Board

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Mack Abbot
Member

Mack Abbot is an investor, expert on all matters ESG and devoted uncle. Mack is a Director at Starboard Value. Previously, Mack was a Vice President at BlackRock in the Investment Stewardship group where he was the lead analyst for the U.S. Software sector. Mack was responsible for the evaluation of environmental, social and governance factors at companies within the portfolio and led all engagement with the boards and management teams at these companies. Mack is a regularly featured speaker and panelist at investment conferences throughout the country. Mack received an M.B.A. from the Darden School of Business at The University of Virginia and graduated from Georgetown University where he received a B.A. in Government.

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Criscillia Benford, PhD
Chair

Dr. Criscillia Benford works toward a future where digital tech supports human wellbeing by respecting—at all levels of design and business practice—the autonomy, attention, and creativity of humans, especially children. Findings from her research into the link between digital tech, human attention, and wellbeing appear in the Journal of Neural Computation. Criscillia has taught at the University of Chicago, Duke, and Stanford. She earned her PhD in English from Stanford where she began formal study of the power of media design to influence perception and metacognition, and specialized in Narratology and Victorian Literature.

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Gaia Bernstein
Member

Gaia Bernstein is a law professor, co-director of the Institute for Privacy Protection and co-director of the Gibbons Institute for Law Science and Technology at the Seton Hall University School of Law. She is the author of the book: Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies, which  draws out the legal action that can pressure the technology industry to re-design its products to reduce technology addiction. Gaia has spearheaded Seton Hall’s pioneering and nationally acclaimed Student-Parent Outreach Program, which addressed over-use of screens by children. She is also the mother of three children who grew up in a world of smartphones, iPads and social networks.

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Aparna Brown, PhD
Member

Aparna Brown is the Director of Operations for BirdBrain Technologies, an educational robotics company that spun out of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. Aparna oversees BirdBrain’s philanthropic efforts, including a robot loan program which has reached over 190,000 students who might not ordinarily have the opportunity to learn computer science as part of their typical classroom experience. Prior to joining BirdBrain, Aparna spent eight years at home raising a child as commercial-free as possible. Aparna holds a Ph.D. in Developmental Neuroscience from Stanford University.

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Nathan Dungan
Member

Nathan Dungan is the founder and president of Share Save Spend®. For over 20 years, he has worked with thousands of families to help them align their values with their money decisions. Nathan speaks and consults internationally with organizations and families on the topic of money and the effects of consumer culture on money habits. He is the author of three books; Money Sanity Solutions: Linking Money + MeaningPersonal Finance: A Lifetime Responsibility and Prodigal Sons and Material Girls: How Not to Be Your Child’s ATM. Nathan’s newest resource, Money Sanity U® is a subscription-based virtual learning platform designed to improve the financial wellbeing of youth and adults by addressing a variety of money topics in a highly interactive format.

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David Jay
Member

David Jay is an experienced organizer in the movement to protect kids online. David is the founder of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, an online supportive community that has been disproportionately serving young people for over 20 years. David is also an experienced software developer who, since 2019, has been organizing fellow technologists to address the impact of social media on youth mental health. As the former Chief Mobilization Officer at the Center for Humane Technology, David has extensive experience navigating the tech ecosystem of Silicon Valley to inform and support meaningful tech reform. David regularly writes and speaks about the importance of centering both online spaces and movements for social change on the work of building relationship.

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John C. Mack
Member

John Mack is an author, artist, and founder of the nonprofit, Life Calling. Over the past decade, John has brought to the forefront deeper issues of our humanity in light of our increasing dependence on smart devices and rising AI. Mack was an honoree of The Explorer’s Club 50: Fifty people changing the world, who the world needs to know about. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and leading universities on the subjects of technology, awareness, and consciousness and has served as an adjunct lecturer for the Graduate Program of Design at the University of Lisbon. He is a member of Forward Global, The Conduit, Nexus Global, and a strategic collaborator of the Be Kind Tech Fund by Globant Ventures.

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Laura Marquez-Garrett
Member

Laura Marquez-Garrett is a 2002 Harvard Law School graduate who spent the first twenty years of their career in Big Law, overseeing complex litigation matters and specializing in electronic evidence and forensic investigation. In January of 2022, Laura left their predominantly defense-oriented practice and law firm partnership to join the Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC), a small start-up law firm dedicated to holding social media companies accountable for the harms they are causing to children and families. Since then, Laura has met with hundreds of families and initiated more than a hundred complaints relating to social media harms, advocated in support of state and federal level legislation, and spoken on various panels, podcasts, films, and before the House Energy & Commerce Committee in efforts to compel change and hold social media companies accountable.

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Kathleen Lauster
Clerk

Kathleen Lauster, CFA is a Managing Director and Group Head of Fairfield Capital Advisors, a boutique investment bank offering guidance to middle market companies, in times of prosperity and in times of distress. She has over 20 years of global financial services and commercial real estate experience, working for and advising firms in Europe and the U.S. with their capital raises, mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, asset management, and valuation. Her clients have ranged from early-stage ventures to Fortune 500 firms. Prior to joining Fairfield, Kathleen was a banker at Silver Leaf Partners and Houlihan Lokey. She is also the mother of a tween boy, navigating the challenges of technology, screen time and online privacy in the 21st century.

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Jonathan Spack
Treasurer

Jonathan Spack was CEO of Third Sector New England for 34 years. During his tenure, TSNE grew dramatically, becoming a national leader in nonprofit capacity-building, including fiscal sponsorship, succession planning and social purpose real estate. Jonathan was a co-founder of the National Network of Fiscal Sponsors, the Nonprofit Centers Network and the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network and was co-creator of the Nonprofit Quarterly. He spearheaded TSNE’s acquisition and development of the NonProfit Center in Boston as a focal point of social justice in the city. He holds a BA from Brandeis University, a Master’s in Human Services Management from the Heller School at Brandeis, and a JD from NYU.

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Danielle Oristian York
Vice Chair

Danielle Oristian York is a speaker and consultant working with those who seek to change the future through a strategic and operational exploration of values and identity. She is an expert on multigenerational philanthropy and family decision making. As executive director of 21/64, a nonprofit practice founded to serve philanthropic and enterprising families, she and her partners develop and train on catalytic tools for transforming how individuals and families articulate values that motivate them and use them as benchmarks for decision making. Prior to joining the 21/64 Team, Danielle worked at UBS and Pitcairn Family office. She is married, with two children, and lives on the south shore of Boston.