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Leadership

  • Mandy Bratton

    Mandy Bratton

    Executive Director and Lecturer

    Dr. Mandy Bratton serves as the Executive Director of the UC San Diego Center for Global Sustainable Development. The Center is home to the award-winning Global Ties program and the National Academy of Engineering's (NAE) Global Changemaker Scholars Program. These programs inspire students to collaborate with communities to co-create innovative solutions to urgent problems, such as those represented by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the NAE Grand Challenges. Mandy also serves as a Founding Director of the UC San Diego Changemaker Institute. She is an Ashoka U Change Leader and was instrumental in making UC San Diego an Ashoka U Changemaker Campus – one of only 45 worldwide. She served as the Principal Investigator for SISTERS, a National Science Foundation-funded project to design and study the impact of an after-school STEAM program for 5th and 6th-grade girls facilitated by undergraduate mentors majoring in STEM. Before coming to UC San Diego, Mandy earned a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and served as a senior faculty member in Psychology and Human Development and Interim Associate Dean at Prescott College for the Liberal Arts, the Environment, and Social Justice. She also earned a Public Leadership Credential from the JFK School of Government at Harvard University. Mandy has sailed around the world three times with the Semester at Sea Global Studies Program and serves as president emeritus of its alumni association and as an ex officio member of its Board of Trustees. She holds an academic appointment as a Continuing Lecturer. Her primary interests as a scholar, teacher, practitioner, and global citizen include sustainable development, gender, leadership, ethics, and advancing social and environmental justice.
  • Barb Donovan

    Barb Donovan

    Student Services Advisor and Program Specialist

    Barb has been with the Global TIES program for nine years now. She works with all academic departments across campus advising how ENG100D and ENG100L work with technical electives for most majors.  She also handles the operational side of the house which includes building the schedule for all classes, enrollment management, managing the lab, handling all reimbursements and team purchases as well as travel. With the addition of the Global Changemaker Scholars Program and the Center for Global Sustainable Development, she will also be managing the social media and website development for these new groups. 

    Barb, who has a Masters Degree in Education, has worked with UC San Diego for ten years.  Her other roles were within Engineering Student Services as a Student Recruitment Officer and a COSMOS Teacher Fellow. She enjoys cycling, body boarding and yoga and used to own a small ice cream business across from campus named Lil' Dipper.
  • Anh-Thu Ngo

    Anh-Thu Ngo

    Lecturer

    Anh-Thu Ngo, Ph.D., is a Lecturer with Global TIES. She became involved with service learning as a college student through Princeton University’s Community-Based Learning Initiative. She studied Anthropology, which has been a natural conduit for direct community-based research and learning. After college, she participated in a six-week, hands-on irrigation project with Engineers Without Borders in rural Arsi Negele in southeastern Ethiopia. She then earned her doctorate at Harvard University in Social Anthropology, where she conducted field research as a Fulbright grantee in Vietnam. While a graduate student, she was a teaching assistant for Dr. Paul Farmer’s popular undergraduate course on Global Health and later developed her own at The College of New Jersey. She has worked with a variety of education nonprofits and has sustained engagement with the public interest sector. Anh-Thu is a transplant to California from the New York metro area.

Project Advisors

Graduate Teaching Assistants

  • Katrina Boyd

    Katrina Boyd

    Katrina is a 2nd year Master’s of Public Policy student, with a focus on environmental policy. She is currently serving as a TA for ENG 100D “Design for Development”, where she is excited to help students explore their interests in sustainable community development and develop their project management skills. Before coming to UCSD, she gained 5+ years of experience working in the global development sector, engaging on issues related to agriculture, food systems, climate change, and refugees. In her free time, she loves to swim, travel, try new foods, and spend time outdoors with friends and family.
  • Trisha Satish

    Trisha Satish

    Trisha Satish is a Bioengineering graduate student focused on cardiovascular engineering at the intersection of health equity and medical resources.  During her undergraduate years, Trisha was in two different Global TIES projects where she further developed a passion for human-centered and empathic design in the non-profit sector. Her goal is to produce affordable, efficient, and scalable bioengineering solutions that can bridge the accessibility gap for underserved populations.  In her free time, Trisha enjoys picnics at the park, making earrings, baking pastries, and traveling.
  • Sicily Panattil

    Sicily Panattil

    Sicily is completing her M.S in Bioengineering with a focus in computational systems biology. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering: Biotechnology from UCSD in 2021 which initiated her interest in engineering projects. She is now focusing on a research project within the Systems Biology Research Group on computational simulations of the liver. She has served as the TA for the Bioengineering Senior Design series where she was actively involved in managing student groups through their capstone projects. She is a cheerful and friendly person who loves to engage in an active lifestyle and in her free time enjoys skating, dancing and painting. She is excited to meet new people and looking forward to working with student groups!

Undergraduate Teaching Assistants

  • Daniel John

    Daniel John

    Daniel is a third-year Bioengineering: Biotechnology student minoring in Political Science. He joined Global Ties in the fall quarter of his first year through ENG100D, and also contributed to the Cruz Roja project in the spring. Daniel is involved in the founding of a non-profit and efforts to improve refugee disparities in San Diego, and is currently working on improving medical care in third-world settings. In his free time, Daniel enjoys hiking, playing spikeball, watching sports, and reading.
  • Joyce Qi

    Joyce Qi

    Joyce is a fourth-year studying International Business with a minor in Design. She took ENG 100D during her first year as her first design course and fell in love with the design process, the creativity, and ultimately, the ability to help others. She got the opportunity to work with Animal Pad, a local animal shelter in San Diego, and help in designing an e-commerce platform for their website. In her free time, Joyce enjoys watching movies, hiking, and spending quality time with friends and family.
  • Megan Mossaad

    Megan Mossaad

    Megan is a fourth-year Computer Science major. She took ENG 100D her sophomore year where she was a part of team Shelter Box. She then took ENG 100L where she was a part of team Diabeatit, which she loved so much she decided to join again for a second quarter. Because of these courses she has a new passion for human-centered design and wants to incorporate these learned skills into her future career. In her free time she loves to spend time with friends and family and her hobbies include drawing and painting.
  • Kassidy Wade

    Kassidy Wade

    Kassidy is a fourth-year Global Health major with a minor in Biology. She is the assistant to the Executive Director of The Center for Global Sustainable Development, Dr. Mandy Bratton. Although she is not an engineer, she is very passionate about social issues such as: women's health, healthcare disparities, climate change, the HIV/AIDs epidemic, homelessness, healthy aging, to just name a few. She is an aspiring doctor and entrepreneur that would like to create her own non-profit one day. She hopes that her experience with Global TIES will further prepare her for doing so. Her other roles include: a research assistant at the Stein Institute for Research on Aging and a volunteer in the Labor & Delivery Department at UCSD Health. In her spare time, she is traveling, hiking, or exploring on her vespa!
  • Albert Chang

    Albert Chang

    Albert is a third-year mechanical engineering major with a minor in climate change studies working at the intersection of renewable energy, sustainable development, community engagement, and energy equity. He was always interested in sustainability, but only recently found out about human-centered design at a conference during his freshman year. Since then, Albert has worked with others and listened to their stories to become a more socially conscious engineer. He enjoys hiking, taking naps, watching anime, and breaking things apart in his free time.
  • Anthony Vivas

    Anthony Vivas

    Anthony Vivas is a fourth-year undergraduate student double majoring in Psychology and Cognitive Science: Design and Interaction with a minor in design. His interests are in Human-Computer Interaction and Human Centered Design. After UCSD, Anthony plans to continue his education through a master’s degree program in Human Factors and Ergonomics.