Board of Directors

Rebecca Otten

  • Rebecca Otten is a Professor of Practice and the Director of Strategy & Engagement at the Taylor Center. In this role, she facilitates the Taylor Center’s field leadership, campus and community partnerships, and program assessment.

    Otten, as part of the founding team that introduced social innovation education to Tulane in 2009, launched and has continued to influence its co-curricular and curricular offerings over the last decade. Otten incorporates her diverse interests in youth development, systems theory, and social impact in higher education, examining the ways in which communities and structures can encourage inclusion and equity.

    Otten teaches “SISE 2010: Introduction to Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship." Her current research explores a dynamic, long-term partnership between the Taylor Center and Grow Dat Youth Farm. 

    Otten is a Change Leader with the Ashoka U Changemaker Campus Consortium and served as Network Advisory Committee Leadership in 2018-2020. She was previously awarded the Spirit of Tulane Award (2019), awarded to exemplary faculty and staff that exemplify the mission of Tulane, and the Josephine Louise Award (2010) awarded by the Newcomb Senate for outstanding contributions benefiting the Newcomb student body.

    Otten holds a BS in Anthropology, BSM in Management, and master’s in public health from Tulane University.

    Pronouns: she/her

Leila Lambert

  • Lelia Lambert is the Director of Business Strategy & Talent Development for the Commander’s Palace Family of Restaurants and has worked in the hospitality industry for over 15 years. Born in Seoul, South Korea, but spent most of her life in Northeast Ohio, where she graduated from Kent State University with a BA in Philosophy before moving to New Orleans in 2012. In addition to serving on the Grow Dat Board since 2020, she serves on the advisory board for the Warren Easton High Academy of Hospitality and Tourism and the advisory board for the Pathways for Upward Mobility Program at the New Orleans Culinary and Hospitality Institute. 

    Pronouns: she/her

Matthew T. Simms

  • Matthew T. Sims is the 9th child of Gearldine and Abraham Sims. He was born on Pemble’s Plantation (near Merigold, Mississippi) and grew up in Rosedale, Mississippi. Matthew left home immediately after graduating from high school to serve our nation as one of “The Few, The Proud, The Marines.” After serving three years of active duty culminating with a permanent assignment with the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing in New Orleans, Matthew commenced his post-secondary educational pursuit at the University of New Orleans where he holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. Subsequently, he earned a Master of Business Administration from Tulane University’s A. B. Freeman School of Business.

    Matthew entered the banking profession at Hibernia National Bank, now Capital One, as a loan officer development candidate after graduating from Tulane University. While at Hibernia, he ascended to positions of increasing responsibility in Credit Analysis, Loan Review, Loan Approval, and Small Business Lending. In his role as a small business lender, Matthew amassed a portfolio of more than $23 million during the four years he held that position. As a small business lender, Matthew was twice recognized as the top loan producer for the quarter and was always in the top 5 in loan production.  

    Matthew subsequently joined Liberty Bank and Trust Company where he holds the title of Senior Vice President. At Liberty Bank, Matthew manages a portfolio of over $68,000,000 which is more than 20% of the bank’s total commercial loans and is the largest portfolio of all loan officers at Liberty. Clients include national and international companies such as Johnson Controls, Cummins Engines, Fairfield Inn and Suites, International Paper, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana.

    Aside from his banking career, Matthew is a retired United States Army Reserve Colonel.  Prior to his retirement in November 2015, He held the position of Director of the 469th Financial Management Center located on the New Orleans Lakefront. In connection with his reserve duty, Matthew was deployed three times. His first deployment was at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in April 2003. Subsequently, Matthew was deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom in 2008 and finally in 2014. During his 2014 deployment, Matthew was responsible for all U. S. Army financial operations in the Middle East. In that role, he oversaw financial services to soldiers and civilians, the payment of billions of dollars in contractual services, management of international banking relations, and other financial matters. As a result of his leadership and exemplary performance during his deployments, Matthew was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and two Meritorious Service Medal. On his retirement from the Military after 38 years of faithful and extraordinary service, Matthew was awarded the Legion of Merit.

    Pronouns: he/him

Kristen Rome

  • Kristen is the Executive Director of Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights—a nonprofit law office that defends and advocates for incarcerated youth throughout the state of Louisiana. Born and raised in New Orleans, Kristen has over a decade of social and criminal justice experience, with a specific focus on youth justice.

    Prior to joining LCCR, Kristen was a partner at Rome, Butler, and Rome where she practiced criminal defense in Louisiana. In addition to her work as an attorney, Kristen spent time in Shanghai, China teaching U.S. Constitutional Law at Shanghai International Studies University. 

