Meet Our Board Members
Ed Oliver, Chair
Ed Oliver is co-chair of the Board of Trustees and is the parent of a lower school student. Ed is a Quaker and a member of Brooklyn Monthly Meeting. Having served as a co-opted member of the Nominating and Governance Committee, Ed is excited to have the opportunity to continue his service to the Brooklyn Friends School community as a member of the board. Ed received his MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a BA in Business Administration from Morehouse College. He is the Director – Finance at Dataminr, a real-time information discovery company, supervising a New York and London based team.
Steve Burwell
Steve Burwell is co-chair of the Board of Trustees. He and his wife Heidie are the parents of Ellis, class of 2023, and Scarlett, class of 2026. They have been involved with the school since Ellis started in the Preschool 3s program. Steve and Heidie were parent co-chairs of the Brooklyn Friends Fund during the 2012-2013 and 2013-14 school years and continue to serve as Brooklyn Friends Fund Committee members. Steve is a Partner at Foley Hoag LLP and was previously a Managing Director and Associate General Counsel of Deutsche Bank AG. Prior to that, he was an Associate at the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP from 1998 to 2003. He also worked from 1993 to 1995 at City Year in Boston, a youth community service program which was a model for the national AmeriCorps program. Steve received his J.D. from Columbia University School of Law in 1998 and a B.A. in English from Amherst College in 1993. In his spare time, Steve can be found cooking dinners at home or biking in Prospect Park.
Electra Cummings
Allison Dunn
Allison is the parent of two children at BFS — Joshua ’25 and Sidney ’28 — a partner at WorkLab LLC, and the Associate Director of the Dynamics of Consulting program. Prior to joining the Board of Trustees in September 2020, she was a long-time co-opted member of the Advancement Committee, through which she and her husband Mark co-chaired BFS’s most recent capital campaign and served on the Brooklyn Friends Fund committee. In addition to her service on the BFS Board, Allison sits on the board of the Prospect Park Alliance, co-chairs the Camp Advisory Board for Camp Sea Gull & Camp Seafarer, and serves on the Steering Committee for the Society of 1918 at the College of William & Mary. Trained in management and behavioral sciences, Allison draws on a systems perspective to inform her work and service, seeking to understand and nurture the underlying, interconnected factors that shape outcomes in each of these complex organizations. Allison holds a BA in English from the College of William & Mary and an MA in Industrial & Organizational Psychology from New York University. A Virginia native, she now lives in Park Slope with Mark and her sons.
M Salomé Galib
M Salomé Galib is a writer and an attorney. She promotes, and fundraises for, not-for-profit organizations that advance issues close to her heart. Besides serving on the Board of Trustees of Brooklyn Friends School, she is on the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and the Hostos Community College Foundation Board. She also serves on the Puerto Rico Conservation Trust’s Advisory Council, and the Sila M. Calderón Center for Puerto Rico’s Diaspora Advisory Council. Early in her career, Ms. Galib was a business reporter and the Washington correspondent for El Nuevo Día, the leading daily newspaper in her native Puerto Rico. She was also a Clinton Administration appointee at the US Information Agency, now part of the US State Department. Besides her past work as an associate at two NY law firms, Ms. Galib was the NY Office Director for the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico and Development Director for LatinoJustice-PRLDEF. Until recently, she owned Bebe Sol LLC, a purveyor of children’s apparel. She holds a JD from Columbia Law School, an MIA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a BSFS from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. “We moved to Brooklyn on the first week of September 2007. Our oldest daughter moved into Kindergarten at Brooklyn Friends that same week. We cannot imagine our lives outside of either community and are grateful for it.”
Lakisha Grant
Lakisha Grant is the mother of a current lower school student. She is a member of Brooklyn Monthly Meeting and serves as co-clerk of the Childcare Committee. After graduating from Westtown School, Lakisha received her BS in Hotel and Restaurant Management. She also holds a MS in Human Resources Management and a MFA in Acting. Lakisha has worked for NYC for 10 years and is currently the Deputy Director in Human Resources at the Office of the Mayor. She and her son reside in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Marie Hoguet
Marie Hoguet is an organization development and change consultant at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Prior to her role there she worked for the New York City Department of Education for six years, establishing an internal consulting practice. Marie is a Quaker and member of Brooklyn Monthly Meeting where she serves as Clerk of the Childcare Committee. She was introduced to Quakerism as child during summers at Farm and Wilderness camps in central Vermont, where she became interested in Quaker practices for collaboration and community. She is the mother of two Brooklyn Friends School students and lives in Brooklyn. Marie holds a Masters in Organizational Change Management from The New School and a BA in History from Whitman College.
