meet the team

Black and white headshot of Adar Ayira with a blue circle halo.

  • Director of Contract Services, Board Member, Founder

    Adar has more than 25 years of management and organizational development, membership, and TA experience gained through her tenure in both locally-and nationally-focused nonprofit, community-based, social justice organizations. She is Principal Consultant of Ayira Core Concepts LLC (ACC-LLC), a boutique consulting firm that provides Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression / Equity education and facilitation and skills development; strategic planning; technical assistance; organizational, board, and program development; executive coaching; and project management for nonprofit organizations and corporations.

Black and white headshot of Rebecca Hade Pobee with a blue circle halo.

  • Staff Consultant

    Rebecca is an antiracism/anti-oppression facilitator, executive  coach, and client project manager. She has been working at Baltimore Racial Justice Action for five years and is passionate about working with individuals and organizations on seeing the historical and structural landscape of racism surrounding and impacting them and deconstructing the ways their individual actions and institutional policies, practices, procedures, and cultures can uphold racism or promote inclusion.

Black and white headshot of Dana Polson, PhD with a blue circle halo.

  • Staff Consultant

    Dana is an anti-racism/anti-oppression facilitator, executive coach, and client project manager at Baltimore Racial Justice Action. With a 20-year background in public education as a teacher and administrator, she has a strong interest in helping individuals and organizations combine learning, self-reflection, and new practices into transformative change.

Advisory Board

Black and white headshot of Dottye Burt Markowitz with a blue circle halo.
Black and white headshot of Julia Scott with a blue circle halo.

  • Founder

    Dottye worked as a racial justice educator trainer and consultant for over nearly 30 years. She is a co-founder of Baltimore Racial Justice Action along with her husband Stan Markowitz (now deceased). As a white child growing up in East St. Louis, Illinois, she witnessed everyday blatant racism against Black people. Attending college at Texas Christian University in the 1960’s she learned how racism affects other people of color with different histories in the U.S. After working as a public aid caseworker in New York City, earning a Ph.D. in physiological psychology at Southern Illinois University and doing postdoctoral work at the University of Florida, she met her future life and work partner while employed as an administrator at Essex Community College in Maryland. Working in the 1980’s with a national peace organization, she saw how predominantly white organizations acted against their own interests by failing to understand how habits of unrecognized white supremacist thinking kept them from achieving their own goals. Studying with Dr. Margo Okazawa-Rey in the 1990’s led her to the work she has done ever since. Her husband, son, and granddaughters, along with her friends and collaborators in the struggle for justice, enable her to grow in understanding and humility in the work she now does on a volunteer basis.

  • Julia was born and raised in Northeast Baltimore. After graduating from Morgan State University, serving in AmeriCorps for two years, and working in non-profits, she completed the BRJA's POC Workshops. This experience motivated her to utilize a racial equity lens in her work, which revolves around using ARAO frameworks to approach leadership programming, community building, liberatory education, and healing. In her everyday job, Julia develops ARAO and DEI-focused education, programs, and events in higher education. At BRJA, she serves as an Advisory Board Member, Primary Trainer, and 13th of the Month Event Co-Coordinator. Julia earned her bachelor's degree in English Literature from Morgan State University. She will earn her Master's in Social Work from the University of Maryland School of Social Work in 2024. She believes that anti-racism and anti-oppression are vital to building a Beloved Community.

Black and white headshot of Erica Taylor, PhD with a blue circle halo.
Black and white headshot of Cristina Meneses with a blue circle halo.

  • Erica is the Health and Social Equity Outcome Lead at MITRE, the operator of the Health Federally Funded Research and Development Center (Health FFRDC). In this role, she helps lead the Health FFRDC’s efforts to develop actionable strategies that will advance equity. Prior to joining MITRE, Dr. Taylor spent 16 years at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Throughout her 23 year career in public health and public policy, she has been an ardent activist for racial equity and social justice.

