Jonathan King, Cambridge (CD7), Board Co-Chair; chair, Books Not Bombs working group; vice chair, Nuclear Disarmament Working Group
Jonathan King is Professor of Molecular Biology at MIT where he has long taught biochemistry and directed biomedical research on protein misfolding and human disease. He is past president of the national Biophysical Society, and former Councilor of the American Society of Virology and of the American Society for Microbiology. He is a recipient of the United States Antarctic Service Medal, a former Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of the National Institutes of Health MERIT Award. Prof. King chairs the Editorial Board of the MIT Faculty Newsletter and serves on the Technology and Culture Forum Steering Committee. He is a recipient of MIT’s M.L. King Jr. Faculty Leadership Award.
As a long time teacher of experimental method, Prof. King has been engaged with issues of science education and was an officer of the statewide Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education (MassCARE). Prof. King serves on the Board of Citizens for Public Schools and is Vice-President of the Cambridge Residents Alliance, dealing with housing and public transit issues. In 2008 Prof. King chaired the Scientists for Obama Committee in Massachusetts.
Long involved in issues of science and society, Prof. King was a co-author of the Science for Peace Resolution of the World Council of Churches, calling for continuing nuclear disarmament, and a leader of the national campaign of biomedical scientists to press the Senate to ratify the Biological Weapons Convention, which culminated in the treaty’s ratification by the Senate in 1989.
Prof. King currently serves as Co-Chair of Massachusetts Peace Action and chairs its Nuclear Disarmament Working Group. This work also connects to the Poor People’s Campaign building on MLK Jr’s vision and the national People’s Budget Coalition that works with the Congressional Progressive Caucus on federal budget priorities. King is married to journalist Jackie Dee King and has two sons, Aaron and Andrew, who live and work in the Boston area.
Rosemary Kean, Dorchester (CD7), Board Co-Chair; co-chair, Racial Justice Working Group; chair, Peace, Working Class and Unions group
Rosemary Kean is an active member of Dorchester People for Peace (DPP) and co-chair of the Social Justice Committee of First Church Boston UU. For the past 8 years and especially since retirement 2 years ago following a 45 year nursing career, Rosemary has been focusing on activism and community organizing for peace and economic justice under the tutelage of long time activists and organizers at DPP. She worked on the Budget For All campaign with the Coalition to Fund Our Communities/Cut Military Spending 25% which includes DPP, New England United for Justice, Boston Workers Alliance, City Life/Vida Urbana, AFAB, and Survivors, Inc., among other Dorchester-Roxbury-Boston community groups. Rosemary is her church liaison to the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization which organizes around health care, housing, and education. She is currently working on the Jobs Not Jails campaign and on a UU Mass Action effort for passage of 2 bills in the Massachusetts legislature to end mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenses and to reform pre-trial bail procedures. Rosemary has an MS degree in psychiatric nursing and has written about providing psychiatric care to older adults in the home, a model which continues to be practiced by beloved colleagues at the Cambridge Health Alliance. She chairs MAPA’s Racial Justice and Decolonization Working Group.
Rosalie Anders, Cambridge (CD7), co-chair, Climate & Peace Working Group
Rosalie Anders retired in 2012 from her job as an environmental planner with the City of Cambridge. A longtime peace and environmental activist, she is co-chair of the Environmental Justice Task Force at First Parish Church in Cambridge, a board member of GreenCambridge, and a coordinating committee member for Greenport. A former Williamstown resident, she cofounded the Nuclear Weapons Education Center there in 1980 and was active in peace and environmental justice issues in Berkshire County. She was associate director of the Council for a Livable World from 1984 to 1991 and is a past vice president of WAND. Before becoming a planner, she was a family therapist for many years. She serves as president of the Massachusetts Peace Action Education Fund (MAPA EF) and co-chairs our Peace and Climate Working Group.
Merri Ansara, Easthampton (CD1), CD1 District Coordinator; Cuba Subgroup Chair
Merriam Ansara has been a community activist and organizer since 1969. Her political involvement began with a trip to Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade in 1969. On her return she became active in the anti-Vietnam war movement and with the Black Panther Defense Committee. From there she went on to community organizing in Jamaica Plain and from then on forward continued to combine community organizing work with international work, working with the Committee Against Apartheid in South Africa and with work to end the embargo against Cuba and normalize relations with Cuba. In recent years she has worked with the Easthampton Community Coalition, the Raging Grannies in Northampton, Western Mass Code Pink, was a founder of The Resistance Center, and worked with Enlaces de Familia, a Puerto Rican group in Holyoke. Merri started working with MAPA in 2020 and in addition to leading the Cuba subteam and representing MAPA in the National Network on Cuba (NNOC) and leading MAPA’s work in Congressional District 1, participates in the MAPA’s Fund Healthcare Not Warfare working group, Ukraine Emergency Committee, and Latin America/ Caribbean working group.
