Staff Directory and Biographies

12 January 1900

BIC Staff Directory

Link to the names below to see a brief biography of each staff member:

BIC Staff Member	Email Address	Direct Telephone
Manish Bapna, Executive Director	mbapna@bicusa.org	202-624-0623
Alvin Carlos, Manager, Finance and Operations	acarlos@bicusa.org	202-624-0628
Jelson Garcia, Mekong/SE Asia	jgarcia@mekong.bicusa.org
George Holliday, Program Manager, Europe and Central Asia	gholliday@bicusa.org	202-624-0634
Eric Holt-Giménez, Program Manager, Latin America	eholtgim@bicusa.org	202-624-0624
Bruce Jenkins, Policy Director	bjenkins@bicusa.org	202-624-0620
Jen Kalafut, Associate, Policy Program	jkalafut@bicusa.org	202-624-0631
Joshua Klemm, Assistant, Africa Program	jklemm@bicusa.org	202-624-0630
Richard Mahapatra, Regional Coordinator, South Asia	rmahapatra@southasia.bicusa.org	+91-11-55344750 (New Delhi)
Paulina Novo, BICECA Coordinator, Latin America	pnovo@bicusa.org	202-624-0621
Nikki Reisch, Program Manager, Africa	nreisch@bicusa.org	202-624-0635
Avilash Roul, Assistant Regional Coordinator, South Asia	aroul@southasia.bicusa.org	+91-11-55344750 (New Delhi)
Karen Showalter, Coordinator, Information Services	kshowalter@bicusa.org; info@bicusa.org	202-624-0632
James Taylor, Assistant, Information Services	jtaylor@bicusa.org	202-624-0636
Mishka Zaman, Program Manager, Asia	mzaman@bicusa.org	202-624-0622

Consultants	Email Address	Direct Telephone
Steve Herz, Consultant, Policy Program	steve.herz@sbcglobal.net; herzgross@aol.com
Heike Mainhardt-Gibbs, Consultant, Europe & Central Asia Program	hmainhardt@bicusa.org	202-624-0634
Lyra Spang, Consultant, Latin America Program	lspang@bicusa.org	202-624-0627

Interns	Email Address	Direct Telephone
Christina Hu, Executive Intern	chu@bicusa.org	202-624-0626
Guneet Kaur, Asia Program	gkaur@bicusa.org	202-624-0629
Nadine Sabet-Sharghi, Latin America Program	nsabet@bicusa.org	202-624-0633
Polina Zajkova, Europe and Central Asia Program	pzajkova@bicusa.org

Staff Biographies

Manish Bapna, Executive Director

Manish Bapna is the Executive Director of the Bank Information Center -- a dynamic, nonprofit organization based in Washington DC. Manish became BIC's Executive Director in 2003 and brings a rare mix of nonprofit, multilateral, and private sector experiences to this position. Prior to BIC, Manish served as a Senior Economist and task team leader at the World Bank in the rural development and environment departments. He led multidisciplinary teams overseeing projects and research on natural resources, agriculture, and local institutions in South and East Asia and Latin America. He is the author or co-author of over a dozen reports and other publications during his seven-year tenure at the World Bank. Manish previously consulted with development NGOs including Seva Mandir (India) and Women's World Banking (USA), and helped establish the Swaraj Foundation - an institute dedicated to promoting new thinking on human learning and empowerment. In an earlier incarnation, Manish worked as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company where he provided management advice in the financial services and technology industries. Manish received an MBA with distinction and an MPA (political and economic development) from Harvard University and a SB from MIT. Return to top

Alvin Carlos, Manager, Finance and Operations

Alvin has been managing BIC’s finances and operations since December 2005. He has previously supported BIC's work on ADB and World Bank projects and policies in Asia. Prior to working at BIC, Alvin was involved with the Sulu-Sulawesi Sea Conservation Project with World Wildlife Fund-Philippines and with various research projects at the Marine Science Institute, University of the Philippines (UP). Alvin received his Masters in Southeast Asian Studies and International Economics, with distinction, from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and holds a Masters degree in Marine Science from UP. He has also taken Financial Management courses from Johns Hopkins University. Alvin is a native Tagalog speaker and is proficient in Indonesian. Return to top

Jelson Garcia, Mekong/SE Asia

Jelson Garcia joins BIC as the Regional Coordinator for Mekong and Southeast Asia. A Filipino national, Jelson has previously worked for a number of local and international groups, which facilitated his close interaction with indigenous communities, federations of farmers, rural workers and fishermen and the demobilized combatants. He coordinated the campaign, advocacy, research and resource generation units of Peace for Development Group, supporting grassroots initiatives for agrarian reform, organic crop diversification, and environmental rehabilitation. He has researched sustainable agriculture alternatives promoted by MASIPAG, a Filipino national network of farmers, scientists and NGOs. He has also led two INGO-funded action research projects on the micro-level impacts of WTO policies as articulated in coastal development, sugar industry, agricultural and forestry programs of the national and local governments.

