Michelle de la Uz

Michelle de la Uz became the Fifth Avenue Committee’s (FAC) Executive Director in January 2004. Prior to joining FAC, Michelle was program director for the uptown sites of the Center for Urban Community Services in Washington Heights and Harlem, where she oversaw services in supportive housing for 400 low-income tenants and managed a staff of 30. Previously she was Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez’s first director of constituent services and directed her South Brooklyn District Office. Michelle is the first in her working-class immigrant family to graduate from college and is a product of bilingual education. She is a long-time Park Slope resident, a former trustee of Connecticut College, the recipient of the Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World award and is now President of the Board of Directors of ANHD (Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development). Recently, Michelle was accepted into Fannie Mae’s NeighborWorks Achieving Excellence in Community Development program at Harvard University.

Michelle was a MPP juror.

Anusha Venkataraman

Anusha Venkataraman is an urban planner, writer, artist, and activist. She is presently the Director of the Green Light District initiative at El Puente, a community human rights institution in Brooklyn, NY. She has worked with numerous community groups in local organizing efforts, and as a visual artist both individually and with collectives. In 2010, she edited Intractable Democracy: Fifty Years of Community-Based Planning, a book celebrating New York City’s legacy of grassroots neighborhood-based activism. Anusha was the Youth and Outreach Director at the Steel Yard in Providence, Rhode Island. She holds a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute, and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Brown University. She served on a 2013 Public Access Design jury.

Minh Anh Vo

Minh Anh Vo is one half of Papercut, along with Victor Schuft. Minh Anh & Victor are two French graphic designers, though their names may sound either Vietnamese or German. Minh Anh was born in Annecy and grew up in Paris. Victor comes from Troyes. They met in Brussels, where they studied Graphic Design and Typography at La Cambre School of Arts. After graduating in 2006, they decided to move to Los Angeles and eventually got married at LAX. They are now living and working in Brooklyn. Papercut worked with CUP to design the Fracking in the Delaware River WatershedMPP.

Maya Wiley

Maya Wiley is the Founder and President of the Center for Social Inclusion, a national public policy strategy organization that unites policy research and grassroots advocacy. As a civil rights attorney and policy advocate, Ms. Wiley has litigated numerous cases, lobbied Congress and developed programs to transform structural racism in the US and abroad. 
Prior to founding the Center for Social Inclusion, Maya was a senior advisor on race and poverty to the Director of U.S. Programs of the Open Society Institute and helped develop and implement the Open Society Foundation – South Africa’s Criminal Justice Initiative. She has worked for the American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Department, in the Poverty and Justice Program of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. and in the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Maya previously served on the boards of Human Rights Watch, the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota School of Law and the Council on Foreign Relations. She currently chairs the Tides Network Board and was named a NY Moves magazine 2009 Power Woman. In 2011 Wiley was named as one of “20 Leading Black Women Social Activists Advocating Change” by The Root.com.

Maya was a MPP juror.

Elizabeth C. Yeampierre

Elizabeth C. Yeampierre is a Puerto Rican civil rights attorney of African and Indigenous ancestry born and raised in New York City. She is Executive Director ofUPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community based organization. Her vision for an inter-generational, multi-cultural and community led organization is the driving force behind UPROSE; she is a long-time advocate and trailblazer for community organizing around sustainable just development in Sunset Park. She holds a BA from Fordham University and a law degree from Northeastern University.

Sondra Youdelman

Sondra has been at CVH since 2000 and was named the organization’s Executive Director in March 2007; she was previously CVH’s Director of Public Policy and Research. Sondra has worked both in the United States and abroad to achieve social and economic justice through organizing. She has over 15 years experience as an organizer and activist with grassroots groups including farm workers, Native Americans, public housing residents, and low-income workers in the United States, and abroad for various populations throughout Latin America and in several African countries. She obtained a Master’s Degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School in order to gain policy analysis tools to bring back to the grassroots. She also has a BA in American Studies focusing on Oppression and Revolution from Wesleyan University.

Sondra was a MPP juror.