WELCOME! – Project STEP welcomes new Board President Elisa Pepe! Elisa succeeds Diane M. Austin, who concluded her term as Board President at the end of fiscal year 2022.
Elisa is Program Administrator at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Cambridge, MA. She joined the NBER in 2007 to administer a large Gates Foundation grant to study economic success stories in sub-Saharan Africa. Since the close of that project, she has managed grants by the National Science Foundation and privately funded sources at NBER. Prior to this position, she worked at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) for several years in both research program and degree program administration. She was also an HKS ombudsperson.
Elisa has one daughter who played violin in Project STEP in elementary and middle school. She holds a Master’s degree in Development-Population-Environment studies from the Université Catholiquede Louvainin Belgium, and a B.A. in Political Science from Skidmore College. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Comoros Islands. Elisa has been part of Project STEP for a number of years and we look forward to her leadership.
Project STEP also welcomes to the Board of Directors: Jenelle Lawson and Malik Williams as our two new STEP parent representatives, and Asadour Santourian as our new Boston Symphony Orchestra partner representative