Prior to his work with CSOs, Jelson was involved with the Office of the Philippine President’s Program for Unification and Development. His most recent employment was with the Humanitarian Competency Program of World Vision-Asia Pacific Disaster Management Office.

Jelson has a background in Philosophy and has completed a degree in Anthropology and Comparative Sociology at Macquarie University (Australia). He's working on his master’s thesis at the University of the Philippines. Return to top

George Holliday, Program Manager, Europe and Central Asia

George joins BIC from the Trade Directorate of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris, where he specialized on foreign economic relations of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and China. In his five years at the OECD, he was responsible for conducting research and facilitating a dialogue on trade and economic issues between representatives of countries in the region and OECD member countries. George also has extensive experience in the U.S. Government. He worked as a specialist in international trade and finance with the Congressional Research Service, where he conducted research and advised members of congress on a wide variety of international economic issues. He also worked in Russia as a representative of the Commercial Law Development Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

George has authored and coauthored numerous reports and publications on international economics. His major research interests include trade policy, technology transfer, and economic conditions in Russia, Eastern Europe and China. He received his BA and PhD degrees in International Relations from the George Washington University. He speaks Russian and French. Return to top

Eric Holt-Giménez, Program Manager, Latin America

Eric Holt-Giménez has worked for twenty-five years with research institutes, universities, non-governmental organizations, grassroots coalitions, and the Campesino a Campesino (farmer-to-farmer) movement in Mexico, Central America, South Africa, California, and the Philippines. Working extensively with smallholders and rural communities in the dry tropics and in the humid-tropical “agricultural frontier,” he specialized in action research and farmer- led approaches to sustainable agriculture, conservation, and watershed management. He taught courses in Social Movements, Agroecology, and Environmental Studies at U.C. Santa Cruz. For the last two years, Eric taught a 6-country, international field course the Political Economy of Development for Boston University’s International Honors Program in Global Ecology. He holds a B.A. in Biology/Education from the Evergreen State College, a M.Sc. in International Agricultural Development from U.C. Davis, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from U.C. Santa Cruz. Return to top

Bruce Jenkins, Policy Director

Bruce became BIC's Policy Director in July 2001. Since joining the staff, Bruce has focused on the World Bank’s safeguard policy framework, the IDA-13 replenishment process, the Bank’s inconsistent approach to civil society policy consultations, and the issue of misaligned internal incentives at the Bank that contribute to poor policy compliance and inattention to sustainable development practices. Bruce joins BIC with a strong background in democratization and conflict issues in developing countries, having served as Executive Director of The Albert Einstein Institution from 1995-2000.

Bruce has extensive international experience working with both policy makers and civil society groups, having developed and coordinated consultations and workshops for leaders and activists from Burma, Tibet, the Baltic States, and other areas on nonviolent democratization processes. In addition to conflict studies and international relations, Bruce has studied political economy, trade controls, and international financial institutions. He holds degrees from the University of New Hampshire and the Freie Universitaet Berlin. Return to top

Jen Kalafut, Associate, Policy Program

Jen joined BIC in the beginning of January 2003. She concentrates on two areas: transparency at the Multilateral Development Banks and policy development and analysis at these institutions. Before starting at BIC, Jen worked with the Central and Eastern European Bankwatch Network as the National Coordinator for the Slovak Republic. She's spent over two years in central Europe working with environmental organizations on regional development issues. Jen spent the months previous to the 2002 mid-term elections conducting research for Project Vote Smart, a non-partisan voter's information library. Her background is in Public Administration, with a concentration on NGO development in an international environment. Return to top

Joshua Klemm, Assistant, Africa Program

Joshua became BIC’s Africa Program Assistant in April 2006 after spending a year and a half with the local Transparency International chapter in Freetown, Sierra Leone, the National Accountability Group. He worked with NAG from the time its office began operations, heading its research team while training the local staff on project development, report writing and basic computer literacy. He also served as a consultant with the Centre for Economic and Social Policy Analysis (CESPA), a Sierra Leonean think tank, in conducting a nationwide Service Delivery Perception Survey of the health, education and agriculture sectors in 2006. Joshua received a B.A. degree from James Madison University in International Affairs, and spent two semesters abroad at the University of Ghana-Legon, where he interned part-time at the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development. He speaks French and Sierra Leone Krio, and is married to a Sierra Leonean. Return to top

