Ms. Gross has nearly 30 years of experience in research, program development and evaluation at public and private agencies in the U.S. Throughout her career, Ms. Gross has focused on exploring the systemic causes of social, political, and economic inequities and finding ways to counteract those inequities. While working in Boston , she developed and managed human service delivery systems and tenant advocacy initiatives for the Boston Housing Authority; was Vice President for Programs at the Urban League; and was Community Relations Director of the Lead Free Kids Project at Boston Health and Hospitals. She was Deputy Director of the Boston Housing Partnership, a premier public/private partnership supporting community development and affordable housing in fragile inner-city neighborhoods. She earned her MSW from Boston University , with a focus on policy, planning, and non-profit management. Subsequently, in New York , Ms. Gross served as a Program Officer for the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock and developed a portfolio of grants across the U.S. focused on human rights and economic development. She then served as the founding Executive Director of Sustainable America, a New York-based national NGO that promoted sustainable, equitable development practices and policies. Ms. Gross was hired by the Long Island Community Foundation to launch the ERASE Racism Initiative in June 2001. Ms. Gross has successfully led ERASE Racism, bringing together a cross section of Long Island leaders to discuss and formulate remedies to persistent regional inequities, resulting from imbedded institutional racism in health, education, and housing. In 2004, ERASE Racism became an independent New York State not-for-profit corporation.

Ms. Gross serves on the six-member Long Island Regional Planning Board, appointed by the Nassau County Executive and approved by the Nassau Legislature. She also services on the Executive Committee of Sustainable Long Island board of directors. She serves on the board of the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island, on the Advisory Board of Vital Signs at Adelphi University , and on the Advisory Committee of Long Island Index.

Ms. Harris has over six years of experience working in the civil rights field, concentrating primarily on fair housing issues and employment discrimination law. This experience is augmented by years of volunteer community service, extensive international travel, and management and public relations experience in the for-profit sector. Prior to earning her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, Ms. Harris developed, implemented, and coordinated all aspects of a fair housing program for a non-profit organization in California. She created fair housing testing and training programs as well as community outreach materials in both English and Spanish. Additionally, she conducted multilingual direct services to victims of fair housing discrimination and assisted in the administration and conflict resolution process for rent stabilization ordinances for two cities in Northern California. Ms. Harris has also worked with local, state, and national coalitions and governments on housing and poverty issues and on state legislative initiatives to expand affordable housing in California. As a professional mediator, Ms. Harris successfully resolved numerous landlord/tenant, fair housing and neighbor disputes. Ms. Harris also taught classes on Hate Crimes as well as a Law, Culture and Difference to first year law students. During law school, Ms. Harris was selected as an extern for the Honorable Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw of the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Additionally, Ms. Harris focused on employment discrimination law for individuals with physical and psychological disabilities and she conducted legal research and authored portions of law articles on Racial Profiling. Most recently, Ms. Harris completed an employment law litigation fellowship in Washington, D.C., where she concentrated on Plaintiff-side class action race discrimination cases.

Ms. Mattei brings to the position of Operations Manager over 30 years of experience in the fields of education, healthcare and human resources. Most of her career has been concentrated in administrative management positions in healthcare where the skills of problem-solving, effective communication and organization were critical to successful day-to-day operations of complex academic-based practices. She gained knowledge of finance and budgeting in positions at Mt. Sinai Services at Elmhurst and North Shore-LIJ Health System where she prepared and monitored the annual budgets and oversaw grants administration. As an Administrative Office Supervisor and Assistant Program Administrator, she honed her skills in supervision and training of staff, volunteers and interns. Rose also has extensive human resources experience throughout her career, including recruitment, orientation, training and labor relations and most recently was employed as a Recruiter/Administrator in the Human Resources Department for the Bank of New York where she focused on creative recruitment strategies. Rose has a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education and Master's Degree in Counseling from the University of Bridgeport . She taught in Brentwood Public Schools in Long Island . She has used her teaching and counseling skills in various volunteer capacities, focusing on women's health and equality issues and crisis counseling. She is now active on the Board of Deacons at Parkway Community Church .

Doris Dieckhoff comes to Erase Racism as an Accounting Consultant with more than 30 years of work experience in the area of Accounting and Administration, with both for profit and not for profit organizations, private and public companies. Educational accomplishments include a Masters Degree in Business Administration as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting. For the last five and one half years she has been working at the Coalition of Voluntary Mental Health Agencies Inc. in Manhattan, an umbrella advocacy and technical training agency for the Mental Health community in New York City. At the coalition she is part of the management team, Doris is responsible for financial record keeping and reporting and serves as the human resource administrator.

Eustace Thompson is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Foundations, Leadership, and Policy Study at Hofstra University where he serves as the Graduate Program Director of the Certification of Advanced Studies in Educational Administration program. He was formerly the Deputy Superintendent of the Uniondale Public Schools, located on Long Island , New York . He has 37 years of experience in urban and suburban public school settings and has held the positions of assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, high school principal, middle school principal, assistant principal and secondary social studies teacher. He has been active in numerous professional organizations having served as Executive Vice-President of the Long Island Council of Administrators and Supervisors and as a representative of the Instructional Television Service Committee of WLIW Channel 21. His research interests include issues of social justice in public educational system responses to Black males. He served in the positions of Adjunct Professor of Educational Administration at Baruch College and as Adjunct Professor at Five Towns College in the Department of Education. Dr. Thompson received his B.A. from the City College of New York, his M.S. from Long Island University , his M.A. and PH.D. from New York University . Dr. Thompson is a certified curriculum auditor with the International Curriculum Management Audit Center PHI Delta Kappa International and a staff development specialist in the areas of Deep Alignment and Walkthrough Supervision.