Speakers: 2025 President's Institute

Amber Dukart is a registered social worker (RSW) with a BA in interdisciplinary studies from the University of British Columbia and an MSW in clinical social work practice from the University of Calgary. Amber has spent several years developing, facilitating, and evaluating intergenerational programs that foster meaningful connections between generations in schools, community centers, and residential care settings.

In 2017, Amber co-founded an intergenerational program in Vancouver, BC, that connects elementary students with older adults living in residential care. She has also developed programs at LINKages Society in Calgary, Alberta, that supported youth and older adults living in the community. Her innovative master’s thesis research explored the mutual benefits of intergenerational programming, capturing the valuable perspectives of both youth and older adults. Currently, she is part of a research team conducting a process evaluation of a shared-site intergenerational program at a residential care facility with a co-located early childhood development center. Through her work, Amber is committed to bridging the gap between generations and fostering a more equitable and connected society.

Bo Ford is committed to closing the digital divide and empowering communities. With a background in community engagement and project management, he’s played a key role in digital equity efforts. As a former community ambassador for Connect 313, Bo helped 100,000 Detroit residents’ access affordable connectivity. At the Osborn Neighborhood Alliance, he expanded digital access in public spaces. Now, as the Digital Equity Program Manager at the New Mexico State Library, Bo helps librarians reimagine their roles and highlights how digital access is vital for overall health and wellbeing. He focuses on bringing telehealth, digital skills training, and connectivity to libraries and bookmobile stops statewide, creating culturally relevant materials for Tribal communities and providing relevant accessibility material and resources.

Ryan Lemke is a senior at the University of Illinois Chicago, majoring in Disability and Human Development and minoring in Public Health and Public Policy. Ryan is a student employee, working as the Library's first Accessibility Intern, and is an integral part of creating a more accessible library at UIC. Some of Ryan's projects include testing the compatibility of assistive technology with Ebook vendors, creating material for the library accessibility training portal to educate library workers, and writing plain language versions of educational content. Ryan and her supervisor presented the Ebook database findings at the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) annual conference in 2022. Her efforts earned her the UIC Student Employee of the Year Award in 2023. Ryan is passionate about accessibility and disability law. She is currently a Coelho Disability Law Fellow through Loyola Marymount Law School. After graduation, Ryan plans to apply for law school and hopes to become a disability lawyer.

After seven years at CoGenerate, Duncan Magidson (he/him) has become a leader in building and growing cogenerational communities, both in person and online.

Duncan’s expertise includes overall communications strategy, email communications, social media management, and partnership development. He is a highly skilled moderator, speaker, and ambassador for cogeneration—regularly speaking publicly as part of CoGenerate 101 and his series on cogeneration in the workplace with Marci Alboher.

Prior to joining CoGenerate, he worked as a field organizer on the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign.

In his free time, Duncan is a dedicated vegan, a weekend softball enthusiast, and loves to explore Brooklyn with his partner Elle and their dog Dr. Porridge.

Janet Oh, a Bay Area nonprofit leader, serves as senior director of innovation at CoGenerate, a national nonprofit bridging generational divides. An accomplished innovator, facilitator, and coach, Janet leads groups of social entrepreneurs through fellowship programs designed to strengthen their efforts to bring older and younger people together for social change.

Early in her career, Janet served as director of Experience Corps Bay Area, where she connected older adults as mentors and tutors to youth in under-resourced public schools. There she saw what can happen when experience and wisdom are valued and celebrated, when older and younger people come together for mutual benefit and social impact.

Over time, her work has evolved in a subtle yet powerful way. In the past, she asked, “How can elders serve younger people and vice versa?” Today, she asks, “How can youngers and olders work side by side to co-create a better future?” This shift acknowledges the unique skills and talents of olders and youngers. It requires power sharing, mutual respect, and bridge building.

In 2018, Janet was honored as a PBS Next Avenue Influencer in Aging for this work.

Beyond her work with CoGenerate, Janet consults with local Bay Area foundations providing resources to empower youth and bridge the opportunity gap for low-income students. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a major in sociology and a minor in dance. A student and teacher of yoga, Janet brings the principles of mindfulness and groundedness to her work.

