Interests - Personal

I am the proud parent of a daughter, Ella, who is a dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, and singer. I have been married to Germai Medhanie, an Eritrean immigrant, since 2007. We live, with our three cats, in Cambridge, in Cornerstone Cohousing -- an intentional community run by consensus that has individual units as well as a shared kitchen and dining room, children’s space, exercise room, workshop, compost system, meeting rooms, and frequent community meetings. My family participates actively in the Cambridge Time Trade Circle. I speak English, Spanish, and French, and enjoy cooking and eating healthy, organic food; walking and biking; communing with nature; travel; and political activism. 

I am an activist academic, committed to shifting our economy and society to a more just and sustainable paradigm. I am a member of the Union for Radical Political Economists, Marxist-Feminist I, and the International Association for Feminist Economists, and have presented papers at and participated in many of their conferences. I was active in organizing blocks of sessions on economic alternatives and the solidarity economy, and presenting research on this topic, at the two U.S. Social Forums (Atlanta 2007, Detroit 2010), and at the World Social Forum (Belem 2009).  I am a co-founder and board member of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network (SEN), as well as the convenor of its Research and Policy Working Group, and of the Boston Area Solidarity Economy Network (BASEN).