We are thrilled to welcome three new staff members to the Cadasta team: Asaf Even-Paz, Katie Pickett, and Michele MacMillan.
Asaf Even-Paz joins as our new Product Manager where he will work closely with our partners and development team to identify platform needs and implement solutions. Asaf is an accomplished GeoInformation Engineer with over 10 years of experience in delivering software sales, product management, and business growth goals in GIS and Remote Sensing Software. Asaf has been part of several growing companies in emerging technological domains such as drones and traffic information systems and has shown bottom-line success in leading the development of GIS and Remote Sensing solutions. Asaf also has several years of experience in GIS design, development tools, and technical standards.
Katie Pickett joins us as our new Partnership and Data Specialist and will work to support collaboration with our partners through technology onboarding, training, and technical support. Katie Pickett has a graduate degree in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and an undergraduate degree in International Studies, Africana Studies. Katie has provided expert geospatial solutions for international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), governmental agencies, and social-change enterprise companies in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. She is a native English speaker who strives to perfect her written and spoken Kiswahili, dabbling in French from time-to-time. Born and raised in southwest Louisiana on the cusp of Cajun Country and eastern Texas, Katie adopted New Orleans as her American hometown a decade ago.
Michele MacMillan joins as our Program and Admin Associate. In this role, Michele will support our international programs and provide critical support to the senior leadership and to the organization as a whole. Originally from the Sonoran desert, Michele is a security and development professional with a background in social cohesion, displacement, and youth empowerment and regional experience in Eastern Europe and East Africa. Her research projects have explored how property is a barrier of return for displaced Syrians and how property policies in post-conflict Bosnia affect communities. Previously she worked with the United Nations Development Program by designing a youth empowerment program in Eastern Ukraine. She holds an Erasmus Mundus MA in Public Policy from Central European University and Institut Barcelona Estudis Internacionals and a BA in Political Science from the University of Arizona.
We are incredibly pleased to welcome Asaf, Katie, and Michele to the Cadasta family. With their inputs, Cadasta is poised to scale up our tools, services, and platform to advance global land and resource rights to put vulnerable communities on the map.
