Dr. Douglas Christensen, Chairman of the Malaika Foundation Board of Directors, 30 year Nebraska teaching career, Nebraska Superintendent of the Year, 1990, Emeritus Commissioner of Education, Head State Team Coach in advising State Agencies in implementation of the new Common Core State Standards, Professor of Practice in Education Leadership, Doane College. Extensive research and publications, including Curriculum Planning, High Performance Learning and Schools for our Future. He was graduated from the Midland Lutheran College, B.A.) and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Dr. Hahn worked with United Nations programs for nearly 40 years, primarily in Africa. Her work involved introducing new food crops and nutrition with the Institute for International Agriculture in Nigeria, women and finance with the International Fund for Agricultural Development, youth initiatives with the Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF Representative to Malawi and Senior Private Sector Advisor at the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships.

For her work in Africa, she received two honorary chieftaincy titles, in Malawi and Nigeria. She was graduated from the University of Nebraska, B.A., The Ohio State University, M.A. and Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, MPA, and The College of Education, Ed. D. Dr. Hahn has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Nebraska Wesleyan University. In order to give back to her home state, she founded the Malaika Foundation with a mission to globalize Nebraska education. She is a native of Polk and now resides in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Alicia is a graduate of one of the last remaining one-room schoolhouses on the Nebraskan prairie. Before serving as a secondary and university educator of English, world languages, modern language methods, and world cultures for the past nine years, she lived and taught in South American and European countries.

She received the 2016 Freda Drath Battey Distinguished Educator honor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the Department of Education STEM Fellowship. As a two-time Fulbright scholar, Alicia facilitated the Global Classrooms program and has brought hundreds of speakers from nearly all continents to her classrooms. She is the Past-President of the Nebraska International Languages Association, which serves all language teachers throughout the state. She co-founded the Cross-Nebraska Education Community to connect local champions of human rights, particularly those related to education policy and access. She is the Malaika advisor for Reach the World and her contributions were honored at a Reach the World Gala in New York City, 2018, and continue into May 2020 with a Fulbright International Education seminar.

Kevin Witte has taught social studies (AP Human Geography, AP World History, and philosophy) at Kearney High School in Kearney, Nebraska since 2000. Kevin has a B.A. in social sciences secondary education and M.A. in curriculum and instruction from Doane College, as well as an M.A. in history from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Teaching AP World History has led him into leadership roles at the AP World History Reading and on the AP World History Test Development Committee. Passionate about professional learning for teachers, Kevin has led workshops and summer institutes for AP World teachers as a Lead Consultant for the course.

Kevin has participated in fellowships, study programs, and delegations supported by the Fulbright Commission, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Geographic, and the US Department of State. He is passionate about empowering young people as citizen diplomats and problem solvers. He was named a Global Educator MELBA Award winner by the Malaika Foundation in 2012, a Milken Educator Award recipient in 2013, and awarded the GEON Bertolas, Gildersleeve, Stoddard, and Stone Award for Service to Geographic Education in Nebraska in 2025.

Hubert “Charles” Ahovissi is a professional artist, dancer, drummer, choreographer, educator, stage costume designer and tailor. He is an approved teaching and performing artist through the Nebraska and Iowa Arts Councils. Charles began his dancing career in 1984 when he joined the National Ballet Company of Benin, West Africa. He left the National Ballet in 1987 and joined the Super Anges Dance Troop that toured extensively throughout the world performing and teaching traditional African dance and music. Charles moved to Omaha in 2000 and since has shared his knowledge and love of Africa through traditional dancing and drumming to foster better understanding of Africa’s diverse and beautiful cultures.

In 2006, he founded the African Culture Connection (ACC) as a non-profit organization to teach African culture. Under Charles' leadership, ACC & Charles have received the following awards: 2010 Girls Inc Angel Award; 2012 Nebraska Governor's Art Award for Heritage Arts; 2012 National Arts & Humanities Youth Program Award; 2015-2018 Omaha Entertainment & Arts Awards-nominated ('15) and selected ('16 & '18) Best Local Dance Production; 2017 US Air Force Excellence Through Diversity Award. Also, Charles was the 2018 Metropolitan Community College Alumni and in April 2019, he was the first Nebraskan that receive the National Community College Association award in Orlando Florida.

