Meet 3 Wonderful Women

I am thrilled and honored to introduce to you the 3 amazing women who have agreed to serve on my thesis committee. Please take a moment to meet them. These women are not only beautiful and intelligent, but powerful allies; academics/professionals invested and interested in listening to our stories. They bring an incredible range of personal/professional experience and expertise to the table in helping me refine and move my research towards publication. They are fabulous and I am deeply grateful for their contributions...

Sheila Capestany

Sheila Capestany has over twenty years of experience in nonprofit leadership, strategic planning and policy work. In addition she has extensive experience in bringing multiculturalism and anti-oppression work into systems and organizations. Sheila holds a Master of Public Health and a Master of Social Work from the University of Washington. She currently serves as Executive Director of Open Arms Perinatal Services, a community-based nonprofit whose purpose is to provide community-based support to pregnant women and their families. Sheila has served in positions with the Seattle City Council, Seattle Human Services Department, Public Health Seattle & King County and Big Sisters of King County. She is passionate about community work and the well being of women, children and families. Sheila and her husband have three children.

Dr. Wei Li-Chen

Wei Li-Chen was born, raised, then worked and had her undergraduate education in China. After she came to the United States with a one-year UNICEF fellowship, Wei completed her Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Early Childhood Education in University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where she met her husband who also came from China and contributed the “Chen” part in her current last name. Personally and professionally a main focus has been parenting her two U.S. born children to be bilingual (Chinese/English) and bicultural persons (Chinese/American). Wei lived in the Seattle area for 11 years, served as a Core Faculty and Academic Director of Human Development Program for Pacific Oaks College Northwest, and was the Lead Researcher for Asian/Pacific Islander Child Care Needs Assessment in King County, 2000. Following, she lived and worked in Shanghai, China with her family for 8 years. Wei currently lives in Southern California.

Lu Pilgrim

Lu Pilgrim has been active in the field of Human Development most of her 78 years as a student and a teacher, occupations that, from her point of view, tend to intertwine.  Her formal education, B.A. and M.S. was completed at Utah State University and the University of Utah, the places she found herself when the time was ripe. A number of other institutions of learning contributed to those degrees along the way over a period of 40 years.  Her vastly more important education she says, has been life long and springs from life experience, nature, observation, self-reflection and mentors of the moment, of whom there have been many. Lu is currently a faculty member at Pacific Oaks College. She has lived in many places but presently makes her home near Ann Arbor, Michigan where she gardens, experiments with recipes, writes, mentors students who are pursuing ongoing education, and enjoys the companionship of family, friends and pets.