We are pleased to announce that Dr.Yewande Pearse and Céline Kuklowsky have been elected to join the NAVEL’s Board of Directors as Collective Representatives for 2020. We are also excited to announce that the board has elected former Collective Representative Angela Seo, and Randall Sarafa to join for a three year term.

Every year, two Collective Residents are elected by the Collective to serve on the NAVEL Board of Directors for a period of one year. Their primary responsibility is to represent the voice of the Collective in Board decision-making, as well as to foster community and support for the Collective Residents.

Lastly, we would like to extend our thanks and sincere grattitude to outgoing Collective Representative Blaine O’Neill for their outstanding contribution and support to the organization and community while serving on the Board of Directors throughout 2019 and the beginning of 2020.

Learn more about the new board members below!

Angela Seo is a musician, artist and policy advisor, with a background in public health, civil rights and health equity. She is a member of the band Xiu Xiu, and has collaborated with various visual and performance artists to create live performances, short films, and music videos.
Instagram @hyunnies
Get in touch: angela@navel.la

“I’m excited to continue to be a part of Navel, a space that strives for inclusion, experimentation, and connection.”

Céline Kuklowsky is a researcher, educator, former community organizer, and trauma informed embodiment teacher with a background in dance and theater. She has worked for over a decade on grassroots campaigns fighting for community owned housing and land. She has worked on policy related to sustainability and climate change in LA and co-founded the LA Coop Lab. Her current interests lie at the intersection of social justice, trauma and movement and she will be pursuing a PhD in the fall.
Instagram @embodimentwork
Get in touch: celine@navel.la

“I am excited to be part of building the radical experimental space that is NAVEL and helping shape new models for collectively-owned resources.”

Randall Sarafa grew up in the Detroit area and has lived in San Francisco for the past decade. He currently works on privacy, security, and encryption in the non-profit technology space. He’s passionate about music, the arts, and cooking which is inspired by his Palestinian-Iraqi background.
Get in touch: randall@navel.la

“In just a few years, NAVEL has inspired a community of performers, thinkers, organizers, and artists to develop important new ways of collaborating and making space. I’m so thrilled to be apart of this community and to help NAVEL grow and realize its goals.”

Dr. Yewande Pearse is a neuroscientist and science communicator. Her research interests in the lab focus on rare genetic neurological disorders, gene therapy, stem cell research, and CRISPR, but her fascination with the brain is not limited to any one area of the field. She gained her Ph.D. from King’s College London and is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA, in affiliation with UCLA. She has written for Massive Science, TEDMED and Subpac, and hosts a monthly show called Sound Science on Dublab radio. Yewande is a member of the Collective Residency at NAVEL, she served on the 2019 Programming Committee and has co-led an ASSEMBLY about science in the media. Yewande is also a member of the Science Gallery Detroit’s Advisory Council.
Instagram @yewan_days
Instagram @soundsciencepodcast
Get in touch: yewande@navel.la

“Culture and community have always been central to my life. For over a decade, I found both in the London music scene. In Los Angeles, it’s NAVEL that best represents that for me now. Serving on the Board of Directors is such a privilege and my hope is that I will be able to hear and communicate the needs of its community, and lend my perspective on how NAVEL can grow as a conscious, relevant and progressive organization.”