CHAIR

Jessica Mackinnon has been involved with Global Alliance for more than five years and has traveled with the organization to Morocco and East Africa. Her experiences with GAA and several other nonprofits motivated her to pursue an MBA in international business. Jessica recently retired from Dominican University where she served as director of public information for 18 years. In addition to GAA, she is active in the Rotary Club of Chicago Citywide Services and Beyond Hunger and is a tutor for several English as a Second Language students. She is a former board member of Empowerment Collective, a nonprofit that works with marginalized women in Nepal. 

SECRETARY

Leadership Development Expert and Professor

Alice Obermiller has been involved with the Global Alliance for Africa for 20 years, starting her work with GAA by using her business and teaching backgrounds (University of Chicago, University of Notre Dame) to support partners in Kenya and Tanzania. She has made 5 trips to Africa, 4 to East Africa, and most recently to Morocco. Alice’s tenure with GAA stems from her belief in the importance of the work in these regions and in the tangible outcomes that GAA has achieved due to the organization's focus on respecting the local cultures while serving. In addition to GAA, Alice works in Executive Development at Elevance Health and is a part-time professor of Leadership Development at Loyola University’s Quinlan School of Business.

TREASURER

David has been on GAA’s board since 2017, and was excited to travel to Morocco in 2024 to see first-hand the transformative impact GAA’s Digital Learning Program is having on students.

David was a partner at Mayer Brown LLP, where his law practice focused on commercial law.  Since retiring from the firm, he has worked with emerging market countries helping them modernize their legal systems, under a program sponsored by the U.S Government.  Working with a European NFP, he also has been a visiting professor of business law at universities in Eastern Europe and South Asia.

David is co-founder of a scholarship program in the Philippines that enables disadvantaged youth to get a college education. The program is based in the town where he served in the Peace Corps.

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Professor Emerita Loyola University

Alanah's teenage experience as a volunteer giving polio shots in Guatemala led indirectly to her career as a chemist with specialization in environmental chemistry.  She served as faculty chaperone for a environmental ethics class tour of Kenya and Uganda led by Thomas Derdak.  GAA assisted her in forming relationships at the University of Dar Es Salaam and Kenya Methodist University (KEMU) for a National Science Foundation grant for teaching instrumental chemistry remotely via the internet.  She later taught a 2 week course at KEMU.  

Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago

David Ingram is a Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago and co-author, along with GAA founder and CEO, Thomas Derdak, of The Ethics of Global Development: An Introduction (Routledge, 2018). David received Casa Guatemala's Human Rights Award in 1999 for organizing refugee support events at LUC. From 1996 to 2017 he worked as an adjunct Faculty Advisor for Loyola University Ministry's Social Immersion Program, where he led students to social justice immersion trips to Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.  His current research focuses on global development and globalization.

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Professor Emerita, Loyola University

Susan is a retired Theology Professor who first traveled to Kenya and Tanzania in 2002. She went back to Kenya in 2007 and 2009 and has continued her interest in and support of Global Alliance since then. Recently she traveled to Morocco with members of the Board of Global Alliance and saw how children benefit from the work of the organization. She is especially interested in women’s education and literacy.

Susan holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School and has written extensively on women in the Catholic Church.

Associate Professor & Clinic Coordinator George Washington University

Arika has been a passionate advocate for mental health outreach and access to care in community and clinical settings throughout her career.  Arika traveled with GAA's therapeutic arts trip to Kenya in 2020, which expanded her lens to the need for global collaboration to support mental health through grass roots efforts.  She went on to collaborate with a developing graduate program in Art Therapy at MIT in Pune India to teach assessment and oversee a new joint university student project effort.   Arika has worked to broaden the GWU Art Therapy Clinic's sliding scale therapy services with free virtual and on-site workshops and groups in the community. She is excited about GAA's new digital initiative, as this may be another conduit for accessing education, self-care, and community collaboration.

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