Meet the Board
Karen Kayser, Founder and Board Chair
While on faculty at Boston College, Karen led groups of social work students on service-learning trips to the region of India that was most devastated by the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Kalangarai, an ngo established by a group of Jesuits, hosted the students and provided an educational program about disaster relief, trauma, and social justice. Since 2005, she has continued to collaborate with Kalangarai on research projects, student trips, and fund-raising. While other organizations left soon after the Tsunami, Kalangarai was committed to stay indefinitely and to attend to the needs of the most marginalized persons, namely, the low-caste widows and abandoned women. Karen is professor emerita of social work from the University of Louisville where she held the Dr. Renato LaRocca Endowed Chair of Oncology Social Work.
Chrisann Newransky, Treasurer
Chrisann is an associate professor at Adelphi University (AU) School of Social Work. At AU, Chrisann focuses on teaching social welfare policy analysis, policy advocacy and about the social work role in healthcare. She is currently directing a federally funded training grant for Master’s level social work and psychiatric nurse practitioner students in integrated behavioral health for children, adolescents and transition-aged youth. Chrisann has led student service learning and short-term study abroad trips to India and Japan.
Jane O’Rourke, Clerk
Jane is a clinical social worker in private practice. She has worked in health care primarily with HIV and women’s cancers at Dana-Farber/Brigham & Women’s Hospital. She is devoted to women’s issues and empowerment. Her daughter spent part of a summer working with the widows and their families at Kalangarai-India.
Meg Hawley
Meg is a physician who has been an academic clinician and educator for over 25 years—first as a Nephrologist and most recently as a Hospitalist. She is known to be a strong patient advocate and has mentored scores of physician trainees. She has been particularly interested in advancing education and professional equality for women since her undergraduate years at Wellesley College.
Barbara Honthumb
Barbara is a retired healthcare executive, who served as Executive Director of a non-profit organization focused on microlending and microenterprise development with low-income women in Ohio after completing her masters in public administration. Barbara has experience in program development and grant writing and is interested in self-sufficiency for women.
Winston Langley
Winston is professor emeritus of Political Science and International Relations at University of Massachusetts- Boston where he served as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. He has a broad interest in South Asia.
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Gokul Mandayam
Gokul joined the faculty of Rhode Island College School of Social Work (RICSSW) in Fall 2019 and is affiliated with the school’s MSW Program as a macro practice faculty member. Prior to joining RICSSW, he worked at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work’s (UBSSW) interdisciplinary social innovation and social entrepreneurship initiative., wherein he also taught macro social work practice courses. He has had an experience of 19 years in social work academia at various universities in the USA, Middle East and India. His interdisciplinary research interests include social innovation and entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, nonprofit management, program evaluation and application of spatial analysis technology for human services. Before coming to USA, he consulted for a variety of social development projects in India on topics ranging from non-land based income generation, evaluation of fish harvesting practices in coastal communities and government nutrition programs to female infanticide. He has published articles on social innovation, microfinance for women empowerment and spatial analysis for planning social services, and has presented at several national and international conferences.
