Tara Batista is a PhD student at Columbia University in New York City. Her research area is positive youth development with an emphasis on youth empowerment. She received a Masters in Evidence Based Social Intervention from Oxford, and a BA in Spanish and a BBA in International Business from Stetson University. She has worked as a Senior Grant Coordinator, Fund Development Manager, directed a mentor program, co-founded 61C Teen Center, served on the founding team for the Campaign for University and Student Empowerment, and co-directed a British-Albanian youth exchange. Tara’s has worked with runaway and homeless youth, foster care youth, immigrant youth, children with parents in prison, and low income minority youth. Her youth development work spans the U.S., Guatemala, and the U.K.
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Eli is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, under the supervision of Prof. Tom Snijders and Dr. Paul Montgomery. She is based in the Department of Social Policy and Nuffield College. For her doctorate, she is modelling relationships between inter-participant relationships and prison conditions on attrition from a prison-based addiction treatment programme. Eli has studied neuroscience/psychology, evidence-based intervention and law. She worked as a drug counselor in HMP Bullingdon and managed the research department of a non-profit criminal justice addiction treatment provider for several years before returning to postgraduate study.
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Kelli Dieterich is an Administrative/Program Associate for the Campaign Finance Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC. Ms. Dieterich has five years of public relations, communications, public affairs, and public policy professional experience working as a Research Associate/Communications Director for N. Chapman and Associates and Soyfoods Association of North America in Washington, D.C. She is an advocate for healthy living and fighting childhood obesity. In addition to her work experience, she is also enrolled in the George Mason Masters of Public Policy program and on track to graduate in December of 2011. Kelli graduated from Furman University with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science. Kelli also has extensive youth development volunteer experience as she is one of the founding members of 61C Teen Center.
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Joe Guthrie is the Client Relations/Event operations Assistant for Alta Vista Sports and Assistant Cross Country Coach at Stetson University. He has worked in each position for more than 18 years. Guthrie manages the day-to-day operations and program support for all the university’s sports. A veteran runner, Joe has covered 40,000+ miles running on Volusia County roads over the past 20 years. Not only an athlete, Joe demonstrates a long legacy of commitment to community service. He serves on the Stetson University President’s Quality of Service Council, the Board of Directors the Hatter Club, the DeLand Naval Air Station Museum, the Hugh Ash Manor, healthy communities, Oakdale Cemetery Association, the Salvation Army, The News-Journal Sports Person of the Month the Florida Postal Museum, and is currently chair of the Board of Commissioners for the West Volusia Hospital Authority.  He has served as President of the DeLand Rotary Club and the Sons of the American Revolution, Treasurer of the DeLand Chamber of Commerce, and Chairman of the DeLand Fall Festival of the Arts. A recipient of many awards, he received the Spirit of Stetson Award the West Volusia Sports Person of the Month award in 2007. He is also a Rotary Paul Harris Fellow. In 1996 he received the United Way’s Community Hero Award and carried the Olympic Torch. Joe received a BA in Business Administration and an MBA form California Coast University. In 2005 he retired from the federal government after more than 30 years of service after achieving the highest-ranking Federal Officer in Volusia and Flagler counties as Postmaster of Daytona Beach.
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Chris Batista is the founder and owner of 5K Race Director, a full service timing and road race directing company that provides equipment, marketing, website management, fundraising, timing and directing services for running events and triathlons. He also manages Alta Vista Sports, a company that has been in the endurance sports event directing and timing business since 1981. Chris earned a business degree in Marketing in 2006 from the University of Central Florida and his certification in race directing in 2010. He has four years of professional marketing experience and sales experience and has won numerous awards for his sales performance. A competitive middle distance runner for 14 years, Chris has run for division 1 college teams, coaches individual high school and college runners and teams, and consistently wins local road race competitions (see http://www.news-journalonline.com/sports/local-sports/2010/04/02/batista-in-running-for-1st-4-peat.html and http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/keyword/chris-batista). He also played soccer for 10 years and competed on an international club team. In 2010 Chris founded Run for a CAUSE foundation because of the positive influence running and soccer had on his life. He would like to extend that opportunity to other youth.
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Michael Weiss is attending the University of Central Florida on a full scholarship where he is a senior studying  Business Economics.   Ensuing graduation in the spring of 2011, he is expected to begin working as an Investment Banking Analyst with Jefferies & Company in New York City.  Michael has held numerous leadership positions during his college tenure, including serving as an elected university Ambassador, Senator, Treasurer, Cornerstone Team Leader, Capstone Team Captain, LJR and FOA Committee Member.  Through years of dedication to leadership, academics, extracurricular activities, and volunteer work, Michael was selected to UCF’s President’s Leadership Council by the university President, faculty, and alumni.  Imbued with a passion for serving the community, Michael has worked with many non-profit-organizations, including Junior Achievement, Heart Walk Association, and the Coalition for the Homeless.  Michael knows the value of youth recreation, as it has played an instrumental and indispensable role in his personal, academic, and social development.  He looks forward to extending many of the same opportunities to the youth while emphasizing the value of teamwork and fitness.
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