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OUR Fellows

Explore the work of our fellows across the Sagamore Network. 

One Big Thing: Teresa Lubbers is one of Indiana and the Midwest’s most experienced education and workforce leaders. Teresa served for 17 years as the Commissioner for Indiana’s Commission for Higher Education. Prior to this, she was a member of the Indiana State Senate, where she chaired the Education and Career Development Committee, and served as Chair of the Governor’s Workforce Cabinet. 

  • Teresa and a team of researchers produced Sagamore Institute’s Failure to Launch report, which examines the unique challenges facing boys and men in Indiana.
  • Watch Teresa’s conversation with Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President & CEO Austan Goolsbee at the CFA Society of Indianapolis Annual Lunch.
  • Teresa’s Q&A reflecting on her first year at Sagamore.

Teresa Lubbers

Senior Fellow

Senior Advisor, Sagamore

Joseph Loconte

Dr. Joseph Loconte

Senior Fellow

Founder and Director, Sagamore's Rivendell Center

One Big Thing: Joseph Loconte is shaping the cultural and intellectual conversation around faith, freedom, and Western civilization by directing The Rivendell Center—bringing history, literature, and public life together to recover the moral and spiritual foundations of a free society. Through bestselling books, documentary films, and national commentary, he is translating the ideas of figures like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis into timely insights for today’s cultural and political moment.

  • A New York Times bestselling author, his book A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War explores how the friendship and wartime experience of Tolkien and Lewis reshaped modern imagination and moral vision
  • A widely published commentator on religion and public life, his work has appeared in major outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and National Review, and he spent a decade as a commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered
  • Has advised national and international leaders on human rights and faith-based policy, including testimony before Congress and service connected to U.S. policy efforts on religious freedom and global institutions.

One Big Thing: Bill serves as the founding director of the Interurban Initiative at Sagamore. Bill is translating his decades-long leadership experience at LISC to help Midwest communities envision and deliver transformational projects in underinvested neighborhoods by linking best practices and tools across the fields of community and economic development.

  • Bill teamed up with Super Bowl 2012 host committee chairman Mark Miles to architect a $150 million neighborhood revitalization project in tandem with the game.
  • Bill was selected as the 23rd awardee of the prestigious Michael Carroll Award, recognizing his career-long commitment to reviving urban neighborhoods.
  • Philanthropy magazine published an extensive feature of Bill and his wife Joanna’s efforts redeveloping their neighborhood, Herron-Morton, on Indianapolis’ Old North Side. 
  • Check out Bill’s op-ed in the Indianapolis Business Journal laying out his work at Interurban and the importance of focusing on economic and community development in small towns and urban neighborhoods. 
  • Read a Q&A with Bill reflecting on his time at LISC and lessons learned throughout his career supporting local development.
  • Learn about the leadership of Bill’s wife and Harrison Center Executive Director, Joanna Taft, in creating a “micromuseum” of the Polk Sanitary Milk Co. inside Indy’s Polk Stables.
Bill Taft

Bill Taft

Senior Fellow

Director, Sagamore's Interurban initiative

Will Acuff

Senior Fellow

Director, River Prosperity Project

One Big Thing: Will Acuff, co-founder of Corner to Corner, is scaling a model for neighborhood-based economic growth that has helped launch more than 1,800 entrepreneurs and generated $37.2 million in local impact in 2024 alone—driven by his core belief that ownership is a primary pathway out of poverty.

  • Will founded a technology company, Kingdom Founders, to help local churches empower their underestimated neighbors.
  • Will is the author of the book No Elevator to Everest, which covers his journey integrating emotional health, self-awareness, and faith.
  • Before pivoting to social entrepreneurship, Will performed as the frontman for a widely touring alt-country band. 

One Big Thing: Alan Dowd is the founding director of Sagamore Institute’s Center for America’s Purpose—advancing a vision of U.S. leadership grounded in history, security, and the defense of freedom at home and abroad.

  • He is co-author of From Generation to Generation: Lessons for Tomorrow, a memoir for The Honorable Dan Coats and his wife, Marsha Coats.
  • Alan is an award-winning writer with more than 1,900 published pieces. His work has appeared in major outlets, including The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, and National Review.
  • Alan was a founding member of Sagamore Institute’s leadership team following his service as a congressional aide and director of Hudson Institute’s Indianapolis headquarters.

Alan Dowd

Senior Fellow

Director, Center for America's Purpose

Donald Cassell

Senior Fellow

Director, Liberian Intiative

One Big Thing: Donald L. Cassell, Jr. is a Sagamore Senior Fellow and directs the Liberian Initiative in Sagamore’s Africa portfolio. A native of Liberia, he came to the U.S. for college after Liberia’s 1980 coup upended his plans to stay home, and he’s spent the years since building a bridge between the two countries — as a working architect in Indianapolis and as Sagamore’s lead voice on Liberian and African development policy.

