Sonia Mañjon, PhD
Project Convener
Dr. Sonia Mañjon possesses more than 25 years of experience in higher education, nonprofit, and government administration. Sonia is a LeaderSpring Alumna, class of 2006, who returned to the Bay Area from Columbus, Ohio to become the 2nd executive director of LeaderSpring. Her focus for the organization is to re-define product and service delivery, develop a business model for leadership development, leverage the alumni network, and introduce racial equity and social justice systems change work.
Prior to returning to California, Sonia was inaugural director of the Lawrence and Isabel Barnett Center for Integrated Arts and Enterprise, Associate Professor of Arts Administration, Education and Policy, and Affiliate Faculty in Latinx Studies and The STEAM Factory at The Ohio State University (OSU).
Dr. Mañjon mentored both undergraduate and graduate students whose interest led them to entrepreneurship, community collaborations, and civic engagement activities. Her specific commitment was the development of initiatives and programs that attracted and retained students, faculty and staff from underrepresented groups on campus. Her curricular focus included the integration of art in society, community development through entrepreneurial practices, and student/community think tanks. A cultural anthropologist, her research focus includes collecting community and individual narratives using a participatory action methodology, photography and video.
Dr. Mañjon is a sought-after public speaker on a wide variety of topics, including community collaborations and engagement, arts integrated education, cultural arts, identity, and intergenerational immigration issues. She has presented research on marginalized and invisible immigrant communities at national and international conferences. She earned a PhD in Humanities, specializing in transformative learning and change in human systems and an MA in Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation from the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco. She received a Bachelor of Arts in World Arts and Cultures with an emphasis in Dance from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Mañjon lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her sons Zyan and Ezra.
Manon Wada
Project Convener
Manon Wada is an artist originally from and currently based in New York City on Canarsie Munsee Lenape territory. She lived in the San Francisco Bay Area on Muwekma Ohlone Ramaytush territory for two decades in between. In 2009 she completed her BFA at California College of the Arts in Community Arts and in 2019 her MFA at Rhode Island School of Design in Sculpture. Her past employment has primarily been in education as a teaching artist in Oakland and San Francisco Unified School Districts and later with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Applied Behavior Analysis therapy. She currently works as a building surveyor in the greater NYC area.
In the past, Manon has been awarded grants for projects including Visible Voices, HEARTH Community Art Garden Project, and Counternarratives of Herstory Census. She is a member of Asian American Women Artists Association and was involved in an affiliate artist residency program called A Place of Her Own in San Francisco. In 2016 she was an artist-in-resident at ComPeung and exhibited work at Rumpueng Community Art Space in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Additionally, she has exhibited work in Providence, RI, at Sol Koffler Gallery and RISD Museum, and in the Bay Area at venues such as Thoreau Center for Sustainability, SOMArts Cultural Center, Modern Eden Gallery, International Hotel Manilatown, and Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. She has published writing in the anthology ‘Endangered Species, Enduring Values’ and ‘Space & Time Magazine.’ Although her primary media is in sculpture, Manon also works in socially engaged, participatory processes that generate collaborative, co-authored texts.
Alice Lin
Web Designer
Alice Lin is an arts marketing administrator and graphic/web designer with decades of experience with startups and small organizations. She holds a BA from Rhode Island School of Design and a BS from University of Chicago.
Daisy Ozim
Web Designer
Daisy Ozim is the CEO and President of Resilient Wellness, a public health system designed to address structural violence within the realms of finance, healthcare and labor systems. She has trained dozens of philanthropists and impact investors in understanding the ways in which finance drivers poor health outcomes for communities in order to promote innovation and transformation. She is a Commissioner for the Alameda Public Health Commission and her work is centered around decolonizing philanthropy, technology and public policy.