Jill El-Ashkar, Salem, Gaza Israel Mideast Peace Campaign cochair (CD6)
Jill El-Ashkar is an American-Muslim convert married to a Palestinian for over 35 years and a lifelong Salem, MA resident with strong ties to the Islamic community in the North Shore area.
Educated at Salem State University with a BS in Sociology the love of people and culture lead to 35 years of working in healthcare, workforce training, and mental health services as a human rights, social justice and patient advocate. Presently an active member of Mass Peace Action and a cochair of its Gaza Israel Mideast Peace Campaign. Co-founder of the Community Encampments for
Palestine (CEP) and recently elected as secretary to the newly formed North Shore Middlesex North Political Action Committee (NSMNPAC) in CD 6.
Joseph Gerson, Watertown (CD5)
Joseph Gerson is President of the Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security, Director of the American Friends Service Committee’s Peace and Economic Security Program, and Vice-President of the International Peace Bureau. He plays a leading role in building collaborations among U.S., Asian, and European peace and nuclear weapons abolition movements and was the lead organizer for the intersectional World Conference for nuclear disarmament, climate, peace and justice held in New York in 2015. He works closely with Asian and European peace and nuclear disarmament movements and a frequent keynote speaker at the World Conference against A- & H- Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and other international and U.S. forums. He helped to launch the nuclear weapons freeze movement of the 1980s, led the successful opposition to construction of naval nuclear weapons bases in Boston, Rhode Island and New York, and was the lead organizer of international conferences and mass mobilizations on the eves of the 2010 and 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference. His books include Empire and the Bomb: How the US Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World; With Hiroshima Eyes: Atomic War, Nuclear Extortion and Moral Imagination and The Sun Never Sets…Confronting the Network of Foreign U.S. Military Bases. He is a member of MAPA’s Ukraine Emergency Committee.
Keith Harvey, Wareham (CD9)
Keith B. Harvey is the Regional Director for the Northeast Region of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a position he has held since 1992. The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker Peace and Social Justice multi issue organization, working on Peace, Economic justice, Immigrant rights and Healing/Criminal Justice issues in the US and overseas. Keith has used popular education methodologies to facilitate many different workshops, such as non-violence trainings (Help Increase the Peace program), Criminal Justice history, and International Debt and the IMF/World Bank. Before coming to AFSC, Keith spent nine years in low and moderate-income property development and management. Keith recently sat on the Cambridge Friends School Board of Trustees, chaired the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute Board of Directors, sat on the Philadelphia Planning committee for the US Social Forum, and worked with the MA Poor Peoples Campaign coordinating committee.
Jared Hicks, Dorchester (CD7)
Jared was born in Dorchester and is a 26-year-old millennial. He volunteered for Bernie Sanders’ Presidential campaign and was a Bernie delegate at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. He is a new member of the Boston Democratic Ward 17 committee and is honored to serve the political revolution. He will forever feel the BERN and believes that the struggle continues. He is a founding member of Our Revolution Massachusetts (ORMA) and of Our Revolution Boston, and serves on ORMA’s Representative Council. He is also active in Dorchester People for Peace and worked for the Massachusetts Nurses Association’s Question 1 in 2018.
Hayat Imam, Dorchester (CD7), Fundraising Chair
Hayat Imam is an American-Muslim of Bangladeshi origin. She is a feminist-activist who has committed her life work to building global social justice movements in Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines and the USA. Her efforts have been directed towards environmental protections, nuclear disarmament, renewable energy, and the economic empowerment of Women. Presently, Hayat is an active member of Mass Peace Action and Dorchester People for Peace. As an immigrant to the USA from a Muslim country, Hayat Imam hopes to increase understanding and build bridges, by sharing the perspectives of people from distant shores. Hayat was one of the keynote speakers at the Boston Women’s March in January 2017. She has developed and offered a Course on Islam four times in the past few years, called UNDERSTANDING ISLAM: A Muslim Woman’s Perspective on the Essence of Islam, the Diversity of the Muslim World, and its Relationship with the West.
