an identity for all of Burma's people.

Stephen Dun

Stephen Dun is an ethnic Karen. Born in Rangoon, Stephen fled to Karen State for the Thai-Burma border when he was ten years old. After completing high school, he served as a teacher in a Karen school established by the Karen Resistance. He also taught basic survival skills to Burma's local populations due to the increasing Burma army's seasonal attacks against villagers. In addition to his data communications work for the BurmaNet of Burma Project, and Open Society Institute, he advocated on behalf of the Karen and other ethnic peoples of Burma when he testified numerous times in congress. Since 2001, Mr. Dun has continued to provide direct service assistance to the countless refugees arriving all over the US from Burma, particularly those in Seattle, Washington. Those activities include transportation, interpretation, obtaining documentation, cultural awareness for both the refugees and the resettlement agencies, and organizing the communities to be self-sufficient. He continues to keep the international community informed on the situation in Burma and has administered many humanitarian aid packages into the many trouble zones of Burma.

Myra Dahgaypaw

A former IDP and refugee from Karen state, Myra Dahgaypaw has dedicated the past two decades to advocating for various human rights and political issues in Burma while serving her community and the Burmese diaspora in the United States. Previously, she worked as a human rights advocate at the United Nations with the Burma Fund United Nations Office. She later worked with the U.S. Campaign for Burma for 12 years as Campaign Coordinator, Policy Advisor, and Managing Director, focusing on the United States Burma policy, the promotion of human rights, and an inclusive democracy that includes all ethnic and religious minorities. Myra is currently Senior Partnership Officer for International Justice and Accountability at UUSC. She is also a board member of Communities of Rooted Brilliance (CRB) and is a Virginia delegate for the Refugee Congress.

Yasmin Ullah

Yasmin Ullah is an independent Rohingya social justice activist who collaborates with different organizations at different times on advocacy, media, and building alliances with young people from Burma. She was born in the Northern Rakhine state of Burma. Her family fled to Thailand in 1995 when she was a child and she remained a stateless refugee until moving to Canada in 2011. Yasmin formerly served as the President of the Rohingya Human Rights Network and a research coordinator at Free Rohingya Coalition. She co-founded the Rohingya Women Web Series.