Our Board

Jessica Horowitz - Moore
Principal at Etna Road Elementary School, Whitehall

Jessica began her career in education through the BRIGHT New Leaders for Ohio Schools Fellowship. BRIGHT is an innovative collaboration of the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Business Roundtable, and the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University to train proven leaders from varied fields to serve as principals in high-poverty public schools in Ohio. She has also served as Agency Attorney for the New York City Administration for Children’s Services prosecuting child abuse and neglect cases and Staff Attorney for Legal Aid of Nassau County (New York). Jessica holds a M.B.A. from The Ohio State University (2016), a J.D. with a concentration in child and family advocacy from the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University where she was a recipient of a Pro Bono Leadership Award (2009), and a B.A. in integrated social studies (Cum Laude) from The Ohio State University (2004).

Peter McKenzie
Principal Attorney, The McKenzie Firm, LLC

Along with a general practice law firm with its primary office in New Jersey, Peter is an Adjunct Professor at Capital University School of Law in Ohio where he teaches Intellectual Property Law and Copyright Law. He is a zealous advocate for the protection of equal rights and justice, who has defended indigent parents through the New Jersey Offices of the Public Defender in Parental Rights Defense cases. Peter is also an experienced trial attorney who has represented leading international corporations across a broad spectrum of civil cases spanning intellectual property infringement, professional services liability, products liability and premises liability in Federal and State Courts. Prior to the practice of law, Peter held Senior Program Management and Engineering positions at General Electric and Honeywell and is a former Associate Vice President with Nationwide Financial Services Retirement Plans business. Mr. McKenzie holds a MS degree in Manufacturing/Industrial Engineering and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from New York University Tandon School of Engineering. A graduate of Seton Hall University School of Law, Mr. McKenzie is admitted to practice before the Courts of New York and New Jersey as well as the United States District Court.

Catie Luna Hookway
Treasurer, Clintonville Go Public

Co-treasurer of Erase the Space, Catie worked in the Office of Budget and Management for the State of Ohio for four years as a budget analyst and one year as a debt analyst. Catie has a B.A. in history (cum laude) with a minor in economics from The Ohio State University (2009), a Master’s degree in public affairs from the John Glenn School of Public Affairs (2012), and a J.D. from Moritz College of Law (2012). She is also treasurer of Clintonville Go Public, a non-profit supporting neighborhood schools. Catie lives in Columbus with her husband Alex and two-year-old son.

William Warfield
Principal- Hilliard Bradley High School

Prior to accepting his current position, Bill was the building Principal at Olentangy Liberty High School from 2015-2018. Bill is a graduate of The Ohio State University where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English. Bill received his Master’s Degree in Administration from Concordia University in 2013 and earned his Superintendent Licensure from Ashland University in 2018. Bill has worked closely with Erase the Space since its founding and has seen first hand the impact it has on all students.

Brenda Jo Brueggemann
Professor of English and Aetna Endowed Chair of Writing, University of Connecticut

Brenda also teaches at the Bread Loaf School of English (Middlebury College, Vermont) during the summer months. Her work with Derek & Amelia (Erase the Space) began at the Bread Loaf School of English. She has been deaf (genetic) from birth and is also originally a midwestern United States farm girl. After college, she taught high school in her rural home community for 5 years before returning to graduate school to get her PhD. She has always been invested and interested in the work of middle and high school educators. In the mid-1990s, grounded by the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, she helped conceptualize the new field of Disability Studies (focused in the Humanities) and since then she has written, co-written, edited, or co-edited 16 books, including 9 memoirs in the “Deaf Lives” series she created for Gallaudet University Press, and over 70 essays and articles at the intersections of Deaf/Disability Studies and writing/art. She is the current co-editor of Disability Studies Quarterly.

Alex Hookway
Associate Vice President of Quantitative Risk Management,
Nationwide Financial

Alex joined Nationwide as a member of the Actuarial Development Program in 2008 and has worked in a variety of actuarial and enterprise risk management roles in his career. He holds B.S. degrees from The Ohio State University in Actuarial Science and Economics and is currently pursuing an online M.S. degree in Analytics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and is an alumnus of the Certificate in Quantitative Finance program. Alex lives in Columbus with his wife Catie and two-year-old son.

Glennon Sweeney
Senior Research Associate at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

Her research focuses on race and inequality in metropolitan development with a focus on suburban development policy. An applied social scientist engaging in interdisciplinary transformative scholarship, all of Glennon’s research is designed to generate real world impacts, the co-production of knowledge, and dissemination in both community and scholarly contexts. Glennon holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geography and Political Science, a Master’s degree in City and Regional Planning, and is currently a PhD candidate in the City and Regional Planning Department at The Ohio State University. A member of the Worthington Community Relations Commission and the Franklin County Local Food Council, Glennon is also the parent of two teenage daughters.

Leah Mejia

Leah Mejia has served in various roles in education, including being a 5th grade teacher, instructional coach, dean of students, and principal. She has a passion for analyzing the impacts of generational trauma on student success. Over the course of 7 years working in schools, she has received formal training in restorative and trauma-informed practices from the International Institute of Restorative Practices and the Trauma Responsive Educators Program. Leah currently serves as the manager of human resources for a small startup company.

Nidhi Satiani
Board of Education, Upper Arlington City Schools

Nidhi holds a bachelor's degree in biology, master's degrees in vision science and in public health, and a doctorate in optometry from The Ohio State University, where she works as a senior research optometrist. In addition to Erase the Space, she serves on the Board of Directors for Ohio State Mortar Board Alumni Council and is active in the Columbus Metropolitan Club and Seeds of Caring, a local non-profit whose mission is to engage children ages 2-12 through a variety of service, social action, and community-building experiences. Nidhi is a strong believer in the power of public school systems to educate and engage our citizenry and to raise the quality of life for all communities. She lives in Upper Arlington with her husband and two children.