Meet the Board

Our Growing Up Boulder (GUB) board represents local and national thought leadership in children's rights, education, social justice, entrepreneurship, systems-change, strategic planning and fundraising.

Growing Up Boulder December 2022 board meeting: from left to right: (back row) Cathy Hill, Mark Davison, Felicia Naranjo Martinez, Erin Saunders, Sarabeth Berk, Bernadette Stewart, Mara Mintzer; (bottom row) Warren Binford, Jenny Donovan, Debbie Brown, Kazuyo Morita, Aidan Chopra.

Warren Binford

Warren Binford is an international children’s rights scholar and advocate. She is the inaugural W.H. Lea Endowed Chair for Justice in Pediatric Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Colorado where she is a Professor of Pediatrics, Professor of Law (by courtesy), and a Core Faculty Member in the Center for Bioethics and the Humanities. She is the Director of Law, Policy & Ethics at the Kempe Center on the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect. Prior to joining CU, Warren represented numerous children and families in the Child and Family Advocacy Clinic she founded and ran for 16 years at Willamette University in Oregon. She also has served as an inner-city teacher, a CASA, a foster parent, and co-founded a micro-school nonprofit.

Warren has published a wide variety of 80+ works and given hundreds of presentations worldwide. Media appearances on children’s issues include CNN, BBC, NBC, NPR, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and many others. From 2017 to 2019, she served on a multidisciplinary team interviewing hundreds of children and families arriving to the United States. Those interviews became the narratives of the award-winning children’s book, Hear My Voice/Escucha Mi Voz. Warren has been both a Fulbright Scholar in South Africa and the inaugural Fulbright Canada-Palix Foundation Distinguished Visiting Chair in Brain Science and Child and Family Health and Wellness. She holds a BA, summa cum laude with distinction, in Literature and Psychology and an EdM from Boston University and a JD from Harvard Law School.

​Professor Binford enjoys spending time in the mountains with her husband and children snowboarding, skiing, horseback riding, hiking, and backpacking.

Debbie Brown

The mission of Growing Up Boulder is aligned with Debbie’s passion for youth advocacy, social, political, and environmental justice. Growing Up Boulder engages Gen Z and Gen Alpha to express their wise and authentic voices regarding city planning in all aspects with equality and inclusiveness at the forefront.
 
Debbie spent over 20 years as an executive in the corporate world in Organization Development and Human Resources. Her passion was specializing in the design and implementation of people, cultural, and operational strategies with performance metrics designed to manifest an inclusive, productive, and successful work environment.
As Board Chair and member at SMWS, Debbie served the community by collaborating to create a revised vision and the implementation of the long-range strategic plan; co-designed and facilitated the board and College of Teacher’s retreat focusing on the 21st century educational needs; led the Capital Campaign to successfully purchase property to expand the campus; and chaired the ED search.
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She now consults and mentors’ young adults in career searches, resume positioning, behavioral based interviewing, and graduate school applications. Debbie consults with non-profit organizations around strategic planning and fundraising.
 
On the playful side, Debbie’s passions are practicing Iyengar Yoga, hiking in nature, and spending quality time with her daughters, friends, and puppy. She is politically active around civil and social justice for all of humanity. She is known as a “connector” to help elevate the collective through networking. In her spare time, she is a voracious reader in several genres. 

Edgar Chavarria

Edgar Chavarria participated in Growing Up Boulder activities as a child, and as an adult, he continues to give back to his community through his work as a Neighborhood Liaison for the City of Boulder and by serving on the board of Intercambio.  Edgar graduated from the University of San Diego.

Polly Fields

Polly Fields has been working in philanthropy for more than 25 years in a number of fields: global health, education, technology, and the arts. She has held leadership positions in the private and nonprofit sectors, and also serves as a Trustee for her family’s foundation. Polly has devoted her personal and professional life to protecting human rights for local and global communities around the world. 

