Executive Team & Directors
Executive Team
Brooke Wurst
Founder and Executive Director
Brooke is a longtime HIV/AIDS advocate and educator. She first began teaching adolescents to use the arts as a vehicle to learn life skills while she was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1997 until 2009, Brooke was the program director of a private education group. She earned her master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She studied Literature as a graduate student at Harvard University and Literature and Photography at Oxford, and earned her BA with honors in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. She also has certification in the Protection of Human Research Subjects from the National Institutes of Health. Brooke was behind the startup of several publications, including Jazz Club magazine, Basketball Coach magazine, and FlippedOnline.com. She has written for the editors of numerous publications including the Chicago Tribune, Rolling Stone, Collier’s Encyclopaedia and several technology magazines here and abroad. Brooke has been involved with performing arts as a writer and musician since she was a little girl. You may have missed her first performances-doing magic shows for her parents’ guests at dinner parties-back in 1978. Since then, she’s played to audiences as a musician and comedienne in New York, LA, Philadelphia, Boston, London, and Chicago. She has worked as an HIV/AIDS advocate for the GMHC in New York and with Fenway Community Health in Boston. Brooke also invented RemoteID, the patent-pending biometric technology protocol TRIAD uses in the field. Her lifelong dedication to empowering children in creative ways and belief that education is the only way to fight HIV/AIDS led her to found the TRIAD Trust in 2007.
Chloe Lewis
Director of Health Education Programming
Chloe is at the center of TRIAD’s programming endeavours. As an HIV education specialist, she serves alongside the program directors to create effective, creative curricula that are tailored to the needs of the community. As a musician and former two-sport captain at Swarthmore College and Phillips Academy Andover, she understands the power sports and arts have as an educational tool. After graduating from Swarthmore with a degree in political science and a focus on the disparity between education and opportunity amongst disadvantaged youth, Chloe headed to New Orleans to help manage hurricane-related health and hygiene crises. She went on to study HIV at Harvard as a graduate student and is pursuing a graduate degree in Public Health at Columbia University. Chloe has directly led many HIV education workshops on the ground in Southern Africa with TRIAD, and is responsible for training community-based Medical Educators. She has been intimately involved with implementing RemoteID, TRIAD’s innovative biometrics medical record management system. Her integrated approach to involving marginalized children and adult stakeholders in TRIAD’s workshops has become the basis upon which all education programs are tailored.
Sarah Kate Noftsinger
Director of Sports & Leadership Programming
Sarah Kate brings years of experience and great faith in the future to the role of Director of Sports & Leadership Programming. Her accomplishments on the field, on the sidelines, and in the community inform her work every day. Working closely with the Medical Education team and our partners on the ground, Sarah Kate creates and implements TRIAD’s sports-based leadership and HIV education programs. As a player and coach, her credentials speak for themselves: Sarah Kate spent four years recruiting and coaching for the Stanford University Women’s Soccer Team. While there, she built the program into a #1-ranked powerhouse, with 15 of her former players became involved with the US National Team. She coached with the U-20 Women’s National Team during the 2006 World Championships campaign. Before coaching, Sarah Kate was a midfielder for the WUSA’s Washington Freedom, which won the Championship in 2003. She was the 22nd overall player picked in the 2002 WUSA draft, and was the first female Wake Forest University athlete drafted for a professional team. Sarah Kate was an athlete ambassador with Right To Play, works on issues of health and social justice with BAWSI and Habitat for Humanity, and is a swimming coach for Special Olympics athletes. She has also founded her own not-for-profit, Skate’s Superstars and the Stanford University KICKS Against Breast Cancer chapter.
