Originally from Brooklyn, N.Y. Tyisha attended Penn State University, obtaining a dual BA in Political Science and Communications. She went on to obtain her Master’s Degree in International Affairs from New School University in New York City. Upon completing her Master’s Tyisha joined the Peace Corps. She spent two years working in Swaziland, focusing on […]
Tyisha N. Burroughs | The Global Switchboard | Hub
Originally from Brooklyn, N.Y. Tyisha attended Penn State University, obtaining a dual BA in Political Science and Communications. She went on to obtain her Master’s Degree in International Affairs from New School University in New York City. Upon completing her Master’s Tyisha joined the Peace Corps. She spent two years working in Swaziland, focusing on female empowerment, and education, helping to create the country’s first National Robotics Competition.
Originally from a small town in southern Indiana, Zach moved to Pittsburgh in 2013 to attend the University of Pittsburgh. While an undergraduate, Zach explored possibilities for student service learning that bridged global and local action and engagement. His academic work also focused on opportunities for transnational queer solidarity and cross-cultural understandings of gender and sexuality.
Nathan completed his graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh in public health and international development before beginning work with Amizade Global Service Learning in 2009. He was Amizade’s site director in Brazil for a few years before becoming a Project Director responsible for designing health science programs, overseeing Brazil site development, and leading a variety of Pittsburgh-based initiatives. In 2014 he helped launch The Global Switchboard as a project of Amizade and in 2016 accepted the role of Executive director of The Switchboard following our transition to an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
Nathan is a former member of the Welcoming Pittsburgh Advisory Council through the Office of the Mayor for the City of Pittsburgh, and the host and organizer of CreativeMornings Pittsburgh, a breakfast lecture series for the creative community.
Alaa is an Egyptian-American who obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Bachelor of Philosophy in Global Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. After graduation, she became a PULSE fellow and served at The Global Switchboard. Following her year of service, she joined The Global Switchboard team full time.
Betty Cruz is a passionate community advocate and a leader in Pittsburgh’s effort to welcome immigrants to the region. As the founder and director of Change Agency, Betty works to advance civic initiatives that support community change efforts. Through programs like All for All, she forges connections across sectors to ensure that Pittsburgh’s global community is considered and included in policies and programs.
Before founding Change Agency, Betty worked as the Deputy Chief of Special Initiatives for Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, where among her many projects she worked to establish the Welcoming Pittsburgh initiative to cultivate a plan for a more inclusive and welcoming Pittsburgh region.
Betty is a first-generation Cuban-American with a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Pittsburgh and nearly 20 years of experience in community outreach, communications, partnership-building, and program management. She is “Miamian by birth, Pittsburgher by choice,” and a member of The Global Switchboard.
Brandon Blache-Cohen, named one of Pittsburgh’s 40 under 40 in 2012, has over ten years of experience in the nonprofit, service-learning, and international education sectors. Blache-Cohen first began experimenting with social entrepreneurship and service-learning while an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh. After sailing on Semester at Sea, he combined his passions of travel and social justice by helping to create a student-initiated NGO, FORGE. As Associate Director of FORGE he worked in three refugee camps in Zambia and Botswana on a slew of small-scale development projects. Since then, Blache-Cohen has worked in development for the Tahirih Justice Center in Washington, DC, as a researcher and program assistant for aids2031 in Worcester, MA, and as a consultant for several other small nonprofits and foundations.
In 2007, Blache-Cohen was named as a Social Change Fellow at Clark University, where he earned an MA in International Development and Social Change, focusing on nonprofit/NGO management. In addition to his work with Amizade, Blache-Cohen was a US delegate to the One Young World Summit in Zurich, Switzerland in 2011, has published several articles on responsible global service-learning in peer-reviewed journals, and since 2009 has sat on a planning committee for the Pittsburgh Holocaust Center. To date, Cohen has worked, studied, or traveled in around 70 countries, and has work authorization in the US and EU.
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