  • Cristina is civil staff attorney with The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. Throughout her 25 year career, both as an attorney and advocate, Cristina has worked in social justice in various forms: through litigation, legislation, developing trainings for health care providers and other community providers, and providing technical assistance on using a race equity and intersectionality lens in legal and community advocacy. Cristina is a member of Baltimore Racial Justice Action Advisory Board and a facilitator. She’s committed to “anti-oppression” work and meeting people where they are at.

  • Harriet grew up in Woodlawn, Baltimore County and moved to Baltimore City in early adulthood. She is a proven executive leader with almost 20 years of harm reduction service-delivery, training, and advocacy experience. Additionally, she is a founder of two Baltimore City based harm reduction service programs and has provided intensive technical assistance, including training, coaching, and site visits to many emerging programs across the state.  Harriet received her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Sociology from UMBC and her master’s degree in gender studies with a focus on health and sexuality from Towson University. Harriet is a longtime learner with and member of BRJA and has been serving as an advisory board member and senior trainer for over 10 years.

  • As an army brat growing up, Michelle moved all over, including living in Germany. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Africana Studies from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2001. Following graduation, she spent a year serving in AmeriCorps as a School/ Community Coordinator through Greater Homewood. Michelle then became a middle school teacher, teaching Social Studies to 7th graders in Prince Georges County. Soon after the Baltimore uprising following the murder of Freddie Grey, she felt compelled to take BRJA’s workshop for peoples of color. Also during this time, she started a platform called Show Your Luv. The primary goal of this platform is to promote Black-owned businesses. Michelle has continued in her training with BRJA. Today, she proudly serves as a Primary Trainer, Coordinator of “13th of the Month” events, and a member of the Advisory Board.

Black and white headshot of Michelle Duberry with a blue circle halo.
Black and white headshot of Harriet Smith with a blue circle halo.
Black and white headshot of Jackie Simon with a blue circle halo.
Black and white headshot of Tammie Szafran with a blue circle halo.

  • Jackie moved to Baltimore in 2011 to do a year of service through AmeriCorps, and then decided not to leave Baltimore or AmeriCorps. She served and later worked with an education-focused service program for 9 years before joining the agency staff at AmeriCorps. Professionally, her work has always centered around bringing unlikely partners together in the interest of justice and social change. She also spends time outside of her day job volunteering, working part time in the restaurant industry, and running outdoors. She spent most of her youth in Richmond, VA, but her early childhood began in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. While she is been in Baltimore for 13 years, her sports allegiances and favorite foods still remain with her first home, Philadelphia. She studied at Virginia Tech (B.A.), Moulay Ismail University (Meknes, Morocco), and the University of Baltimore (M.P.A.).

  • Tammie is an attorney and advocate with a background in social psychology and a passion for the arts. She grew up in Southeastern Connecticut where the primary approaches to questions of race and culture were colorblindness and exceptionalism. Tammie has served on various Baltimore-area non-profit boards with an eye towards organizational governance, culture, and equity. She took BRJA's foundational Workshop for White People in 2015, when she wanted to engage in meaningful anti-racism work and recognized how little she understood the mechanics of white supremacy and its influence on history, politics and culture. Having taken additional anti-racism workshops, continuing her own learning, and serving in various roles with BRJA since then, Tammie is now excited to serve as an Advisory Board member, supporting BRJA in this new capacity as it looks towards its next 20 years.

Black and white headshot of Ani Sha with a blue circle halo.

Those Upon Whose Shoulders We Stand

In African, Asian and Indigenous traditions, Elders and Ancestors are acknowledged and honored for the ways in which they show us how to be Joyful, Resilient, and Fierce Freedom Fighters in the face of racial oppression. Baltimore has been home to such people, and BRJA honors Those Upon Whose Shoulders We Stand.

Remembering Dianne Dietrich Lyday
Remembering Stan Markowitz
Remembering Avis L. Ransom
Remembering Betty G. Robinson