Richard Mahapatra, Coordinator, South Asia

Richard Mahapatra is BIC's South Asia Regional Coordinator since April 2005. Richard is responsible for supporting civil society organizations in South Asia through information provision on the role and activities of MDBs in the region, monitoring of specific MDB projects, and provision of in-country training and on-going advocacy support. Before joining BIC, Richard was the coordinator of Delhi-based NGO Center for Science and Environment (CSE)'s environment and poverty unit, where, for seven and a half years, he conceived, designed and led campaigns on sustainable development. During his tenure as the news coordinator of the Delhi-based environment magazine Down To Earth, he reported extensively on environment-poverty linkages in rural areas, people’s movements for rights over natural resources, and other livelihood issues. Before CSE, he worked as a correspondent in mainstream media for five years, focusing on northeastern India. Return to top

Heike Mainhardt-Gibbs, Consultant, Europe and Central Asia Program

Heike has worked for more than twelve years in the environment and development fields for both the private and nonprofit sectors and has consulted to a wide range of organizations, including NGOs, the US government, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change. Heike’s areas of expertise include policy lending of the multilateral development banks, climate change, and extractive industries. Prior to joining BIC, Heike was a Senior Program Officer with the Macroeconomics Program Office of World Wildlife Fund where she headed the Development Policy and Strategic Environmental Planning program. From 1995 to 2000, she was a consultant in the Global Environmental Issues Group of ICF Consulting in Washington, DC. She also facilitated community watershed monitoring projects for more than five years in Russia, Peru, the United States, and a Native American Reservation.

Heike received her M.A. in Development Economics and International Environmental Policy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and holds a B.S. from the University of Michigan in Environmental Science. She has lived in Russia and Indonesia and has conducted research in Peru, Tanzania, Bolivia, and Vietnam. Return to top

Paulina Novo, BICECA Coordinator, Latin America

Paulina Novo joined BIC's Latin America Program on October 1st. Paulina is the Washington DC project coordinator for BICECA—Building Informed Civic Engagement for Conservation in the Andes-Amazon. She joins BIC with a background in International Relations, International Business, and Human Rights. A native of Mexico, Paulina worked previously on food sovereignty, land reform, AIDS, refugee rights and peace and justice issues in the US, Cuba, Thailand, Mexico, Southern Africa, Europe and Brazil.

Paulina has 10 years experience working on human rights issues with community-based groups, civil society organizations and academia as well as with international organization and social movements.

Most recently she was Director’s Assistant at Pesticide Action Network, coordinated the re-shaping of the Global Food System Program at The Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First), and worked with the Peace Campaign as the human rights coordinator at Global Exchange, in San Francisco, Califonia. She has a B.A. in International Business from El Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM) and continued her studies on International Relations at San Francisco State University. Return to top

Nikki Reisch, Program Manager, Africa

Nikki became BIC's Africa Program Coordinator in November 2002. She joins BIC with a background in international political economy and development. From 1999-2001, Nikki served as a public health and community development worker in southeastern Senegal, where she coordinated trainings for health educators, advised the local health district on service delivery improvements, taught microenterprise strategy, and facilitated community access to technical and financial resources. As a policy analyst and researcher in South Africa during 1997-1998, Nikki helped draft an audit of the ANC's Reconstruction and Development Program and studies of municipal service privatization, with an emphasis on the water sector. She has a B.A. in Ethics, Politics and Economics from Yale University and speaks French, Pulaar, and Wolof. Return to top

Avilash Roul, Assistant South Asia Regional Coordinator

Avilash Roul is the Assistant South Asia Regional Coordinator of BIC as of July 7, 2005. Before joining BIC, Avilash worked with the Delhi-based Society for Study of Peace and Conflicts as a Research Associate. He has published extensively on international negotiations, river disputes and water issues in South Asia in various national newspapers and journals. He also worked as a researcher in the environment and poverty unit of Delhi-based NGO Center for Science and Environment (CSE). A doctoral student of Jawaharlal Nehru University, he has been researching water security in South Asian context.