Throughout the Omaha community, Charles shares his passion through dancing and drumming during public performances, school assemblies, residencies, and workshops. Charles provides multicultural lessons by giving students authentic, hands-on experiences with African culture. He creates an authentic African village ambiance and uses ceremonial African clothes as well as traditional instruments to teach about African culture. Charles promotes unity and multiculturalism while offering students a fun, social and physical activity.

Dr. Beth Doll is a retired professor of School Psychology in UNL's Department of Educational Psychology. She began her career as a school psychologist in rural Kentucky and then a clinic coordinator at the University of Wisconsin Madison – experiences that afforded insights into the mental health needs of children that she applied successfully in her research on topics spanning children’s friendships to the pragmatics of measuring student perceptions of classroom climate.

Dr. Doll's principal research interest is the promotion of mental health and the psychological well-being of children and youth and aspects of school and classroom systems that contribute to students’ resilience and academic success. Her work occured in partnership with school districts to use student perceptions and classroom data to prompt revised classroom routines. Her developmental investigations of students’ psychological wellness explain how these challenge current conceptualizations of mental health and existing mental health policies.

A global explorer and traveler, Dean Jacobs has traversed across the globe exploring over 50 countries on a low budget adventure, propelled by a desire to understand the world we share.

His book, Wondrous Creatures - Explore a World of Animals from A to Z, is a favorite for children. His book, Wondrous Journey, described his adventures to better understand the world and portrays his 22 ½ month journey with 190 pages of stories and 140 of his magnificent photographs. More information from www.deanjacobs.org

He is Malaika’s most popular speaker and has inspired educators and students throughout Nebraska. Dean states, “I want to inform, educate and inspire kids — to teach them to be engaged in the world instead of afraid of it”.

Born on a farm, Dean is from Fremont, Nebraska. He was graduated from Wayne State College earning a degree in Biology, with minors in Earth Science and Art. After graduating he worked in the administration of Wayne State College as the Assistant to the President before moving on to Purina Mills. And he also worked with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals for 10 years in marketing and sales. He left the corporate world to pursue his dream of a global traveling adventure.

Raised on a farm in south central Nebraska, Karen graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Education and began her career in teaching. She later relocated to Colorado where she worked in Recreation Management. After living in Colorado nineteen years, she returned to Nebraska to care for her disabled Mother until her passing.

She has spent her retirement years as a Community Volunteer serving on the village, zoning, school and cemetery boards in her hometown; county health, historical society, hospital, hospital foundation and crime stoppers boards, Malaika Board and has served on numerous committees in her church and community.

Presently she chairs a committee to restore the 104-year-old bandstand in her hometown of Polk, Nebraska and has been instrumental in raising $62,000 for this project.

Bev’s career began with classroom teaching and evolved to focus on corporate communications and management. She retired in 2002 as Global Director of Marketing Services for Pfizer Animal Health, based in Pfizer World Headquarters in New York. Following a post-retirement return to Nebraska, she became the first executive director of the Malaika Foundation. In this role she made introductory contacts with organizations and individuals and worked with them to create Malaika’s first international symposium for Nebraska educators.

A 1988 trip to Kenya Initiated Bev’s attachment to southern Africa, which a decade later resulted in a one-year civic leave of absence from Pfizer to serve as a WorldTeach volunteer in Namibia. She subsequently returned to Namibia numerous times to continue working with disadvantaged students and teachers there.

Bev has a B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Nebraska and a Certificate of Professional Achievement in Teaching of English as a Second Language from Columbia University. She has served on boards of the International Association of Business Communicators, Lincoln Literacy, Rotary Club 14, Friends of Lied, and Friends of the University of Nebraska State Museum.

Joe Starita was an investigative reporter in New York and Miami for 15 years before joining the UNL College of Journalism, where he taught depth reporting for 20 years. A two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, the Lincoln native has won more than 25 national and regional awards for his reporting.

Starita also is the author of three acclaimed books on Native Americans: The Dull Knifes of Pine Ridge – a Lakota Odyssey; I Am a Man – Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice and A Warrior of the People: How Susan La Flesche Overcame Racial and Gender Inequality to Become America’s First Indian Doctor. Starita’s biography of Chief Standing Bear is being made into a full-length feature film.