Ben Levine
Director, Program Design and Management

BA Earlham College, MA (Clinical Psychology) Duquesne University
Ben was originally trained as a Clinical Psychologist where he developed the use of documentary video feedback with schizophrenic adolescents and heroin addicted Vietnam era veterans. Integrating diverse approaches from public health outreach, technology, the civil rights movement, and cinema verité filmmaking, he has created a methodology for community engagement whose results offer optimism that individuals and groups can wake up and gain the awareness they need to address daunting social challenges. He is recognized as a video pioneer, and his work has been presented on American and European Television as well as in diverse venues, including the Museum of Modern Art and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Haydn Planetarium. His three feature documentaries on endangered languages have been featured at numerous festivals and community and university presentations. He was the first person not of French-Canadian descent to be inducted into the Franco-American Hall of Fame for his filmmaking work that led to language and cultural revival.

Robert Leavitt
Project Developer, Linguist, Educational Materials Producer

BA and MAT – Harvard University
Robert is Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Mi’kmaq-Maliseet Institute, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, CA. With elder David A. Francis, he co-wrote the 18,000-word Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary, developed it as one of the first online indigenous-language dictionaries, and coordinated the linking of that to the Language Keepers video database archive to become the Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Language Portal. He has produced numerous educational materials and has traveled and lectured widely in Latin America.

Julia Schulz
Educational Materials, Methods Developer, Field Coordinator

BA Hamilton College, MA (Anthropology) McGill University
Julia is co-founder and past president of the Internationally recognized Penobscot School, where she developed its innovative immersion language teaching methods. She originally trained as an anthropologist and did graduate fieldwork in French-Canadian communities. She has been recognized as a leader in French language education emphasizing heritage cultures as a resource for curriculum and has actively created programs in reacquisition of “hidden” or “forgotten” heritage language. As Co-Director of Speaking Place, Schulz focuses now on minority and endangered language documentation and revitalization. Her collaborations with researchers and community language advocates include New England French, Passamaquoddy-Maliseet, and numerous indigenous languages of Oaxaca, Mexico.

Daniel Quintanilla
Cinemato-grapher, Editor, Director, and Training Supervisor

Missouri State University, B.S. in Electronic Arts
Daniel is equally at home in Mexico and the United States and is fluent in Spanish and English. He is an accomplished documentary filmmaker and editor ( Language of America ) as well as an animator and all around digital materials creator.  He produced the Community Education project: Young Parents Learning Together.  Daniel currently directs two documentary projects and edits Language Keepers videos for the Passamaquoddy Portal.

SAM LOW 

BA Yale University; PhD Harvard University

Dr. Sam Low, Anthropologist, has explored his Hawaiian heritage through films and biographical writing. He has produced an award winning Public Broadcasting Television Series on anthropology and has documented and been active in the Hawaiian cultural and language renaissance. Sam published his book Hawaiki Rising in 2013. His documentary film, The Navigators, on the revival of traditional Hawaiian and Pacific islander seafaring culture, is a classic.

Lissa Widoff

BS from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and an MPA from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government

Lissa is Executive Director of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation, an environmental foundation based in Belfast, Maine that supports graduate Fellowships and a Leadership Grant Program supporting NGO partnerships on critical environmental issues in the US. Lissa has extensive experience in managing philanthropic initiatives such as the Lila Wallace Program for enhancing Arts in the Community, where she encouraged the use of film to engage minorities in contemporary issues.

JAN ROSENBAUM

BFA Wayne State University, MFA Cranbrook Academy of Art, MS (a.b.d) Imaging and Photographic Science Rochester Institute of Technology, MS Management of Technology Polytechnic University of New York

Jan Rosenbaum has been involved in photographic imaging for 50 years. He worked as a photojournalist for several years, then for Agfa, designing imaging systems for medical and computer graphics systems. His mathematical modeling of the color reproduction problem was published in The Proceedings of the American Optical Society and remains a standard method in the computer graphics industry.

After moving to Maine in 1997 he returned to the creative photographic community, becoming faculty advisor to the MFA Program and teacher of Photography at Maine Media Workshops + College. His work is in the collections of the Cranbrook Museum, The New Museum, and private collectors.

WILLIAM R. MCFARLANE

BS Earlham College, MD Columbia University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Dr. McFarlane is Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine. Early in his career Dr. McFarlane was active when community mental health outreach was just starting. This led to his developing community-based treatment paradigms that have resulted in his becoming a world leader in the field of Psycho-Education. He develops methods for community treatment of psychotic illness and rehabilitation of adolescents with psychotic illness. Dr. McFarlane's methods have informed the Speaking Place approach for communicating with constituencies that may be hard to reach.

Margaret APT

Margaret Apt is a fluent speaker, student and teacher of her language, Passamaquoddy, and community research coordinator for the Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary. Beginning in 2006, Margaret worked with the Speaking Place team to develop the critical role of Facilitator in documenting natural group conversation. She is a leader in Passamaquoddy language revitalization, most recently as Director and Head Teacher in the Passamaquoddy immersion preschools. A grandmother and great-grandmother, Margaret writes, "I have lived in Sipayik all my life, except for the few years I was gone to educate myself about the other world I really knew nothing of, except what I read."

Elizabeth goldstein

BA Psychology and Philosophy George Washington University, PhD Clinical Psychology University of Maine

Elizabeth Goldstein PhD is a clinical psychologist living in Burlington, Vermont where she maintains a private practice.  Her multicultural values have been a grounding force throughout her career, including exploring ways in which psychotherapy can be beneficial in indigenous communities. She conducted her PhD research in the Passamaquoddy community and has since worked with veterans, developing expertise in helping individuals recover from trauma, as well as teaching, consultation, supervision, and administration. She recently has expanded her professional interests in cultural self-expression, including the intersection of depth psychotherapy and artistic self-expression.

CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN

B.A. Bowdoin College; MLS University of Arizona; M.Ed. Lesley University

Charlotte has worked extensively in the field of disabilities, with a focus on the education of children with visual impairments and additional special needs.  She has held positions as a teacher, a teacher trainer, and education consultant, including international work in Africa and Asia.  She creates web-based resources for teachers and families, and has written and edited numerous publications in the field.  She also holds a degree in library and information science and is passionate about the preservation of archival materials and their power to tell stories.