Board of Directors
Danya Karram, CFP
Board Treasurer
Brilliant Advice
Danya is a co-founder of Brilliant Advice, a financial planning and investment management firm. Her professional career has included working in accounting, finance, strategic planning, marketing and senior management. She has coached women on how to manage their finances as they face life changes. She has given lectures and workshops on personal finance, women in business and on how to develop diverse working environments.
Danya has served the Cincinnati community as a board member of Cincinnati YWCA, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cincinnati Red Cross, The Economic Center of University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Ballet and BRIDGES for a Just Community. She has been active in many other organizations in the Cincinnati area, including Bridges of Faith Trialogue, Cincinnatus, Cincinnati Women’s Club, Cincinnati Art Museum, Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation, Alzheimer Association and Junior League of Cincinnati.
Danya was chosen as one of The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Women of the Year for her charitable work, and she has been recognized by the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission and numerous community organizations.
James P. Buchanan, Ph.D
Brueggeman Center for Dialogue at Xavier University
James is the Director of the Brueggeman Center for Dialogue at Xavier University, which has partnered with over 90 organizations locally, nationally and globally on interfaith, refugees, environment, foreign policy and neighborhood economic development.
His teaching and research has focused upon comparative religions, global ethics, interfaith dialogue and the application of intercultural values to a range of issues connected with globalization. Before coming to Xavier University, he taught at Bucknell University, the University of Chicago, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and held chairs at The Rochester Institute of Technology and Hamilton College.
James has delivered over 200 lectures and talks worldwide on issues ranging from interfaith relations; globalization; systems theory and global systems, refugee and immigration issues; comparative value systems; China and Chinese thought; ecology and biotechnology. He has served on numerous editorial boards and been involved in NGO work worldwide.
His recent work in Cincinnati includes: The Mayor’s Immigration Task Force, The Mayor’s Steering Committee for the Green Cincinnati Plan, Boards of RefugeeConnect, Bridges of Faith Trialogue, the Cincinnati Anti-Hate Coalition, and OMID. He is co-chair of the Foreign Policy Leadership Council. He has published articles and books on topics ranging from comparative ethics to the social and environmental impacts of technological change.
Kurt L. Grossman
Board Secretary
Retired Partner
Wood Herron & Evans
Kurt L. Grossman was born in Youngstown, Ohio. He graduated cum laude in 1978 from University of Cincinnati with a BS in Electrical Engineering, and graduated with honors in 1981 from George Washington University Law School. Kurt served as a Technical Advisor to a Federal Appellate Judge from 1981 to 1983, after which he returned to Cincinnati. He practiced law for 30+ years, most as a Partner, with the Cincinnati patent/intellectual property law firm of Wood, Herron & Evans until retirement in 2014.
Kurt served on the Rights and Safety Committee of the Mayor’s Immigration Task Force, is Vice-President and Immigration Chair of the American Jewish Committee Cincinnati Region, is a member of the Immigration Task Force of the Catholic Diocese in Cincinnati, and is active with the Cincinnati Immigrant Dignity Coalition.
Kurt also serves as a Board member of the Jewish National Fund Ohio Valley, is an alum of the FBI Citizens Academy, tutors in Cincinnati Public Schools and at Scholar House/Brighton Center (Northern Kentucky), and collaborates with the Cincinnati Police Department and Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office on their policies in respect of foreign nationals. Kurt is also a member of Downtown Cincinnati, Inc. and the Downtown Residents Council.
Michael G. Hawkins, Esq.
Dinsmore & Shohl LLP
Mike Hawkins is a partner in the Labor & Employment and Appellate Practice Groups at Dinsmore. He has extensive experience in all aspects of labor, employment law and ERISA litigation and appellate practice.
Mike has argued two cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and many in-state and Federal Courts of Appeals. He has been selected by Best Lawyers as a top Labor & Employment lawyer every year since 1989. Mike is an arbitrator and mediator on the AAA panel.
Mike has a special interest in humanitarian law. He currently serves as Secretary to the Board of Refugees International, where he has participated in advocacy trips to Pakistan, Thailand, Kenya, Jordan, and Philippines. He served as Vice Chairman of the International Committee of the American Red Cross, where he attended various international conferences and visited Israel, Palestine, Vietnam and Cambodia on American Red Cross Missions.
He has served the Cincinnati community on the boards of the American Red Cross Cincinnati past Chapter Chair and Board Member, Cincinnati Human Relations Commission, United Way and Community Chest, National Conference for Community Justice, and the Cincinnati Bar Association.
Darlene Kamine
President & Co-Founder
Community Learning Center Institute
Darlene Green Kamine is the founding Executive Director of the Community Learning Center Institute, a not for profit agency which is dedicated to the development of all schools as community learning centers, responsive to the vision and needs of each school and its neighborhood. Previously she worked as a consultant to Cincinnati Public Schools to design, develop and implement the transformation of Cincinnati’s schools into community learning centers. Prior to her work with Cincinnati Public Schools, Kamine served for seventeen years as Magistrate of Hamilton County Juvenile Court where she organized the first dependency, neglect and abuse unit in the Court and overhauled practices and procedures which became the basis for new dependency law in Ohio.
Darlene is also the founder of ProKids, a nationally recognized child advocacy organization that provides volunteer guardians ad litem for abused, neglected and dependent children in the court system. She was also a co-founder of the Children’s Museum of Cincinnati and served as the president of their board. Her devoted voluntarism includes her service as President of the Junior League of Cincinnati, President of the American Bar Association Institute for Child Advocacy, and service on the boards of the Playhouse in the Park, Ohio Children’s Trust Fund Board, Brandeis University, Seven Hills School, and many other philanthropic organizations. She is also currently serving on the boards of Grad Cincinnati, MindPeace, Children’s Oral Health Network, and Growing Well Cincinnati.
Darlene is the author or editor of numerous publications and articles about the juvenile justice system and was an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law and Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law. She has received numerous honors for her lifetime of professional and volunteer efforts on behalf of children.
Sandra Spinner
HIAS Executive Board
Sandra has extensive experience in refugee issues. From 1977 to 1999 she held a leadership role, locally and nationally, in a movement dedicated to allowing free emigration of Soviet Jews. She has testified in federal removal hearings on behalf of Ukrainian Jews seeking asylum in the U.S. and her reports have been accessed by Canadian, Australian and American immigration lawyers and were distributed to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.
In 2005 Sandra became a founding Co-Chair of the Cincinnati Interfaith Coalition to Save Darfur. In 2006 she was elected to the Board of HIAS, an international refugee protection and resettlement agency, and currently serves on the Executive Committee. She has chaired their national and international programs oversight committee, traveling to Chad, Uganda, Kenya, Latin America, Ukraine and Europe as well as a Taskforce on Immigration. She has attended the annual United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) meetings with its implementing partners in Geneva Switzerland as a member of the HIAS delegation for several years.
Sandra has served on the boards of a number of philanthropic organizations and is a member of Xavier University’s 1812 Society, the Lion of Judah Society of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, and the Board of Isaac M. Wise Temple. In 2014 Sandra was appointed to Mayor Cranley’s committee to make Cincinnati a more immigrant-friendly community. Most recently, Sandra has been involved with Refugee Empowerment Initiative and Refugee Connect to serve the various refugee communities in our city.