Hunter C. Old Elk (she/her/hers) is the assistant curator of the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. A member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) and Yakama Nations, she grew up on the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana. Since 2016, Hunter has held the titles of intern, research assistant, and curatorial assistant at the Plains Indian Museum. Hunter holds a master of arts in cultural heritage management from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor of arts focused on Native American histories from Mount St. Mary’s University. Her graduate research focused on the reciprocal relationship between global Indigenous Peoples and their homelands, examining how landscapes develop cultural practices and belief systems.

The endearing lives of Indigenous women who live and thrive on the Plains particularly inspire Hunter. Her work takes a community-based approach, engaging Native and non-Native communities. The most impactful aspect of her work involves overseeing the stewardship and care of sacred and ceremonial items in the Plains Indian Museum’s holdings. She connects tribal sovereigns as equals in museum processes supporting tribal consultation and repatriation of cultural items through NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act).

Hunter engages global audiences through object curation and interpretation, public programming and presentations, digital media, and community working groups. She aims to advance students at all academic levels, from pre-K to postdoctoral. Hunter contributes to the preservation and support of Indigenous youth by serving as the vice chair of Native American Jumpstart, a bridge foundation supporting Indigenous college students. She sponsors tribal youth in her home community as an alumna mentor at St. Labre Indian Schools and volunteers on the Little Bighorn College Museum and Cultural Center Steering Committee.

Roshan Panjwani (they, them, their, theirs, themself) is an MSLS student at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill and a first-generation immigrant from Pakistan, and was a nontraditional undergraduate later in life, after a long career as a community organizer. Roshan received their BA in linguistics from NC State University in 2021 while working as an editorial student assistant at Duke University Press. Their undergraduate research studied the social distribution of linguistic variables in LGBTQ+ BIPOC Southerners, and their passion for archival work stems from documenting the political legacies of queer Southerners. Since graduating, Roshan has worked as a staff assistant at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, leading a project to support digital access to the provenance and acquisition records of the over 10,000 manuscript collections.

Roshan is an aspiring reference and instructional librarian interested in methods of library instructional pedagogy that connect students to build collaborative relationships with archival texts, both as researchers and as authors of their own academic writing. Roshan’s interest in archival access has inspired them to work in the field of reparative and inclusive archival description, working to remediate and contextualize outdated or harmful language and to create archival description that is inclusive and community-centered.

Michelle Sosa is a first-generation, MLIS student at San José State University. She is currently undertaking the academic librarianship pathway in her MLIS program while working full time in Long Beach Public Library (LBPL). As a student, she has gratefully been inducted into ARL's Kaleidoscope Program and ALA's Spectrum Scholarship program.

Michelle’s public library position involves the management of the library’s adult literacy program, where she has the opportunity to engage with the community and develop library programming that fulfills the literacy needs of adults and their families. Michelle is also a member of the MLIS Support Cohort and the racial equity committee in LBPL, where she works alongside librarians to address DEI issues, library infrastructure improvements, compiling resources, and providing mentorship to library staff who are contemplating a career in librarianship.

In addition to her full-time position and schooling, Michelle has also dedicated her time to completing internships with Long Beach City College and Western Michigan University, where she worked on projects and building skills involving reference services, collection development, pedagogical practices, digital humanities, and data collections.

Tyronne Stoudemire is the senior vice president of Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for Hyatt Hotels Corporation, a global hospitality company with widely recognized, industry leading brands and
a tradition of innovation developed over its more than 60-year history.

At Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Tyronne collaborates with the senior leadership team to implement culture, talent, and marketplace strategies that leverage diversity and inclusion globally. As such, his team and internal corporate stakeholders implement diversity initiatives that include Resource Groups, mentoring programs for high-potential women and people of color, a communications and public relations strategy to drive internal engagement and external brand recognition, and enhanced brand marketing efforts to further focus on multicultural and LGBT audiences. He is the co-chair of Hyatt’s Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council (GDEIC).

A globally recognized executive, multiple award winner, and highly sought-after speaker, Tyronne has consulted with numerous Fortune 100 clients on diversity strategy, with insight around how organizational leaders can understand and harness the shifts in national and global demographic trends. Tyronne employs a unique talent that results in extraordinary benefits for individuals and organizations and has a proven ability to advance socially responsible corporate initiatives by fostering strategic relationships to catalyze international grassroots movements. Most recently he was appointed by American Airlines (AA) President Robert Isom (AA) to serve on AA’s Diversity and Equity Community Council focusing on Black travelers.