Public Programs Cohort
For the next year, we will work in collaboration with these four community leaders to co-create the 2019 public programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center. Aligned with our mission to educate, inspire and motivate local and global awareness and action, our public programs strive to amplify voices from our local community to foster inclusion and belonging, convene and connect people, and highlight opportunities to act.
We invite you to learn more about these leaders and the impact they are making across communities.
Cohort Member Profiles
TRACY RECTOR
Managing Director of Storytelling at Nia Tero
Tracy Rector is currently the Managing Director of Storytelling at Nia Tero where she brings a passion for amplifying and uplifting Indigenous and BIPOC voices. She holds three decades of experience as a community organizer, educator, filmmaker, film programmer, and arts curator, all infused with her deep roots in plant medicine. For the last 20 years she has directed and produced over 400 films including shorts, features, music videos, and virtual reality projects.
Her work has been featured on Independent Lens, ImagineNative, PBS, and National Geographic, as well as at international film festivals including Cannes and Toronto. Tracy served as a Seattle Arts Commissioner for 8 years, sits on the boards of the Mize Foundation, Working Films, and the Flaherty Seminar. She enjoys travel, design, waterfall hikes, and learning about new cultural arts movements.
NOURAH YONOUS
Executive Director / Founder, African Women Business Alliance
Nourah Yonous identifies as Pan-Afrikan: born and raised. She has roots deeply embedded in social justice work; particularly in gender/racial equity and cross cultural-multifaceted-intersectional grassroots community development. She is currently the Founder and Executive Director at African Women Business Alliance- (AWBA), a grassroots, strength-based, data-focused, holistic and culturally responsive platform for/by black women diaspora for inclusive economy. Nourah is a former advocate with CARE International-on maternal crisis, education, child marriage, and poverty in the global south. In local grassroots work, Nourah has worked with various CBOs- as a former Education Organizer at OneAmerica, Capacity-Building Program Manager at Nonprofit Assistance Center, Development Director at East African Community Center, and a Community Leadership Institute Fellow at Puget Sound Sage.
MICHAEL TUN`CAP
Professor / Director / Coach
Michael Tun’cap was born in Aniguak, Guam and raised in Tacoma/Lakewood, Washington. He has served as Director of the Pacific Islander Student Commission at the University of Washington Seattle, the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Green River College and the TRIO SSS Program at Seattle Central College. He studied race in Charlottesville as a Ralph Bunche fellow at the University of Virginia and as a Public Policy and International Affairs Institute Fellow in the Goldman School while earning his MA in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. Michael is also the Co-founder of the First Peoples Conference, the UW Student Ambassadors Program, and the Men of Culture Academy. He is an adjunct Professor in Humanities at South Puget Sound Community College, Sociology at Northwest Indian College, and Diversity and Global Studies at Highline College, and Education at University of Washington, Tacoma.