  • Donald led several projects for the Liberian Initiative, including a case study on the Liberian Philanthropy Secretariat, a database tracking connections between Indiana and Africa, the annual newsletter-journal Marketplace Liberia, and multiple papers on African growth and development. He also edited the book National Development as an Aesthetic Project: A Policy Collection and authored Liberia Country Profile: An Experiment in Statecraft.
  • He runs the ISOKO Leadership Workshop in Liberia each year, and he recently helped establish a professional architecture course of study at the University of Liberia — work he’s called a “delight,” noting plans for the program dated back to the 1970s before his team finally got it off the ground.
  • Donald is also a practicing architect in Indianapolis and a member of the American Institute of Architects and the Construction Specification Institute. He spent about 16 years in the field before an unlikely connection — helping host then-Liberian presidential candidate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Indianapolis in 2005 — led to his involvement with Sagamore.

One Big Thing: Emil Ekiyor is building a scalable model to close the wealth gap by accelerating minority entrepreneurship and talent development through partnerships with InnoPower and Sagamore. Through initiatives that connect founders to capital, training, and networks and programs like Minority Business Week, he is creating inclusive startup ecosystems designed to generate wealth in underserved communities. His work with Sagamore focuses on expanding entrepreneurial pipelines, strengthening workforce pathways, and building global business connections, including links between Indiana and emerging markets in Africa.

  • Emil is the founder of InnoPower, a Black-owned social enterprise focused on education, workforce development, and entrepreneurship to accelerate economic opportunity in underserved communities across the U.S. and globally.
  • Emil also partnered with Sagamore to create Indy Biz Pass and tech apprenticeship programs that connect entrepreneurs to capital, training, and growth resources.
  • Emil is a former NFL player turned social entrepreneur who draws on global experience—including roots in Nigeria—to advance cross-border trade, diaspora talent pipelines, and inclusive innovation ecosystems.

Emil Ekiyor

Senior Fellow

Founder, InnoPower

Derek Redelman

Senior Fellow

One Big Thing: o Derek Redelman is one of Indiana’s most influential education policy architects, bringing more than three decades of experience to designing and advancing large-scale reforms across K–12, higher education, and workforce systems. From helping create Indiana’s original charter school law to shaping statewide data systems, accountability frameworks, and school choice policies, his work has consistently focused on building practical, bipartisan solutions that improve outcomes and expand opportunity for students and families. Derek works with Sagamore to complete research on a variety of topics including recent work on the Failure to Launch report. He’s also working alongside Tim Swarens to host Sagamore’s podcast, Solutions with Sagamore.

  • Derek was the architect of Indiana’s 2001 charter school law—ranked among the strongest in the nation at the time—and led multi-year statewide lobbying efforts to bring it to passage.
  • Through his consulting work, Derek has advised a wide range of organizations—from universities and think tanks to statewide associations and foundations—while also helping shape major initiatives in workforce development, school funding, accountability systems, and college-and-career readiness

One Big Thing: Dr. Lydia Dugdale is helping lead a renewed cultural conversation about mortality, meaning, and human dignity—bringing her work in medical ethics, faith, and public life to initiatives like Heal the Nation. As a practicing physician and ethicist, she focuses on recovering the moral, spiritual, and communal resources needed to care for one another well at the end of life, arguing that learning to “die well” reshapes how individuals, families, and societies live. Through her scholarship, teaching, and public engagement, she contributes to Sagamore-connected efforts aimed at healing social fragmentation and strengthening a culture of responsibility, hope, and human flourishing.

  • Lydia is a Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, while practicing as an internal medicine physician and hospital ethicist.
  • She is the author of The Lost Art of Dying, which draws on historical and ethical traditions to rethink end-of-life care and challenge the over-medicalization of death in modern society.
  • Lydia previously held leadership roles at Yale, including Associate Director of the Program for Biomedical Ethics and co-director of the Program for Medicine, Spirituality, and Religion, shaping interdisciplinary conversations on faith, medicine, and human flourishing.

Dr. Lydia Dugdale

Senior Fellow

Founder, Heal the Nation

JEFF SPARKS

Senior Fellow

Founder, Heartland Film Festival

One Big Thing: Jeff Sparks is a cultural entrepreneur turned community builder whose work has shaped both Indiana’s arts landscape and neighborhood revitalization efforts. As founder of The New Harmony Project and the Heartland Film Festival, he helped create platforms for storytelling that bring people together and strengthen civic life. After retiring as President and CEO of the Heartland Film Festival, he shifted his focus to community development working in Indianapolis’ Twin Aire Promise Zone to help residents envision and implement neighborhood renewal. Through his role with Sagamore Institute, Sparks continues to champion storytelling, citizen engagement, and grassroots leadership as catalysts for stronger communities. This has included film projects, including the 2025 film, Just One Man (formerly titled The Tenderness Tour), documenting Richard Propes’ journey to erase medical debt for Hoosiers.

  • Jeff founded both The New Harmony Project, a nationally respected writers’ laboratory, and the Heartland Film Festival, now one of the Midwest’s premier film festivals and a major contributor to Indiana’s cultural economy.
  • After stepping down from Heartland, he joined neighborhood revitalization efforts in the Twin Aire Promise Zone, serving with the Southeast Neighborhood Development Corporation to help residents shape redevelopment priorities.
  • Known as a “connector” and encourager, Jeff’s work consistently centers on building community, whether through storytelling initiatives, arts leadership, or grassroots neighborhood coalitions.

