Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, is a Founder and Co-Executive Director of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. He is a founder of the Buddhist Psychotherapy Collective and in private practice, where he sees individuals, couples, and groups. Koshin is currently a Jungian Analyst Candidate at the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association. He has served as a chaplain at Cabrini Medical Center & Hospice and Beth Israel Medical Center. Since 2002, he has led the weekly meditation practice at Beth Israel’s Continuum Center for Health & Healing. Koshin began Zen practice over twenty years ago, and he is a senior student and novice Soto Zen Buddhist priest under Roshi Enkyo O’Hara, at the Village Zendo. He teaches workshops on meditation, contemplative care, and addiction and spirituality in a variety of settings from public school classrooms to corporations.

BOARD CHAIR

Gerry McConnell has significant experience in the fields of finance, investment banking and private equity investment with a special focus on socially responsible investing. Gerry spent over 10 years as an investment banker providing strategic advice and raising capital for a range of clients operating in industries such as media and telecommunications, technology, manufacturing and retail. Beginning in 2000, Gerry was a senior partner at a private equity firm which pursued a socially responsible investment strategy of supporting and partnering with organized labor to invest in U.S. based manufacturing companies. More recently, Gerry has organized and raised capital for the creation of renewable and sustainable energy companies in the United States and Brazil.  Gerry's current focus is on harnessing the capital and creativity of the private sector to address social problems. Gerry has participated on the Boards of several large private and public companies and is currently on the Board of Brenco, Inc. (Brazilian Renewable Energy Corp.), Hawaii Bio-energy, llc and Cilion, Inc. He also serves on the board of the McConnell Family Foundation. Gerry has been a meditator and student of Buddhism for over six years. Gerry is currently a student of Roshi Enkyo O'Hara, at the Village Zendo.

TREASURER

David Solomon, MA, is a PhD candidate in American Jewish History at New York University. David is a private investor and a partner and director of various family businesses principally engaged in agriculture in Arkansas. He spent two years in the U.S. Army’s First Infantry Division, the second year (1965-66) in Vietnam. In 2003, David  became a trustee of the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), founded 1892, the oldest ethnic historical organization in the U.S.  In 2004, he became an officer:  first treasurer and then executive director on a pro bono basis, serving until January 2008. David also served as a director on the board of the CJH from 2004-08. He spent thirty plus years as second in command and major shareholder of Donovan Data Systems, Inc., a private company with international operations, specialized in complex real-time business systems for advertising agencies and advertising sales organizations in all media.  Over the years, David wore many hats:  CFO, head of operations and client service, chief applications strategist, and COO.

SECRETARY

Christine Swann was born in the UK and after being a hitch-hiking hippie in Europe in the 1960s she took a real job in 1970 with a start up computer company that provided IT services to the Advertising and Communication industry. That job brought her to New York in 1977. As Director of Client Service and Company Partner, she developed the department from a staff of 5 to several hundred across locations in North America and Europe and extended client support functions across help desk, reception, documentation, account management and product development. She was involved with the care of many friends dying in NYC in the Aids epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. On taking retirement, she concentrated on volunteering in EOL care – in the US and in Africa. She is a long-term NYC hospice volunteer and an active donor and volunteer in several partnerships between US hospices and hospices in Zimbabwe and South Africa -which she visits regularly. She is also on the Board of the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa (part of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization – the major industry voice for hospices in the US) and the Board of Sagamore Institute (an educational Institute in the Adirondacks) and a retired member of the Board of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. Her Buddhist exploration started about 10 years ago but has settled into regular practice over the past 2 years.


Shoshana Silverman Belisle, LMSW, is currently the Manager of Marketing and Development at the Continuum Center for Health and Healing. Her primary role is to increase awareness of and access to integrative medicine and holistic wellness.  Her work involves reaching out to current and potential patients, community organizations and health care industry colleagues to share the unique orientations of holistic health care and to make these expanded healing options available to a broader population. This outreach work involves developing and coordinating programs throughout Beth Israel Medical Center that enhance holistic wellness for patients, caregivers and employees. To support the development of these programs, she is interested in exploring partnerships with philanthropists, foundations and corporations. She is a licensed social worker and is certified in Eriksonian Hypnotherapy. Shoshana also holds a firm personal commitment to self-care. Thus, in her own life, she incorporates nutrition, meditation, exercise, yoga, and an ongoing exploration of new avenues to promote wellness in body, mind and spirit.


Rande Gail Brown was a founding board member and formerly the Executive Director of the Tricycle Foundation, publisher of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, America's leading Buddhist magazine. She is also president of East West Communications, a company that facilitates cultural understanding between Japan and the United States. A well-known translator of Japanese spiritual and cultural texts, she most recently co-authored the New York Times bestseller Geisha, A Life with Mineko Iwasaki (Atria, 2002).


Martin H. Ehrlich, MD, MPH, Licensed Acupuncturist, is a Board Certified Internal Medicine Physician at The Beth Israel Continuum Center for Health and Healing.  A graduate of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and School of Public Health and The American College of Acupuncture and Chengdu College of Traditional Chinese Medicine; he practices Integrative Medicine, combining the best of Eastern and Western traditions to provide patients with effective modalities to promote healing and well being. He studies, practices and teaches nutrition, yoga, meditation relaxation and breath awareness.


Anne Moses is currently the corporate director for community health education and outreach for Continuum Health Partners.  Continuum is the parent organization for St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center, Beth Israel Medical Center, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and Long Island College Hospital.  As director she is responsible for the development and implementation of programs designed to improve health outcomes for the residents of the communities served by Continuum member hospitals.



Joshua Mitsunen Moses, MA, is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has an MA from Cornell University and is currently a Ruth L. Kirchstein Fellow with the National Institute of Mental Health. He has worked on research projects funded by the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Fogarty Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation. For the past three years he has been studying the role of religious and spiritual care in times of disaster. He has been practicing Buddhism for the past twenty years and is currently a student of Roshi Enkyo O’Hara at the Village Zendo. His interests include the anthropology of health and illness, the history of mind/body medicine, health and inequality and culture and mental health. He is particularly interested in the use and misuse of Buddhism in American healthcare.