Meg Wade (they/them) served as Program and Operations Fellow for Peace House in 2025 and assumed the Executive Director role at the beginning of 2026. Reach them at meg@peacehouse.net.
Pat Murray has found a welcome home in Ashland.
She moved here from Northern California to stay close with her grandchildren and extended family. After decades of work integral to the momentum of racial, women’s and human rights, her work led her to Peace House, where she is aligned with the ongoing efforts for equity across a variety of issues. Pat applies her 25 years working with nonprofits and decades of bookkeeping to her role as Office Manager for Peace House.
David Jimenez has been cooking for Uncle Food’s Diner since November 2025.
Michael Niemann is an award winning author Michael Niemann has long been interested in the sites where ordinary people’s lives and global processes intersect. He’s shared umqombothi with shack dwellers outside Cape Town, interviewed Morgan Tsvangirai, former Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, when he was still a trade union leader, and has visited Eduardo Mondlane’s dorm room at Northwestern University, faithfully recreated at the Museum of the Revolution in Maputo.
His thrillers featuring UN investigator Valentin Vermeulen are published by Coffeetown Press. Legitimate Business and Illicit Trade were published in March 2017. Illegal Holdings came out in March 2018 and won the 2019 Silver Falchion Award for Best Thriller at Killer Nashville. No Right Way went on sale in June 2019. The fifth Vermeulen thriller, Percentages of Guilt followed in November 2020. The Last Straw was published in November 2021.
His short stories have appeared in Vengeance, the 2012 Mystery Writers of America anthology edited by Lee Child, and Mysterical-E. Africa Always Needs Guns, Big Dreams Cost Too Much and Some Kind of Justice are now available as Kindle singles.
On the non-fiction side, he is the author of A Spatial Approach to Regionalism in the Global Economy (2000). His academic articles have appeared in numerous journals and several edited books. Copies are available on this website in the non-fiction section.
Throughout his academic career, he has helped students of all ages and backgrounds to understand their role in constructing the world in which they live, and to take this role seriously.
He grew up in a small town in western Germany before moving to the United States. He has studied at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität in Bonn, Germany, and the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver where he received his PhD in International Studies. He lives in southern Oregon.
Connie Saldaña began as a Board member for Peace House in the fall of 2015. She has decades of history as a community ally and advocate with Peace House through association with other community organizations. She volunteered in the earliest days with Uncle Food’s Diner. Connie’s employment is with Senior & Disability Services of Rogue Valley Council of Governments, as a planner and program-developer. In addition to sharing community resources and problem-solving over the phone, through the Aging and Disability Resource connection, she administers a small, permanent supportive-housing program for homeless people with disabilities.She also heads efforts regarding emergency preparedness for vulnerable populations. Connie’s passion is serving the community, where her talents are most useful. She is an active volunteer with the local community radio station; with the Community Emergency Response team, and served for several years on the City of Ashland Housing and Human Services Commission.
Allen Hallmark joined the Peace House board in spring 2024. He is a longtime peace activist in the Rogue Valley, having been a founding member of Citizens for Peace & Justice and Veterans for Peace, Rogue Valley Chapter 156, which has morphed into Southern Oregon Peace Vets and is no longer affiliated with national Veterans for Peace. He began his peace work while in the Army at Fort Bragg, NC, with GI’s United Against the War in Vietnam after serving a year in Vietnam with the Army Security Agency.
Allen holds a BA in History from Austin College in Sherman, Texas, and did graduate studies in Journalism and Photography at East Texas State University in Commerce. He moved to Medford in January 1976 to begin a job as reporter for the Medford Mail Tribune where he worked for more than a decade. After moving to the Portland area, Allen began a new career as a public defender investigator, including 11 years with the Federal Public Defender’s office. He retired at the end of 2005. He lost his home and most of his possessions to the Almeda Fire in Talent in 2020.
Allen has contributed his photography to many peace & justice organizations, documenting hundreds OF demonstrations, events, and rallies. He is quite active in Southern Oregon Climate Action Now (SOCAN) and the Jackson County Democrats.
Leah Samelson Leah was raised in Berkeley, California and worked in the performing arts before her interest in environmental issues led her to pursue a legal career. Leah graduated cum laude from Lewis & Clark Law School, where she focused on environmental law and worked on related matters at the state, local, and federal levels. She fell in love with the Pacific Northwest and moved to Ashland in 2023 to broaden her legal experience as an associate attorney at Hornecker Cowling, LLP. Leah’s current practice encompasses a wide range of civil issues including municipal and land use law, contract interpretation and disputes, and employment law. She volunteers with many organizations around the Rogue Valley.
Luciene Cruz is a 61-year old Brazilian mother, doula, caregiver, artist, and self-made business woman. Being the first born of 11 children and co-parenting with her mother from a young age, she learned how to foresee the needs of both her siblings and her mother. She has been living in the Rogue Valley for 32 years. She has spent her life as an activist and advocate for women’s rights, child protection, elder protection, and social justice. She brings her rich background and experience into every situation she encounters. One of her main objectives is to ensure that everyone in her community has their basic needs met, especially when it comes to having enough to eat.
Jim Phillips, Ph.D. has been visiting, researching, and writing about Central America since 1974. He spent several years during the 1980s in Honduras and Nicaragua during the Contra War and visited refugee camps in Honduras. He provides expert witness in asylum hearings involving Honduran nationals in U.S. immigration courts. As an engaged anthropologist and professor, Jim has written many articles and chapters about refugee populations, human rights, and social change in Central America. Peace House is pleased to publish many of his pieces in our Clear Actions Newsletter.
He is an Affiliate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology (Ret.) at Southern Oregon University, where he taught for 20 year and still sits on the SOU Native American Studies Advisory Council. He spent several years as a Program Associate for the American Friends (Quakers) Service Committee in New England, promoting public education for a more equitable international economic order. He was a Policy Analyst for Oxfam America, writing policy briefings and advisories for their board and staff. He has also been Executive Director of the Institute for Global Education in western Michigan, an organization similar to Peace House.
Jim’s particular concern and work has always been to understand movements of popular resistance and social change–how and why people organize to change the conditions of their lives for the better. He writes about this and about refugee populations. Jim has ancestors among the Innu, the Indigenous first people of Quebec, and has long been concerned to support the rights and cultures of Indigenous and Native American peoples.
Author of Honduras in Dangerous Times: Resistance and Resilience (Lexington Books, 2015, 2017); and Extracting Honduras: Resource Exploitation, Displacement, and Forced Migration (Lexington Books, 2022).