Re-Imagining Migration was founded in 2017 as a project of the UCLA Graduate School of Education by Carola Suárez-Orozco, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, and Adam Strom. Verónica Boix-Mansilla, from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, led the development of the Re-Imagining Migration framework as part the collaboration with Carola Suárez-Orozco and Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, then at the University of California Los Angeles and Adam Strom at Re-imagining Migration.
Meisha Lamb-Bell
Program Director
Meisha Lamb-Bell is the Program Director at Re-Imagining Migration. Meisha is a dedicated educator with a profound commitment to expanding social impact through fostering equitable access to education, vital resources, and purposeful programming. As a Questbridge scholar, Meisha’s unwavering dedication lies in cultivating inclusive academic environments that not only ignite a lifelong passion for learning but also galvanize collective action. Throughout her academic journey at Brown University, Meisha actively engaged in endeavors aimed at enhancing college access and facilitating successful matriculation. After graduating from Brown, Meisha started her career in public finance, optimizing funding for the higher education and nonprofit team. Before joining RIM, she served as a classroom teacher where she prioritized student joy, community building, and illuminating and eliminating covert and compounding barriers to equity.
Adam Strom
Executive Director
Adam Strom has a proven track record of leveraging education to build belonging and develop an understanding of the roots of polarization and hate. He is the Executive Director of Re-Imagining Migration, a non-profit organization whose mission is to advance the education and well-being of immigrant-origin youth, decrease bias and hatred against young people of diverse origins, and help rising generations develop the understanding and habits of heart and mind that are necessary to build and sustain welcoming and inclusive communities. Before helping to found Re-Imagining Migration, Adam was a long-time member of the senior leadership team at Facing History and Ourselves, where he led the content development team. The educational resources developed under Adam’s direction have been used in tens of thousands of classrooms and experienced by millions of students worldwide, including numerous resource books, study guides, and films on identity, immigration, and prejudice.
Karel S. Karpe
Development Consultant
Karel S. Karpe, Re-Imagining Migration’s Development Consultant, is a highly experienced nonprofit professional with a diverse background in the legal, corporate, and nonprofit sectors. After years spent as a corporate lawyer, Karel moved over to the field of nonprofit development and grants. Karel brings a skill set of donor engagement, grant writing, and foundation engagement. Karel assists in the development and execution of the philanthropic and engagement goals of Re-Imagining Migration.
Zainab Shabbir
Scholar-in-Residence
Zainab Shabbir is a PhD candidate in Developmental Psychology at Clark University, specializing in migration, bicultural belonging, and identity development across different educational contexts. She is committed to co-creating knowledge with migrant communities, focusing on the narratives of migrant youth in educational settings. These narratives are crucial for understanding how migrant youth construct and reflect their social identities.
Zainab's work emphasizes the importance of counter spaces—learning environments that foster a sense of community and belonging for migrant youth—in promoting educational equity and accessibility, particularly for immigrant-origin students. Her scholarly work advocates for the recognition of immigrant narratives within educational contexts, highlighting the significance of cultural and educational integration for migrant youth.
Jessica Lander
History Co:Lab Senior Policy Fellow and Re-Imagining Migration Senior Education Policy Fellow
Jessica Lander is an award-winning teacher, writer and author. For much of the last decade, she has taught history and civics to recent immigrant students in a Massachusetts public high school and has won numerous awards for her teaching, including being named the 2023 Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year and one of the 2023 Top Ten national History Teachers of the Year presented by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History; a 2023 MA Teacher of the Year Finalist, presented by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; and a Top 50 Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize in 2021, presented by the Varkey Foundation. Jessica writes frequently about education policy and teaching. She is the author of Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education, recently awarded the 2024 George Orwell Award, presented to, "writers who have made outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse"; a coauthor of Powerful Partnerships: A Teacher’s Guide to Engaging Families for Student Success; and the author of Driving Backwards.
Contact Us
To send us snail mail we are located at 50 Milk St, 16th Floor, Boston, MA 02109.
To reach us by email, write to us at info@reimaginingmigration.org.