Meet Our Team

Who are we? We are executives, analysts, future doctors, academics, scholars, citizens of the world and, above all: humanitarians. Our team is a dedicated group of young professionals who believe in doing their part to create a more just, honest, open, and socially equitable city to call home.  

• Board of Directors
• Staff

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Alisa Roadcup

Board of Directors Member​

Alisa believes when you empower a girl; you empower an entire community and generations beyond. She is a social entrepreneur and executive strategist passionate about creating a safer, more just world for girls and young women. Alisa’s seventeen-year career has focused within the human rights sector as an advocate for women and girls, namely refugees and asylum seekers, especially those displaced throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

From 2012-2018 she led RefuSHE, an award-winning international NGO. Alisa's leadership was honored as an International Woman Leader by Chicago Woman magazine and named a 2017 Emerging Leader by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She has appeared on BBC Worldwide, WBEZ Worldview (NPR) radio, MSN, Refinery29, The Chicago Tribune, ABC7 primetime news and NewsDeeply and frequently speaks on issues of forced migration and women’s rights. Alisa holds certifications in Forced Migration from Northwestern and Oxford Universities, a BA in Humanities and an MA in Comparative Religions. Alisa currently serves on Chicago Council on Global Affairs Women and Global Development Advisory Committee

Nhu Phan

Board of directors member,
world vision USA

Nhu Phan is currently a project manager at World Vision USA, working to provide access to clean water to children and communities worldwide.

She is passionate about serving others, especially vulnerable groups like refugees and immigrants, as an immigrant herself and granddaughter to refugees of the Vietnam War.

Nhu graduated from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. She went on to completed her graduate education at Sciences Po in Paris, France where she earned a Master’s in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action. Additionally, she was a Fulbright Scholar in South Korea.

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Signe Hanson

Board of directors member,
​Home chef

Signe Hanson leads the Procurement Excellence team at Home Chef, a Chicago food startup recently purchased by Kroger. She found her way to Chicago in February 2017, after a brief stint planning events for the International Peace Institute in New York City. 

Signe studied International Affairs and Portuguese at the University of Georgia. In Georgia, she founded a non-profit that focuses on access to education for at-risk youth in Athens-Clarke County. A participant in the U.S. Department of Defense's Portuguese Flagship program, Signe spent two years in Brazil learning the language, interning, and working on community development projects. 

Emily Feldman

Board of Directors Member,
Oxford University

Emily Feldman is currently studying for a Master of Philosophy in International Relations at the University of Oxford. She spent this past summer living in Amman, Jordan and working for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). With the UNDP, she worked on the crisis response team analyzing political, development, and socio-economic trends in the Arab states as well as designing packages for strategic partners to better anchor volunteer infrastructure in response to development challenges in the region.
 
Prior to Oxford, Emily worked in Washington, DC at a non-profit organization seeking to strengthen mutual understanding and cooperation between the Americas and the MENA region. She also has experience working in conflict resolution and in public affairs and diplomacy at the US Department of State’s Bureau of African Affairs and at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2015, Emily graduated from Emory University with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and a minor in Arabic.  ​

Katie Sonnefeldt 

Board of directors member, 
intouch solutions

​Born and raised in the Windy City, Katie recently returned to Chicago after serving for three and a half years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the West African Nation of Togo. As an extension agent for the Community Health and Malaria Prevention program, she developed a malaria prevention curriculum and organized events to promote women’s and girls’ empowerment. Afterwards, Katie chose to extend her service to work with Catholic Relief Services in Lomé, Togo where she provided program quality support for a variety of projects within the Togo country office and acted as the lead proposal developer for a six- month, youth social cohesion and peace building project which was awarded by the U.S. Embassy in Togo’s Sector of Public Affairs.

In 2014 Katie graduated from the University of Wisconsin- Madison with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology, Life Sciences Communication and a certificate in Public Health.

Eda Akyar

Board of directors member
Loyola University Chicago

Eda Akyar is a medical student at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. She is in the Global Health Honors and Research Honors Programs. Her research focuses on infectious disease transmission and community health, with projects including Hepatitis C infection in Ghana and the use of dental varnishes among pediatric populations in Chicago. Eda has a strong interest in the intersection of medicine and social justice.
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Eda graduated from the Science and Humanities Scholars Program at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences and a minor in Chemistry.
After her undergraduate years, Eda completed a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship in Indonesia where she taught English to 10th and 11th grade students in Tana Toraja. Following her Fulbright, Eda earned a Master of Public Health from Yale University with a focus on the Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases.  

Connor Mautner

Founder & services director

Connor Mautner is the Founder and current Services Director for the Chicago Refugee Coalition (CRC). A Floridian, Mautner graduated cum laude from Rollins College with a B.A. in International Affairs.

​During his time at Rollins, Mautner completed a fellowship with the Arab American Community Centers of Central Florida where he orchestrated mutual aid initiatives with a primary emphasis on food security, domestic violence prevention, and financial literacy.

Mautner served as a staffer in the United States Senate for three years while congruently earning his Master's Degree in Public Policy from Northwestern University.  As a graduate student, Mautner's primary research emphasis focused on the political economies of failed/fragile states with a regional emphasis on Turkey, Somalia, and Afghanistan.

Mautner founded CRC in June 2018. He can be reached directly at cmautner@chicagorefugee.org
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To Our community partners, Thank you!

Our mission of providing support to refugees, empowering communities, and supporting developing economies is something that we can not do alone. We believe that it takes a coalition style effort to achieve these aims and we are sincerely grateful to our community partners and donors who make this vision a reality. We can't do this alone. Thank you for your support of our work! 
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For more information about how to support the Chicago Refugee Coalition, please contact us at: info@chicagorefugee.org.

A public Trust

We believe in total transparency in all of our operations. After all, the work we do depends on the public trust of our supporters and those to whom we serve. Our records are available upon request. 

​Additionally, our organization has listed our 501(c)(3) IRS designation letter for your review. As always, if you have any questions, please contact us at: info@chicagorefugee.org.

CRC 2018 Year In Review Infographic
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Chicago Refugee Coalition 501c3 Designation
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