Most recently, Polly was Head of Social Impact at Dropbox and launched the Dropbox Foundation prior to the company going public in 2018. In addition to developing the company’s human rights portfolio, she spearheaded employee giving, developed community engagement partnerships, and supported the company’s first sustainability efforts. Prior to Dropbox, Polly spent 8 years in public affairs and government affairs roles at Gilead Sciences, a company known for its HIV/AIDS and viral hepatitis treatments. She focused on expanding Gilead’s treatment access efforts in the developing world, the Gilead Foundation, and health policy initiatives, working in close collaboration with U.S. and international policymakers, multilateral donor organizations, academic institutions, clinicians, and NGOs. Polly was also the first Chief of Staff for President Clinton’s HIV/AIDS Initiative, working in Africa and the Caribbean to partner with country governments to develop and implement national HIV/AIDS care and treatment plans.  
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Polly earned her undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University and an MBA from the University of Michigan. She serves as co-chair of the Board at WITNESS and as an executive committee member of the Board at the Colorado Chautauqua Association. She is involved with Flatirons Elementary School and Next Chapter. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and two sons. 

Kazuyo Morita

Kazuyo Morita is an intellectual property and trademark lawyer at Holland and Hart.  She provides creative legal advice by applying her background in educational neuroscience, synthesizing complex information into a more visual and understandable format. She regularly provides counsel to clients in the consumer products, food and beverage, fashion and luxury goods, jewelry, scientific instruments, resort and entertainment, and pharmaceuticals industries.  Prior to joining Holland & Hart, Kazuyo was an educational neuroscience researcher with an emphasis on emotions and their effects on decision-making.  She has served on the Boulder Library Foundation and volunteers for many local nonprofits.  She received her J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School, her M. Ed. from Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and her BA from the University of California Berkeley.

Charlotte O'Donnell

Charlotte O'Donnell is a bilingual city parks planner, dedicated to deep community engagement and great design.  In her day-job, she collaborates with Growing Up Boulder on the Violet (soon to be "Primos") Park project via her role at Parks and Recreation.  She is also committed to taking climate action.  During her year abroad in Talca, Chile, she worked with the municipal government and a team of graduate students on "Re-imagining Campus, Revitalizing the City: Feasibility for earthquake reconstruction in Talca." Charlotte received her bachelor's degree in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley.

Bernadette Stewart

Bernadette Stewart started her career at CU Boulder over 20 years ago in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) Academic Advising Center. 

​The CAS includes of 45+ academic units, programs, and centers, 1300 faculty, 400 staff, and over 18,000 undergraduate students.  Bernadette is the appointing authority for CAS the university and classified staff, and is in charge of CAS personnel, and wellness initiatives.  She serves as an advisor to seven deans and more than 45+ faculty chairs and directors on faculty affairs and HR-related matters including: recruitment, compensation, onboarding, employee engagement and development, performance management, evaluation and merit, dispute resolution and progressive discipline, leave administration, and resignations and retirements.

Bernadette’s interests include civic engagement that encourages social justice, equity, and access for all.  She serves on the Workforce Boulder County board and Growing Up Boulder.  Bernadette works to building strong relationships across CU Boulder, and beyond, in order to offer strategies and solutions to critical business challenges.  Her intersectional identities as a multiracial, working class, hetero, cis gender woman have caused her to experience life in the margins.  Her experience has taught her that students, faculty, and staff need to see and hear reflections of themselves, which is why she is called to search for and cultivate connectivity, challenge barriers, fight for equity, and to seek inclusion. 

Bernadette received her BA in Anthropology, and Art/Art History with a minor in Ethnic Studies, and her MA in Educational Foundations Policy and Practice from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Elizabeth Henna

Elizabeth’s broad array of governmental, nonprofit, and business experience focuses on promoting human, especially children’s, health and welfare in a variety of capacities. She is currently working as a birth and postpartum doula supporting families welcoming new babies. She also volunteers at Boulder Community Foothills Hospital providing newborn hearing screenings. Her most recent board experience is a decade of service on Friends School’s Community Board, which she chaired through a head search and the school’s physical and programmatic expansion to include middle school and a second campus. Her prior work experience includes serving as the assistant director of a charity providing dental care for uninsured children in the metro Denver area and the Western Slope of Colorado and serving as legislative director for a U.S. Representative and staff member of a congressional subcommittee focused on environmental research. She also has international nonprofit experience as a volunteer in US AID programs promoting democracy, public health, and environmental reform in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
A native of Austin, Elizabeth Henna has lived in the Boulder area since 2003.  She holds a BA in history from Williams College and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.