Leadership

JOHN WOODALL, MD

Dr. John Woodall is Founder and Director of The Unity Project.  He is Co-Founder of the Healing Arts Project working with New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development to build resilient responses in children in the aftermath of 9/11. He is a Board Certified psychiatrist with a special expertise in posttraumatic stress disorder.

Dr. Woodall was the Convener of the “Resilient Responses to Social Crisis Working Group” at Harvard University’s Mind Brain Behavior Initiative and a research fellow at the Judge Baker Children’s Center at the Harvard Medical School.  His area of interest is building cohesive communities in the aftermath of conflict.  Dr. Woodall has consulted with a number of government agencies, the United Nations, universities and international nongovernmental organizations on issues of community building and inter-ethnic reconciliation in the United States, Europe, Central America, the Middle East, Cyprus and the Balkans.  He provided consultation to Congress on the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.  He was director of a USAID funded refugee relief effort in Croatia that was organized through the Harvard School of Public Health and has continued with inter-ethnic coalition building efforts in Bosnia and the Middle East.  He has been sought as an expert in developing resilience in youth in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York and in Hurricane Katrina affected areas of the US Gulf Coast.

MARGO A. DESELIN

Margo Deselin is the Program and Development Officer of the Unity Project.

Ms. Deselin was on the Board of Directors and served as Director of Programs for PeaceWorks, a nongovernmental organization whose mission was to provide humanitarian relief geared specifically towards the needs of children in war zones as well as initiate creative programs of conflict resolution. She coordinated with the US Departments of State and Defense as well as the International Rescue Committee to airlift tons of supplies to children in Bosnia-Herzegovina while with PeaceWorks.  Ms. Deselin served on various committees with the Albert Schweitzer Institute for the Humanities and consulted on development.  Ms. Deselin also served on the Committee for the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China in 1995.  The Committee undertook information, media and public affairs activities on behalf of the Secretariat of the United Nations 1995 World Conference and helped reach a global audience to further the critical issue of gender equality and to increase the effectiveness and impact of all who work to improve the status of women worldwide.  In addition to her work for NGOs, Ms. Deselin’s background also includes experience in the investment field, primarily in the area of marketing and investor relations.