Our Story

Board of Directors

Marsha Feinberg, Founding Chair Emerita, Board of Trustees
Marsha Feinberg is a social entrepreneur and consultant who has been active in urban youth programs for over 25 years. Marsha has played a major role in helping launch many leading non-profits by providing strategic planning, fundraising and community building expertise. She founded and directed the JFK Library Corps in 1983, was the Founding Chair of the Board of Citizen Schools in 1998 and served for 10 years in that role, growing Citizen Schools from a Boston based program to a national network of after school programs. Marsha worked at City Year during its early years and five years ago helped launch the Clinton Democracy Fellows Program in South Africa. A graduate of Columbia Business School, Marsha serves as a member of a number of non-profit boards of trustees, including the New England Board of Directors of Facing History and Ourselves.

Priscilla Cohen, Vice Chair of Board of Trustees
Priscilla Cohen has played a leadership role in strategic planning, program development and fundraising for several social enterprise organizations. After serving as a founding board member of Citizen Schools for 12 years, Priscilla joined the organization as the Director of Strategic Initiatives. In addition, Priscilla is the Director of the FAO Schwarz Family Foundation, where she launched and manages a two-year fellowship program for recent college graduates interested in becoming leaders in the education and youth development field. After graduating from Williams College and Harvard Business School, Priscilla worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Lora Farkas, Co-Chair of the Corporation; Director of Coaching
Lora launched and serves as the Director of the Beacon Academy Coaches Program - an innovative project connecting parents who have children in independent schools with the students and families of Beacon Academy. The goal of the program is to provide support to the Beacon families and to help them navigate the secondary schools application process. Lora also serves as Co-chair of Parent Annual Giving and the Host Family program at the Winsor School. She is a past Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee and the Strategic Planning Committee of the Shady Hill School Board of Overseers. Formerly, Lora was a Commercial Lender specializing in Project Finance. She is a graduate of Wellesley College.

Rosemarie Torres Johnson, Co-Chair of the Corporation
Rosemarie is a member of the Board of Directors at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge and sits on its Executive Committee. She previously served as a member of the Coordinating Council for Children, Youth and Families (Cambridge Kids' Council), an advocacy board dedicated to improving the quality of life for the city's youth and their families. Before moving to Massachusetts, she served on the advisory board of an independent high school she and a group of parents and community activists helped to found in Orange County, CA. A graduate of the University of Southern California, Rosemarie worked as a public relations executive, and spent time as a bi-lingual kindergarten teacher.

Louis Mercedes, Trustee
As a member of the law firm Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, Louis practices in the area of corporate law concentrating on corporate finance and private equity. In the private equity area, Louis has represented investors in venture capital financings and in a variety of complex business transactions. On the finance side, Louis has experience representing banks and financial companies in connection with loan transactions in the radio and television broadcasting, cable television, publishing and other media industries within the US.

Victoria Munroe, Trustee
Victoria Munroe is President of Victoria Munroe Fine Art, an art gallery in Boston specializing in contemporary and historical drawings. She also has a gallery in East Hampton, New York, called The Drawing Room. Before opening her business in Boston in 2001, she had a gallery in New York that represented contemporary artists. Victoria graduated in 1975 from Radcliffe College where she majored in old master drawings. Victoria serves on the Board of Citizen Schools and of Tada Children's Theatre in New York, and she is a supporter of Citizen's Committee for Children in New York City.

Carolyn M. Peter, Chair of Board of Trustees
Carolyn Peter was the Director of the Winsor School in Boston for 16 years. Prior to that, she was an English teacher at several independent schools and was Department Head and Head of Upper School at Lincoln School in Providence, RI. As Winsor's Director, Carolyn led the School to become a more diverse and inclusive community while also advancing its academic program. She has served as trustee at a number of independent schools, and she is presently a trustee and member of the Executive Committee at Belmont Hill School. Carolyn is a graduate of Wellesley College and Brown University.

Shashi Rajpal, Trustee
Shashi Rajpal is the Former President of High Speed Solutions, an Intel Company. Shashi is a founding Board member of the Citizen Schools Board. His expertise is in finance and start-up enterprise. Shashi is the co-founder of a number of high-tech companies and has brought this expertise and wisdom to Beacon Academy and other non-profits in the Boston area.