Our Board Of Directors

Nancy Cox is a member of the Sister Cities of Durham Executive Committee and Board Secretary.  Nancy most recently worked at Bike Durham as the Director of Development and Communications and has a career in K-12 Public Education.

Chris Boyer retired from a career with Durham City administration.  She is the Chair of  the Toyama City Committee and has led the committee in developing an annual exchange between Toyama and Durham Tech.

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Min Shu is  a member of the Sister Cities of Durham Executive Committee and serves as the Treasurer. She has currently works for a Local Government Federal Credit Union as a Senior Data Insighter.​​​

Please contact info@sistercities-durham.com if you would like to learn more about serving as our Secretary.

Salma Rashid: Salma grew up with immigrant parents and has always been interested in learning about other cultures and societies. During her undergraduate and graduate studies, she had the opportunity to travel to South Africa, Oman, and Ghana, and this sparked an even greater interest in her to learn more about how cities work together to create cultural connections.   She works in local government and is a member our Arusha, Tanzania City Committee.​

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Susanna Ochalo is an at-large director at Sister Cities of Durham and Executive Staff, Event Planning and Community Engagement at Self Help.​

Zenani Fogg: Zenani is a Durham native. Her professional background spans over a decade in public education, where she taught grades two through nine in North Carolina, Maryland, and the United Arab Emirates. She later transitioned into teacher support and leadership roles, and she is currently an education consultant, providing coaching and professional development to teachers and administrators. She lived overseas for six years, and visited over 20 countries.

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Katie Vanhoy: Katie is the Associate Director of the Duke Homestead and Tobacco Museum. She has served on the Kavala, Greece City Committee since 2018 and was part of SCD's initial delegation to Kavala in 2018 to partner with Kavala's Tobacco Museum.

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Leslie Fischer is a nutritionist.  Leslie has travelled extensively including living in Turkey.  Leslie is also serving as the Interim Office Manager through January 2025.

Gwenn Bookman serves as Co-Chair of the Arusha Committee and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Bennett College and has a focus on Global Studies.

Patricia Sheppard is an at large director at Sister Cities of Durham and Membership Committee Chair.  Patricia retired from a career in Retail Product and Productivity specializing in international markets.

Mark Goodwillie had a career in education and video production.  He developed our ties with Zhuzhou, China as a Sister City with Durham.

Lusia Li is a Senior Programmer Analyst with Duke University.

Elsa Jimenez is the chair of the Celaya, Mexico Sister City and was born and raised in Guanajuato Mexico. She came on 2008 to work for the Mexican Foreign Service as a Contractor and now owns her own company providing professional Spanish Translation services.

Eve Marion is a past President and works at Duke University's Clinical Research Institute.  

Randy Griffith had an earlier career in Durham's tobacco industry, which took him to Turkey and Greece.

Melissa Perez works with Durham Public Schools; she was formerly a Foreign Language teacher and then served in the Central Office.  Currently she is completing her principal internship.

Mitch Scurtu has close ties to Romania and a 30+ career in major Pharma and CRO companies.  

Ronda Pierce is a board member with Sister Cities International (SCI), serving as the SCI Country Representation to Tanzania.

Dot Borden is the founder of Sister Cities of Durham.

Brady Surles retired November 2024 after 10 years as the Office Manager for Sister Cities of Durham.  Brady was also a past President and former Executive Director.