Jack Judson
Director of Arts and Education Programming
Jack is an actor and arts educator. He is a graduate of New York University’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts and Phillips Academy Andover. Jack has performed around the world, but most importantly, he spent five months developing drama programs with children in post-Katrina New Orleans. Jack has trained drama program leaders and countless vulnerable children. He works closely with TRIAD’s Medical Education team and arts staff. In TRIAD’s partner communities, Jack helps local leaders create their own HIV-centered performance pieces through ImprovED, TRIAD’s innovative, dynamic method of engaging youth in the discussion about healthy decision-making. The troupes perform nationally in festivals, for tourists as income generating activities, but mostly as educational facilitators in schools and with TRIAD’s youth sports program participants. Jack also facilitates leadership and mentoring education programs for athletes in TRIAD’s sports programs, and works with our health educators to create new ways to engage children through performance.
Doug Rudisch
Financial Adviser
Doug is a Managing Director at Bain Capital Partners. In 1996, he helped to start Bain Capital’s Brookside Fund. Prior to joining Bain Capital in 1994, he worked for Boston Consulting Group for several years in Boston and Australia. Doug graduated magna cum laude from The University of Pennyslvania’s Wharton School of Business with a focus on finance and entrepreneurial management. Doug drives many of TRIAD’s philanthropic partnerships with financial services and investment firms. He also actively serves on the Board of Directors of Surfer’s Healing, which offers children with autism the opportunity to go to surf camp and ride the waves with the world’s best surfers.
Matt Wurst
Communications Adviser
In his role as Manager of Digital Communities at 360i, Matthew literally wrote the book on organizations using social media such as Facebook to engage distant individuals in close communities. Prior to his current position, Matt was Senior Manager in charge of the content strategy at weplay.com for the social utility start-up site and cultivated the company’s relationships with its pro athlete investors. He previously served as Senior Manager, Interactive Services for NBA.com & WNBA.com and has an extensive background in communications, marketing and journalism. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in political science, he manages the integrated communications strategy for TRIAD and acts as a liaison between TRIAD and corporate partners, and NBA/WNBA volunteer efforts.
Directors
TRIAD’s Board of Directors is comprised of internationally-recognized leaders in health care, public health policy, education, human rights, finance, athletics, performing arts, and the media. Directors are committed to TRIAD’s values and goals, and helping our partner communities establish sustainable activity-based HIV and life skills education programs.
Edward “Ted” Berk, MBA; Ted received an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. He was a Jean Monnet Fellow at Ecole Polytechnique (Paris), and he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a BA in government and economics. Mr. Berk joined Bain Capital in 1997, and is a Managing Director of the firm based in London. Previously, he was a consultant with Bain & Company and also worked in the European mergers and acquisitions group at Banque Paribas. Ted is keenly aware of social, economic and development challenges facing southern African organization; he is a Director of Edcon, one of the largest retail groups on the continent.
Sally Fassler, MBA, CPA; Sally has been the Chief Financial Officer of Bain Capital’s Sankaty Fund since 2006, overseeing the fund’s $10 billion in assets. Prior to joining Bain Capital, Sally worked at PriceWaterhouseCoopers for more than 10 years. She has been instrumental in helping TRIAD comply with IRS non-profit governance regulations since 2007. Sally is a graduate of Brandeis University and earned her MBA from Northeastern University. She serves as the Treasurer of TRIAD’s Board of Directors and on the compensation committee.
Lisa Haddad, MD, MA, MPH in progress; Physician, researcher; After graduating from Cornell University and earning a master’s in neurobiology at New York University, Lisa earned her medical degree at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. She did her residency in OB/GYN at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, and concentrated on reproductive planning and sexual health in developing regions. She has worked extensively on the ground in Zambia, Malawi, Guatemala, and South Africa helping communities develop reproductive health programs and tending to individuals’ health needs in the process. Lisa helps TRIAD create community-appropriate health and HIV components to its programs, and helps on the ground by training local leaders to manage women’s health and ante-natal care. She is currently doing a post-doctoral fellowship and earning her Master’s in Public Health at Emory University and at the Centers for Disease Control.