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Karen Showalter, Coordinator, Information Services Program

Karen joined BIC as the Information Services Program Coordinator in July 2005. From 2000 to 2003 she coordinated public relations and outreach for an nonprofit organization serving primarily refugee children. Karen also served as a Natural Resource Management Specialist with the Peace Corps in Niger from 1996 to 1999, where she spearheaded soil restoration and reforestation efforts, designed environmental education campaigns and trained local counterparts in participatory analysis techniques. She has also worked with microcredit, refugee resettlement and community gardening programs in the United States. Karen holds a B.A. in History from the University of Michigan, and an MPA focusing on International Development from the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. Return to top

Lyra Spang, Research Fellow, Latin America Program

Lyra has been with BIC since February 2005. She provides support to the Latin America Program, especially focusing on infrastructure integration and mining initiatives being financed by the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and other smaller regional development banks. Additionally, Lyra has been in charge of creating an initial database of 400 regional integration projects in South America and is extensively involved in work on the LAC program’s three year project on the IIRSA integration scheme, Building Informed Civic Engagement for the Conservation of the Andes-Amazon (BICECA). January- July 2006 she will be collaborating as BIC’s research fellow with a partner organization in Córdoba, Argentina on IIRSA and access to justice issues. Prior to her time at BIC, Lyra worked on issues of Sustainable Agriculture and Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) at Friends of the Earth US and with the IDB Civil Society Initiative at InterAction. Lyra studied at the Universidad de Autónoma in Madrid and graduated summa cum laude from George Washington University in Washington DC with a B.A. in Development Anthropology and minors in Fine Arts and Spanish. She speaks Spanish and elementary Portuguese. Return to top

James Taylor, Assistant, Information Services

James joined BIC as the Information Services Assistant in January 2006. A recent graduate of the College of William and Mary, James received a B.A in the Ethics of International Affairs, a self-designed concentration. James has conducted research in Nepal, studied international trade in New Zealand and participated in sustainable development projects in South Africa. At BIC, James assists with the collection, organization and circulation of information to hundreds of partner organizations in the developed and developing world while facilitating the access of NGOs and social movements into the MDB’s public information channels. He is a Canadian national and a fluent French speaker. Return to top

Mishka Zaman, Program Manager, Asia

Mishka joined BIC in February 2003 to work as Program Manager for the Asia region. She works on ADB and WB projects and policies as they relate to Asia. Prior to joining BIC, she worked at ActionAid-USA as Programme Officer of the US-India Programme. Mishka is originally from Peshawar, Pakistan, and has worked for six years as the Program Manager of the Pakistani rural development and advocacy NGO, SUNGI Development Foundation. SUNGI undertakes service delivery and advocacy campaigns with the participation and leadership of local communities. Her work at SUNGI gave her the opportunity to work on a provincial forestry reform campaign, a national NGO legislation campaign, and a nation-wide local government reform campaign. She has also coordinated several NGO coalitions and has assisted affectees of MDB-funded projects to develop advocacy campaigns aimed at securing their rights. Mishka received her educational degrees from Vassar College (USA) and SOAS (University of London) and speaks Urdu and Pushto. Return to top

Interns

Christina Hu, Executive Intern

Christina joined BIC in April, 2006, as Executive Intern. She serves as office support to Manish Bapna, the Executive Director, and Alvin Carlos, Finance and Operations Manager. Christina graduated from University of Virginia in 2003 with a B.A. in International Relations, and spent two years in Kirovograd, Ukraine, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Prior to her internship with BIC, she had interned with United Nations Information Center and with Parliamentarian Gerd Bollermann’s Constituent Office in Dortmund, Germany. She was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and she is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. She is pursuing a Masters degree in Public Policy at Harvard University.

Guneet Kaur, Asia Program

Guneet joined BIC in June 2006, as an Intern. She works with Mishka Zaman in the Asia Program. She is presently pursuing a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning with a focus on International Development from Virginia Polytechnic and State University. She has a bachelor’s degree in Planning from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. Prior to her internship with BIC, Guneet worked for a year in India with Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural and Institute for Social Sciences. Her other intern experience was with Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development for Societies and Infrastructure Professional Enterprises (P) Ltd.

Nadine Sabet-Sharghi, LAC Program intern

Nadine Sabet-Sharghi joins BIC as a summer intern for the Latin America program’s BICECA project. She grew up in the United States but is strongly influenced by her Iranian heritage as well as several summers on a socio-economic development project in San Ignacio, Belize. She previously interned at the Bahá’í Office of External Affairs, and will a complete a degree in International Studies with an Economic Policy concentration from American University in May 2007. She speaks fluent Spanish and continues her studies in Farsi and Arabic.

Polina Zajkova, ECA Program intern

Polina Zajkova joins BIC as an ECA intern this summer. Polina graduated from Binghamton University with a BA in Comparative Literature. She is currently pursuing an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University (SAIS). Prior to her internship with BIC, Polina worked as an intern at Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and the Smithsonian Office of Government Relations in Washington, DC. Polina is fluent in Russian and German.