Staff and Trustees
2023-24 Doan Brook Watershed Partnership Board of Trustees
The Partnership’s 16-member Board of Trustees meets bi-monthly to discuss watershed issues and initiatives, funding resources, programs and actions for consideration. Meetings are open to the public and scheduled at varying locations within the Partnership.
DBWP Executive Committee
Chairman – Darnell Brown, At-Large Citizen Representative
President – Nancy Moore, Councilwoman, City of Shaker Heights
Vice President – Karen Knittel, Planner, City of Cleveland Heights
Secretary – Laura Gooch, At-Large Citizen Representative & Engineering Consultant
Treasurer – Curt Witchey, At-Large Citizen Representative
Trustees
Dorothy Adams – At-Large Citizen Representative
Joel Alpern – Chief of Education & Experience, Holden Forests & Gardens
Chris Bongorno – University Circle, Inc.
Peter Bode – Executive Director, Nature Center at Shaker Lakes
Janine Boyd – Councilwoman, City of Cleveland Heights
Jeri E. Chaikin – Chief Administrative Officer, City of Shaker Heights
Stephanie Howse – Councilwoman, Ward 7, City of Cleveland
Ramona Lowery – Commissioner, Water Pollution Control
Roberta Muehlheim – Museum Ambassador and Associate Curator of Vertebrate Zoology, Cleveland Museum of Natural History
Stacey Polk – At-Large Citizen Representative
DBWP Staff
Elizabeth Berkeley,
Interim Executive Director
Dr. Berkeley, or “Beaux” for short, is a U.S. State Department Fulbright Scholar with the School of Wildlife, Ecology & Conservation at Chinhoyi University of Technology in Zimbabwe. Her main focus is on how humans and animals can co-exist and thrive in a rapidly changing environment. While in Zimbabwe, Dr. Berkeley led a university-wide initiative on One Health issues in humans and wildlife, developing new projects and partnerships with such organizations as USAID, the University of Florida, and the World Wildlife Fund. Prior to beginning her Fulbright Award, Dr. Berkeley served as Assistant Professor of Biology and Earth Science at Otterbein University in Columbus, Ohio and Visiting Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Her doctorate in Biodiversity and Restoration Ecology was awarded by Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Beaux grew up in Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights and is thrilled to be back contributing to the continued health and wellbeing of people and wildlife in the Doan Brook ecosystem.
Victoria Mills,
Senior Advisor
Tori graduated from St. Lawrence University with a degree in Environmental Studies and History, with a Fine Arts minor. Since then, she has worked as an environmental planner and educator. Tori worked for the Oceanarium of Maine, the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), both domestically and abroad, before returning to Cleveland. Her focus since has been on watersheds, first working at the Cuyahoga River Remedial Action Plan, then at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes as the Doan Brook Educator and the Director of Sustainability. She first joined the Partnership as Interim Director in 2006.
Tori resides within the Doan Brook Watershed and is proud to follow in the footsteps of her ancestors, who not only farmed 200 acres along the Doan in the 1800s, but opened their homes as underground railroad stations as well.