Jeff Klein, Dorchester (CD7), Gaza Israel Mideast Peace Campaign
Jeff Klein is a retired machinist and union activist. He worked at GE in Lynn and for the Mass Water Resources Authority on Deer Island, where he was president of his local union for ten years. Since 2003 he has been active with Dorchester People for Peace in opposing US wars abroad and promoting social justice at home, in cooperation with many other grassroots organizations, and he edits the weekly newsletter DPP Update. During the past decade he has traveled almost every year to Palestine/Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East, participating in solidarity efforts and promoting freedom for the Palestinians from occupation and racism. He has spoken many times about the Israel-Palestine conflict in schools, churches, mosques, community and peace organizations, and has appeared on local TV and radio. He also published articles and op-ed pieces on US policy, politics and Middle East issues. In the 1980’s Jeff lived and worked in Nicaragua, then joined the South African freedom struggle, working for the exiled African National Congress in Lusaka, Zambia. He helped to teach English at the Association of Haitian Women in Boston (AFAB) for the past two years. He lives in Dorchester and has two grown children. Jeff chaired MAPA’s Palestine/Israel Working Group from 2015 to 2021.
Maryellen Kurkulos, Fall River (CD4), Treasurer
Maryellen Kurkulos grew up in Fall River and has lived in New York, Baltimore and Athens, Greece. A graduate of Wellesley College, she received her doctorate in Biological Sciences from Columbia University and has been a researcher and professor of molecular biology and genetics. She has been involved in a range of anti-war and social justice activism including organizing for the Budget For All-MA campaign, Occupy Fall River, and Our Revolution Greater Fall River. She attended Z Media Institute, the annual summer school in Woods Hole run by cofounders of Z Magazine. She speaks Demotic Greek and has freelanced as an interpreter. She has chaired our Communications Committee and 2022 Planning Group, and is currently chair of MAPA’s webinar committee. She is a member of our Executive Committee.
Sam Levine, Lexington (CD5), Political/Legislative chair
Sam Levine is an organizer originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and moved to Boston for college in 2024. He started an internship with MAPA in 2025, where he worked primarily on the Gaza Peace campaign while organizing with other community organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace. Alongside peace issues, Sam organizes around labor, climate, and housing with a particular interest in electoral politics. He is currently studying Political Communications at Emerson College.
Evan MacKay, Cambridge (CD5)
Evan MacKay is a community organizer based in Cambridge. They helped organize the Harvard Graduate Students Union HGSU-UAW Local 5118, the largest union victory in Massachusetts since 2008, and then served as the union’s president. In addition to their work on economic, racial, social, and environmental justice, they have been deeply involved in anti-corruption and good government efforts within the Massachusetts legislature. They helped win the 2024 ballot measure to audit the legislature and pass new legislative rules in 2025 securing public committee votes, overcoming strong opposition from State House leadership.
Susan Mirsky, Newton (CD4), Nuclear Disarmament Working Group chair
Susan Mirsky is chair of the Nuclear Disarmament Working Group and is MAPA’s legislative coordinator for CD4. She is a founding member of Newton Dialogues on Peace and War since its beginning in 2001. In high school in 1959, she helped organize the Youth Committee on Sane Nuclear Policy in Essex County, NJ, and in college helped organize a student group against the Vietnam War. She was instrumental in advocating for city of Newton to have a city-wide municipal election on nuclear issues. She also organized the City Council to pass a resolution on the dangers of the Boston University Homeland Security BK-4 Bio-lab. She had worked steadily in Newton and In Massachusetts to publicly discuss the dangers of nuclear weapons and the money being drained for their production for resources needed to support our people and our planet – finding common threads of concerns. She has a special interest in helping young people to become engaged in these issues.
Steve Powell, Somerville (CD7)
Steve Powell is a graduate of MIT’s political science program, and has had a longstanding interest in people-to-people diplomacy. He is a member of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) and went to El Salvador as part of an accredited election accompaniment delegation in 2019. During January-February 2020, he also has worked as an organizer for MAPA Education Fund’s Elephant in the Room Project, which calls on Presidential candidates to speak about the Pentagon budget during the Massachusetts Presidential primary.
John Ratliff, Cambridge (CD7), Latin America/Caribbean Working Group
John Ratliff was political director of an SEIU local union in Miami, Florida, and relocated to Cambridge after his retirement in 2012. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School. A Vietnam veteran and member of Veterans for Peace/ Smedley Butler Brigade, he is also a member of the coordinating committee of Massachusetts Senior Action’s Cambridge branch and a steering committee member of Massachusetts Jobs with Justice. As Mass. Peace Action’s economic justice coordinator he leads our coalition work with Raise Up Massachusetts and against the Trans Pacific Partnership. He is co-chair of the Latin America/ Caribbean Working Group and a member of our executive committee.
