The staff who lead and coordinate IDP’s programs and courses.
Staff
IDP Leadership Team
Adi Grabiner-Keinan, Ph.D.
Executive Director for Academic DEI Education
Director, Intergroup Dialogue Project
Adi joined IDP in 2015 as the Program Director. She became the Executive Director for Undergraduate Diversity Education in June 2019 and the Executive Director for Academic DEI Education in June 2021. Working closely with Cornell’s academic units and leadership, Adi develops and leads campus-wide educational opportunities focusing on four key development areas: human connection, social identity, intergroup communication, and strategic change. By creating optimal conditions for multi-phase and multi-party processes for faculty, students, and student-facing staff, she promotes the expansion of academic DEI education on campus in a direction that supports the evolving needs of the University. As part of her role, Adi provides strategic guidance to Cornell’s academic leadership on the development, implementation, and assessment of frameworks, programs aiming to raise awareness about DEI issues, support behavioral change at personal and interpersonal levels, and influence institutional climate.
Adi’s doctoral research examined the Israeli Left and political activism in Israel/Palestine. As a graduate student at Cornell University, she taught classes on the politics of protest and issues related to social justice. Before coming to Cornell she served as the Academic Administrator for Experiential Learning at Brandeis University, where she worked with faculty to incorporate experiential learning and reflective practice into their courses, and created opportunities for students to construct knowledge from direct experience. In Israel she worked with students and educators from different communities and backgrounds on issues related to identity, leadership, and community building. Adi received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cornell University, her M.A. in Cultural Production from Brandeis University and her B.A. in History from Tel Aviv University.
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Jazlin Gomez Garner, M.P.A.
Pedagogy Specialist
Jazlin was first introduced to IDP as an undergraduate at Cornell, and since then has been a facilitator, coach, curriculum developer, and student engagement coordinator. Jazlin studied inequality through majors in Sociology, English, and Performing and Media Arts as an undergraduate, and went on to complete her MPA in Human Rights and Social Justice at the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs. As IDP’s pedagogy specialist, Jazlin is responsible for providing leadership and implementation of Intergroup Dialogue programs for a wide range of campus constituents. She is also the co-instructor for EDUC 2610 (Intergroup Dialogue) and for our course for graduate students. She supports our training and curriculum development for student facilitators.
Julia Felice, Ph.D.
Engagement Specialist
Julia came to Cornell as a Ph.D. student with a focus on promoting equity and justice in public health and a passion for doing so in and through academic contexts. She has since had many roles at Cornell, including leader of a diverse, cross-College undergraduate program, instructor, academic advisor, curriculum developer, researcher, and research mentor. Julia’s first exposure to the IDP, her engagement with the second iteration of its course for faculty advisors, powerfully and positively challenged her approaches to advising, teaching, and collaboration. As IDP’s Engagement Specialist, Julia leads the development of new opportunities for students, faculty, and student-facing staff to engage in meaningful educational processes and provides consultation and support to Cornell staff and faculty who are working to create inclusive communities for undergraduate students on campus.
Kellie Ochs, B.S.
Program and Teaching Assistant
Kellie graduated from Cornell with a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations. Her first exposure to IDP was as a junior, when she enrolled in EDUC 2610 and fell in love with the program’s mission. She went on to join IDP as a facilitator, where she facilitated a gender and a race section, as well as workshops with different campus communities. She is so excited to be working with IDP as full time staff member, and to continue to be a part of the program’s growth and impact. In her current role, Kellie serves as a coach on the EDUC 2610 teaching team and provides administrative and logistical support to keep IDP’s offerings running smoothly.
Natasha Steinhall, B.S.
Program Coordinator
Natasha completed her B.S. in Animal Science at Cornell, where she first discovered the Intergroup Dialogue Project in her senior year. She went on to facilitate the course and continued to be involved with the program after she graduated, first as a facilitator, and later as the program assistant. As the program coordinator, Natasha is responsible for the day-to-day management of operational areas of the program, as well as developing and implementing operating procedures and practices. Natasha previously volunteered as a tutor with Tompkins Learning Partners, helping ESL students prepare for their U.S. citizenship tests. Having undergone the transformative experience that is intergroup dialogue first-hand, there is nowhere else Natasha would rather be working.