Martha Hyde
Martha Hyde, a member of Brooklyn Monthly Meeting, is a professional musician who plays woodwind instruments. She has performed in venues ranging from Alice Tully Hall to CBGB’s to the Cathedral of St. John the Devine as well as tours on four continents. She can regularly be seen in the orchestra pits on Broadway and Radio City Music Hall and has performed with such luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Hugh Jackman, Whoopi Goldberg and Glenn Close. She is also on numerous cast recordings. She is a co-founder of the New River Ensemble which has toured the eastern United States from Massachusetts to Georgia. She has run band programs and taught classes in New York City public schools as well private schools. She is on the faculty of Friends Music Camp, held every July on the campus of Earlham College. She has two sons, both in their twenties and lives in East New York with her husband. Her board experience includes Friends House at Rose Hill, the Musicians Health Fund at Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians and the Executive Board of Local 802.
Bill Morris
Bill Morris is joining the Brooklyn Friends Board of Trustees after a 40-year career in education. This June, Bill retired after 13 years as Head of School at Friends Academy on Long Island. Prior to that, he spent 27 years at the Taft School in Connecticut, a boarding school for grades 9-12. Bill began his career as a teacher, coach, and dorm advisor, and over time undertook a broad range of school leadership roles before becoming a School Head. Bill has served on the New York State Association of Independent Schools Board of Trustees for eight years, and he has chaired the NYSAIS Commission on Accreditation for the last seven years. He is a member of Country Day School Headmasters Association and The Headmasters Association. He now lives near Lake Placid, NY. He and Sue, his wife of 42 years, have 3 adult children and 5 grandchildren. “The opportunity to continue my association with Quaker education, work closely with my long-time friend and colleague Larry Weiss, and offer what I can to advance the service Brooklyn Friends provides for students and families so excites me about joining this vibrant and forward looking community. I have found that the values of a Friends community resonate deeply with me personally and spiritually. I believe that the essence of Friends education is to develop in students a sense of gratitude, patience, and forgiveness. My hope is that the graduates of Brooklyn Friends will appreciate how they owe the world a life rather than the world owing them a living, to paraphrase the words of Amy Willets, a Quaker.”
Adam Rashid '94
Adam Rashid attended Brooklyn Friends School from 1984-1991 as a member of the class of 1994 and is a member of Brooklyn Monthly Meeting. Adam also serves on the Board of the Neighborhood Charter School of Harlem — he has been Treasurer of this school since its founding in 2011. He is a former financial analyst in the alternative investment industry. Adam lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with his wife and son. “I have been fortunate to have attended Quaker schools for most of my formal education, and I cherish the time I was at BFS. Many in my family also attended so I have a deep connection to the school. I am impressed at how the school continues to grow and evolve while still staying true to its Quaker roots. Service to the community has always been an important Quaker tradition, and I am honored to be able to serve on the Board of Trustees.”
Jud Reis
Jud Reis graduated from Pomfret School where he is currently a trustee, Washington and Lee University, and Harvard Business School.
“I feel fortunate to have had 2 and 1⁄2 careers, 24 years as an investment banker, primarily with Morgan Stanley, 26 years in investment management, and still at it, at Sire Management, a company I founded in 1991 and, for the 1⁄2 career, one full academic year as the Morris Visiting Professor at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia, followed by several years of teaching a short course at Darden in the spring.”
Jud served as a Director of Pilobolus, a modern dance company, is currently a Trustee of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, where he was President from 1994 to 2008, is a Trustee of the Pomfret School, and is a Trustee of the William T. Grant Foundation, whose mission is to improve the lives of young people. He serves on the investment committee at all three.
Jud co-authored “The Fine Art of Valuation” in The Mergers and Acquisitions Handbook, published by McGraw-Hill in 1987 and “Determining the Value of Restructuring Alternatives” in Corporate Restructuring, A Guide to Creating the Premium-Valued Company, published by McGraw-Hill in 1990.
He resides in Manhattan, is married and has five grown sons and five grandchildren, one of whom is a student at BFS. Charlie is a member of the class of 2030.
Gabe Schwartz
Gabe Schwartz is the parent to two children at BFS, Sadie, class of 2029, and Sebastian, class of 2032. Gabe is Co-Deputy Executive Managing Member and Co-Head of U.S. Distressed Corporate Investments at Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP, a global institutional investment management firm, which he joined in 2009. Prior to Davidson Kempner, Gabe was at Goldman, Sachs & Co. for 9 years, most recently as a Managing Director in the Special Situations Group. Gabe received a B.A., summa cum laude, from Colgate University in 2000. Gabe is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Community Foundation and also serves as the Chairman of its Finance and Investment Committee.