Grace Sanford, Northeastern University
Grace Sanford is a political science major at Northeastern University. She was a MAPA co-op student and intern in Spring 2024. She is originally from Connecticut and is a basketball player.
Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, Worcester (CD2)
Claire is a founding member of the SS. Francis and Therese Catholic Worker House in Worcester, program director of the Center for Nonviolent Solutions, and a contributor to the National Catholic Reporter.
Derek Sexton, Somerville (CD7)
Derek Sexton is an organizer and activist based in Somerville, MA. Currently, he works as a community organizer for SEIU Local 509. Before that, he completed a Master of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, where he focused on peacebuilding and faith-based community organizing. As an advocate for human rights, Derek served for four years as chair of Massachusetts Peace Action’s Latin American & Caribbean Working Group, traveling regularly on international human rights delegations to Honduras, Cuba, El
Salvador, and Guatemala.
Paul Shannon, Somerville, Ukraine: A Time for Peace chair and Gaza Israel Mideast Peace Campaign co-chair (CD7)
Born in Boston in 1947, Paul has lived all his life in the greater Boston area. For almost all of his adult life he has been an activist, writer, and speaker in various peace, union, prison reform, human rights, and social justice movements, particularly the United Farm workers’ union drives, the Vietnam anti-war and solidarity movements, the movement to end apartheid in South Africa, the 1980’s Central American and Cambodian solidarity movements, the Haitian solidarity movement, and the Afghanistan and Iraqi anti-war movements. He is past editor of the Indochina Newsletter and was director of the national film library of the New England American Friends’ Service Committee and part of its Peace and Economic Security Program until 2017, now retired. He has been teaching social science and history courses at a number of colleges and community education programs for 43 years. In the late 90’s, Paul helped organize a broad coalition for all day hearings to oppose the original sex offender registry and lifetime civil commitment legislation in Massachusetts, and in 2007 was a founder of the National Association for Reform of Sexual Offense Laws and now is board chairman of the organization. He is initiator and coordinator of the Raytheon anti-war campaign, chairs Mass. Peace Action’s Middle East Working Group, and belongs to its Peace and Climate Working Group. He recently co-edited a new volume of Noam Chomsky’s writings, Internationalism or Extinction (Universalizing Resistance), and is working on a second book on Noam.
Bahar Sharafi – Dorchester (CD8)
Bahar Sharafi is an Iranian-American peace activist and data scientist living in Dorchester. She is Massachusetts chapter lead for National Iranian American Council, co-chair of CD8 for Palestine, and collaborates with MAPA in Arise & Resist and in organizing around peace and reconciliation with Iran.
Tony Van Der Meer – Dorchester (CD7)
Michael VanElzakker, Somerville (CD7)
Michael is a research fellow in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he studies post-traumatic stress syndrome. He became fascinated by peace and justice through his study of neurology and science and is now a leading member of our Nuclear Disarmament working group, as well as an activist on MAPA’s work in relation to the Korea crisis. He is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Emerita Member
Shelagh Foreman, Cambridge (CD5)
Shelagh Foreman was a founding member of Mass Freeze, the statewide nuclear freeze organization, which merged with SANE to form Massachusetts Peace Action. She has worked consistently on nuclear disarmament and focused on bringing Peace Action’s message to our elected officials. She studied art at The Cooper Union and Columbia University, taught art and art history, and is a painter and printmaker. She serves on our executive committee, was program director of MAPA, chaired our Middle East working group, and was a member of our Foreign Policy for All working group. She represented MAPA on the Political Committee of Mass Alliance, is a core group member of 20/20 Action, chairs MAPA’s Iran Task Force and is a member of our Executive Committee. She has 5 children and 7 grandchildren, lives in Cambridge and also spends time in Falmouth.
Governance
At-large members serve for a 2-year term. The next election will be held in April 2027. Read about the Board election process.
MAPA’s Bylaws are posted here.
The Board has established an Executive Committee which acts for the Board between its meetings. Its current members are Jonathan King (board co-chair), Rosemary Kean (board co-chair), Merri Ansara, Keith Harvey, Hayat Imam, Jonathan King, Maryellen Kurkulos, Susan Mirsky, Paul Shannon, and Tony van der Meer. Staffers Brian Garvey, Cole Harrison are ex-officio members but do not vote.