    Kristen holds a BA in Political Science from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, an English Law Certificate from The London School of Economics and Political Science in London, England and a Juris Doctor from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. She is a certified holistic doula and uses her birthwork to inform how she helps Louisiana families navigate interwoven systems that - from conception - define young people’s life outcomes.

Audrey Stewart

  • Audrey Stewart is an advocate, educator, birth worker and mother. Originally from Mississippi, she has lived in New Orleans for more than a decade. Over the past 15 years, she has advocated for a just hurricane recovery; led a variety of criminal justice, educational equity, and reproductive justice initiatives; and supported dozens of birthing families as a perinatal health and breastfeeding advocate, doula, and student midwife. Audrey is an abolitionist. She serves as a faculty member on the Louisiana Perinatal Quality Collaborative and is a member of the Healthy Moms Healthy Babies Advisory Council. She is the former co-editor of the New Orleans Parents Guide to Public Schools and served as the interim local director at the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice. She is the former advocacy director for the ACLU of Louisiana. Audrey is passionate about building a world where all families can birth safely and with dignity.

    Pronouns: she/her

Erin Greenwald

  • Erin Greenwald is vice president of public programs and editor in chief of 64 Parishes magazine and website at the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH). As a historian with deep roots in the public humanities, Greenwald is dedicated to exploring and sharing Louisiana stories. She has fifteen years of experience working for humanities-based nonprofits, including the LEH, New Orleans Museum of Art, and Historic New Orleans Collection, and has published and lectured widely on the histories of New Orleans and the international and domestic slave trades. In 2015 she curated the exhibition Purchased Lives: New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade, 1808–1865, which later traveled the country thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Greenwald’s work in this area has contributed to ongoing conversations about history and memory in New Orleans. In 2018 she led an initiative that saw the addition of five historic markers testifying to New Orleans’s involvement in the American slave trade on properties in the French Quarter, CBD, and Faubourg Marigny. And in 2022 she was part of a diverse coalition of alumni, parents, students, teachers, and community members that succeeded in pushing for the renaming of Lusher Charter School, a public school in Orleans Parish named for Confederate tax collector and ardent white supremacist Robert Mills Lusher.

    As the proud parent of a Grow Dat alumni, Greenwald has seen firsthand the power of the Grow Dat program to build compassion and understanding across boundaries in a city where many schools and extracurricular activities remain deeply and historically stratified by race and class. 

    Greenwald holds a PhD in American history from The Ohio State University.

    Pronouns: she/her

Dana Blandin

  • Dana Blandin is the Deputy Director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, bringing over a decade of experience working with organizations to develop and manage operational processes. Dana moved to New Orleans in 2017 after being drawn to the passion and potential of the New Orleans entrepreneurial community and has played a role in supporting growing businesses ever since. She is a founding member of Growhaus Studio, a digital marketing and design company, where she also held the title of Director of Business Operations for six years. Dana holds a BA in Organizational Management and Business Law, from the University of Miami, School of Business and is a SHRM-Senior Certified Professional specializing in HR practices. She is an avid lover of food, the outdoors, cooking with friends, and her garden. Dana is looking forward to bringing her passion for food systems and food access into her role as a board member at Grow Dat.

    Pronouns: she/her

Winter Sheline

  • Winter was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but grew up in the New Orleans outdoors. They first learned about Grow Dat in 2020 while attending Benjamin Franklin High School. Winter joined as a crew member that fall, and immediately fell in love with the program, staff, and the sense of community on the farm. In the fall of 2022, they started their first year as a Crew Leader, then joined the Board of Directors in 2023 as one of the two first youth board members. They are excited to be on the board, as they see it as an opportunity to share with the senior board members what it’s like to have gone through Grow Dat’s whole program. While not enjoying their time on the farm, Winter is a full-time student at LSU, studying biochemistry who you’ll also find hiking, rock climbing, and playing piano.

    Pronouns: they/them

Clara Kreutziger

  • Clara is a current second-year student studying marine biology at the University of Washington, Seattle Interdisciplinary Honors College. There, she works within the Dean’s office of the UW College of the Environment in addition to serving on the Student Advisory Council. After moving to New Orleans from New York City in 2019, she graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School with Summa Cum Laude in 2022. Throughout her four years working at Grow Dat, she has been a VISIONS facilitator, memorial garden construction and management intern, Assistant Crew Leader in the Leadership Program, Assistant Crew Leader in the SEED Project program, and a crew member.

    Pronouns: she/her