Our Staff

Roddy Hughes
Executive Director
voices@votb.org
Thomas R. Hughes became the Voices on the Border Executive Director in September of 2007. Prior to joining the Voices team, Mr. Hughes served as a consultant on Latin American and Eastern European projects for the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law.

He is also a founder and vice-president of the Institute for Environmental Research and Advocacy in El Salvador, as well as a founder and member of the Board of Directors of Nursing Students Without Borders. Mr. Hughes graduated with a J.D. from Vermont Law School where he focused on international environmental law and environmental justice

Andi Lancaster
Assistant to the Executive Director
andi@votb.org
After interning at Voices on the Border for the 2009-2010 academic year, Andi returned in November 2010 as the Assistant to the Executive Director. She runs the DC office, keeping up with administrative tasks, fundraising for projects, blogging and overseeing interns. She has already travelled to El Salvador with Voices and plans on returning soon. She is currently a student at The George Washington University, completing her BA in International Affairs and Latin American Studies with minors in Spanish and Anthropology. Before working at Voices, she worked in a DC preschool that serves a predominantly Salvadoran immigrant population.

Rosie Ramsey
Project Coordinator
rosie@votb.org
Rosie was hired as the Voices Program Coordinator in January of 2008, and is charged with managing all in-country projects, leading delegations, working with local partners to develop initiatives, and other related tasks. Rosie joined in 2007 as a volunteer in the Lower Lempa.She spent one year working with local youth groups, assisting with project implementation, and facilitating communication with our partner communities.

Before joining Voices, Rosie worked in Guatemala City, Guatemala at the Casa del Migrante, a migrant safe house. Rosie has an M.A. in Latin American History from Fordham University.

Jessica Reilly
In-Country Volunteer

Jessie was born a Californiana and raised one too. She grew up in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles and moved to Berkeley to study a combination of Peace and Conflict Studies, Sustainable Development, and Agroecology and, to squeeze in one more bit, my thesis was on the power dynamics of border control. She certainly has a thirst for justice of all sizes and colors: social, food, environmental, health, housing.

Now that she has immigrated from the concrete jungle of Los Angeles to Comunidad Segundo Montes, she am applying the theory of local community development into every-day practice

Michael Sweigart
DC Intern
Mike is an intern for the 2010-2011 academic year at the Washington, DC office. He works primarily on updating the Voices blog and other administrative tasks. He participated in a delegation trip with three fellow GWU students to El Salvador this past January, 2011, during which they conducted a needs assessment of civil society in Cabañas; he is working on a report with the other delegates on the information they collected. He is a junior at The George Washington University majoring in International Affairs with a concentration in International Development, and a minor in Geography.

Dylan Roberts
Intern
Dylan is a Summer virtual intern, working mostly with the DC office from Miami. His research interests Latin American border zone governance, particularly transnational issues of drug trafficking and immigration, lead him to look at how these issues affect the communities Voices works with. A native Texan who is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, he obtained his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Tennessee in 2010 and is currently living with his wife in Miami while completing an M.A. in International Studies at Florida International University. While Dylan has traveled extensively, he has not yet been to El Salvador, which he hopes to do with Voices someday soon.

Julio Ortiz
DC Intern
Julio is a Summer intern in the DC office and rjust finished his sophomore year at the George Washington University. He is doing a double major in economics and international affairs and hopes to get involved in the field of international development. He spends most of his time at Voices researching and blogging about the various economic and development issues facing El Salvador and the Voices communities.

Gregory Montoya-Mora
Intern
An intern in the Albuquerque office, Greg is a 2009 alumnus of Saint Pius X High School, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was active in Student Government and Campus Ministry, leaving there as Student Body President. He is also an alumnus of the United States Senate Page program. After High School he spent nine months in the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) traveling and ministering throughout the southern United States. He is currently studying Latin American Studies at the University of New Mexico.

Cindy Mendoza
DC Intern
Cindy is a summer intern at the DC office. Born in Mexico but raised in California, she is currently a student at the George Washington University studying International Affairs with a concentration in Latin America and a minor in Spanish. As a first generation immigrant, she has seen many injustices and discrimination towards her loved ones and people like them, leading to an interest in immigration issues and human rights. She is passionate about the Latin American region and helping out anyone that is in need.

Christine Vlasic
DC Intern
Christine is a Summer intern at the DC office, where she researches and writes about current events in El Salvador. She spent most of the 2010-11 academic year studying and working in Sevilla, Spain and in Cuenca, Ecuador and has plans to visit El Salvador in the near future! She is currently a student at Cornell University where she is pursuing a BA in Government and International Relations, as well as Latin American Studies.