Rachel Sumner, Ph.D.
Associate Director
Rachel arrived at Cornell as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Human Development, where her dissertation focused on the development of purpose in life and identity among college students and adults. Through subsequent roles in a nonprofit organization and then at Cornell’s Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research she collaborated with youth work practitioners to use data as a tool for understanding and informing programmatic decisions. In January 2017 Rachel participated in the second IDP session for graduate/professional students and postdocs; she’s been grateful to continue her involvement with IDP since then, first as a co-facilitator/coach and now as associate director.
Rachel is responsible for assessing IDP’s transformative impact on individual participants and the campus community. She also collaborates on the development and delivery of meaningful learning opportunities, focusing primarily on offerings for faculty and staff, in addition to serving as co-instructor of IDP’s credit-bearing course for MBA students.
Rachel is responsible for assessing IDP’s transformative impact on individual participants and the campus community. She also collaborates on the development and delivery of meaningful learning opportunities, focusing primarily on offerings for faculty and staff, in addition to serving as co-instructor of IDP’s credit-bearing course for MBA students.
Stephen Kim, Ph.D.
Curriculum Specialist
Stephen participated in the first iteration of IDP’s course for graduate students and since then has served as a facilitator, workshop lead, coach, and teaching assistant. After completing his dissertation on premodern critical race studies, he now designs academic offerings for IDP beyond EDUC 2610 and spearheads IDP’s offerings for residential staff. He is committed to the creation of a robust academic program that brings more awareness to social identity, power, and communication across difference. He continues to serve on the teaching team for EDUC 2610 and assist with IDP’s research and assessment initiatives. As a researcher, he is trained in the disciplines of literary studies, feminist studies, queer studies, and ethnic studies. Before coming to Cornell, he has worked as a paralegal, a marketing assistant, and a high school English teacher. In August 2020, he completed his Ph.D. in English at Cornell University with minors in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and American Studies. He received a B.A. from Yale University in English and Philosophy.
IDP Co-Instructors
Our professional staff partners who co-facilitate IDP courses and programs for graduate students, staff, and faculty.
Janani Hariharan, Ph.D. Candidate
Co-Instructor for Intergroup Dialogue for Graduate Students
Janani is a PhD student in the field of Soil and Crop Sciences. She studies microbes in the soil, and the complex histories of their evolution and interactions with each other. However, bacterial communities aren’t the only ones that captivate her. As an international student and voracious reader, she finds human culture and social narratives fascinating. IDP has lent voice and vocabulary to these experiences, and she is excited to continue the good work.
Steph Cowling-Rich, M.Ed.
Co-Instructor for Advising Across Difference: Course for Academic Advisors
Steph Cowling-Rich (affirming pronouns: she/her) works for Cornell as an Assistant Director of Student Advising and Engagement and an EOP/HEOP Advisor. She particularly focuses on advising and crafting programming for undergraduates who are the first in their families to go to college, low-income students, and students of color. Her professional life has focused on young adult post-secondary transitions through college and career. Academically, she received her Bachelors in Sociology and Masters in Education both from UC Berkeley. Additionally, she has studied Women’s Spirituality, Non-Violent Communication (NVC), Insight Meditation, Brazilian dance, and, of course, Intergroup Dialogue. Steph co-facilitates “Advising across Difference,” IDP’s course for academic advisors with Adi, for the past two years. She is particularly interested in integrating practices of reflection, mindfulness, social justice, goal setting, visioning, and deep interpersonal communication within the spaces she engages in at Cornell.
Trevor Donadt, Ph.D. Student
Co-Instructor for Intergroup Dialogue for Graduate Students
Trevor is a PhD Student studying bacteria-surface interactions as part of Rong Yang’s lab in the Smith School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. His research focuses on designing materials using a vapor deposition technique to manipulate the behavior of bacteria that grow on those materials, and harness the advantageous potential of bacteria. Long involved and interested in equality in access to higher education, Trevor was excited to partake in IDP and work towards furthering that mission at Cornell. Along with his leadership of the Diversity & Inclusion Program at the Smith School, Trevor hopes to use the tools of IDP to promote engagement in difficult issues that work towards the greater good at Cornell, in engineering communities, and beyond.