Ilana Hurwitz, JD, LLM, LLB; Born and raised in South Africa before immigrating to the United States, Ilana is an attorney and has served on the faculty at Boston College Law School and Boston University School of Law for more than 12 years. She has served as director of the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project, commissioner of the Newton (Massachusetts) Human Rights Commission and chair of the Schools/Education Subcommittee and Newton Explores Diversity initiative. Ilana also volunteered in the Legal Clinic division of the Common Ground Collective Relief Organization in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. While an associate at Boston-based law firm Hill & Barlow, Ilana assisted in drafting a proposal for ratification of the U.N. Convention Against Torture, and represented victims of domestic violence. She was formerly a fellow at the Legal Resources Centre in Johannesburg, the only independent public interest law facility in South Africa at the time. She trained paralegals to provide legal advice to people living in Soweto and other black townships in the Johannesburg area and handled legal cases regarding black housing matters, labor, consumer and resettlement issues. She earned her BA and LLB at University of the Witwatersrand, and her US legal degrees at Suffolk University and Harvard University Law School, with a concentration in Human Rights and International Law. Her commitment to social justice has helped guide TRIAD’s human rights and legal initiatives.
Dwayne Killings; Basketball Coach and League Development Executive; Dwayne attended Hampton University before transferring to UMass and earning a roster spot as a walk-on for the men’s basketball team. Too young to remember the Rage in the Cage days- but still a Minuteman is a Minuteman. After graudating, Dwayne was a part of the NBA Charlotte Bobcats’ coaching staff. Dwayne worked as the Assistant Director of Basketball Operations under NCAA coaching legend Fran Dunphy at Temple University, watching the Owls build back-to-back Atlantic 10 conference championships and regularly embarrass the beloved Penn Quakers in Big Five games. He left Temple to work at the NBA’s Development League. Dwayne is currently the Assistant Coach for the Boston University Men’s Basketball Team. Dwayne has led coaching and player development clinics in TRIAD’s partner communities.
David Leepson, Emmy-winning director, producer, writer of documentary films and television Programming; David’s groundbreaking sports and popular culture documentaries earned him a commission from the Global Fund to produce two films about the HIV pandemic in Africa in conjunction with the 2005 G-8 meetings and the Live-8 concerts. Tracking the Monster, featuring Ashley Judd and India.Arie was shot on location over several months in Madagascar and Kenya. It was simulcasted globally during the Live-8 concerts and on Viacom’s networks to more than 2 billion viewers. His experience and frustration with the failure of international NGOs to create locally-sustainable programs was the impetus behind the formation of TRIAD. David worked for many years as a producer for HBO Sports, Fox Sports, and is the creator of Emmy-winning SportsScience. He is a graduate of the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University.
Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Musician and Human Rights Advocate. Becky is the Special Projects Coordinator for Witness, the NGO started by Peter Gabriel. Witness is dedicated to getting documentary equipment into the hands of those suffering human rights violations. After graduating from Wesleyan, Becky spent years working at the International Center for Transitional Justice, with Dr Alex Boraine, the co-commissioner of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which spent years listening to testimony of victims and perpetrators of violent crimes during the Apartheid era. In addition to her work with Witness and ICTJ, Becky performs, writes, and collaborates on projects with musicians, artists, activists and politicians such as National Book Award/Pulitzer Prize/Tony/three-time Grammy-winner Maya Angelou, the B-52s, Harry Belafonte, Ani DiFranco, Peter Gabriel, the Indigo Girls, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Paul Simon, Youssou N’dour, Sir Paul McCartney, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Coldplay, U2, and Eric Clapton.
Ernie Nestor, Basketball Coach; Ernie is a legend in NCAA basketball circles, having coached since 1976. As assistant coach for Wake Forest’s men’s team for 14 seasons (in two stints), Ernie helped the Demon Deacons get to the postseason every season from 1993 until 2001. Wake won the ‘95 and ‘96 ACC championships, made it to the ‘96 NCAA regional final, and won the 2000 NIT championship. Ernie served as the head coach at George Mason University from 1988-93 and at Elon from 2003-09. He also was assistant coach at James Madison University, Cal, and University of South Carolina. Ernie runs TRIAD’s basketball coaching certification programs.