One Big Thing: David Stroud co-founded FORUM, a global cross-sector network of senior leaders designed to translate influence into cultural and societal renewal. What began as a London gathering has grown into an international community spanning the U.K. and U.S., with Sagamore Institute serving as the U.S. partner to expand convenings, working groups, and leadership collaborations. Through teaching, convening, and coaching leaders across sectors, Stroud focuses on building relational networks that move ideas into action for long-term societal impact.

  • David co-founded FORUM with his wife Baroness Philippa Stroud; the initiative has grown into a global network of influential leaders collaborating across sectors to address major societal challenges.
  • He is also the founder of ChristChurch London and has trained leaders worldwide as a speaker and leadership coach.
  • At Sagamore Institute, David works to expand FORUM in the United States through gatherings, retreats, and working groups that convene senior leaders to advance collaborative solutions.

David Stroud

Senior Fellow

Co-founder, FORUM

Baroness Philippa Stroud

Distinguished Senior Fellow

Co-founder, FORUM

Baroness Philippa Stroud co-founded FORUM, a global cross-sector network of senior leaders designed to translate influence into cultural renewal and societal impact. What began in London has expanded into an international community spanning Europe and the United States, with the U.S. network jointly operated with Sagamore Institute to convene leaders across business, policy, faith, and culture. Alongside her FORUM leadership, Stroud brings decades of experience shaping poverty and opportunity policy—serving in the House of Lords and leading major institutions—helping connect ideas, influence, and action to drive long-term societal change.

  • Baroness Philippa Stroud serves as a Member of the House of Lords and Executive Chair of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, and previously led major think tanks including the Legatum Institute and the Centre for Social Justice.
  • Along with her husband David Stroud she co-founded FORUM, building a relational, cross-sector network of influential leaders committed to using their platforms for the common good—now operating internationally with Sagamore as U.S. partner.
  • Philippa played a key role in poverty and welfare reform policy, advising U.K. leadership and helping adapt work-focused welfare models internationally, including collaboration with policy innovators connected to Sagamore.

One Big Thing: Blair Milo is leading the Sagamore Network to engage our scholar-practitioner network, making connections among people, ideas, and outcomes visible while staying rooted in shared values. She is performing this role while in residence at Oxford University’s Wycliffe Hall, studying theology.

  • Blair served as Indiana’s first Secretary of Career Connections and Talent, where she led statewide efforts to align education, workforce systems, and employers—including launching the 21st Century Talent Regions initiative across 80 counties.
  • Blair was elected mayor of her hometown of La Porte at age 28, leading a period of economic growth that generated over $260 million in investment and more than 1,100 new jobs.
  •  As a U.S. Navy veteran, Blair has 13 years of service as a Surface Warfare Officer—including deployments in the Persian Gulf and work at the Pentagon—bringing a disciplined, mission-driven approach to leadership and public service.

Blair Milo

Senior Fellow

Director, Sagamore Network

AMY SHERMAN

Senior Fellow

Director, Sagamore Center on Faith in Communities

Dr. Amy Sherman serves as senior fellow and Director of the Center on Faith in Communities at the Sagamore Institute. 

  • Amy has written dozens of books, reports, and articles as well as delivered dozens of speeches on the role of Christians in advancing justice and mercy in the world.
  • After earning her PhD at the University of Virginia, Amy moved into a historically disadvantaged neighborhood in Charlottesville and founded an urban ministry through her church.
  • Amy served as a member of International Justice Mission founder Gary Haugen’s personal board of advisors for many years.

Jason Turner is one of the principal architects of modern welfare reform, helping design and implement work-based systems that transformed public assistance in the United States. From leading the development of Wisconsin Works to serving as New York City’s Human Resources Commissioner, he has consistently advanced policies that connect benefits to work, reduce dependency, and expand pathways to self-sufficiency. Today, through the Secretaries’ Innovation Group at Sagamore, he is convening state leaders across the country to drive the next generation of reforms in welfare, workforce, and human services systems.

  • Jason served as Commissioner of New York City’s Human Resources Administration, overseeing a massive agency responsible for welfare, employment, Medicaid, and childcare programs with a $15 billion budget and 17,000 employees.
  • He also played a central role in Wisconsin’s landmark welfare reforms in the 1990s—widely regarded as a national model for shifting from entitlement-based aid to work-oriented systems.
  • Jason previously served at the federal level as director of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and continues to shape national policy conversations through research, writing, and advisory roles.

Jason Turner

Senior Fellow

Director, Secretaries Innovation Group

Dr. Byron Johnson

Senior Fellow

Co-Director, Global Flourishing Study and Founder, Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion

One Big Thing: Dr. Johnson is the co-director of the Global Flourishing Study, which harnesses data from approximately 200,000 participants in 22 countries to understand why some countries are flourishing and others are not. Read the GFS Wave One Report. 

  • The intersection of religious, social behavior, and civic life: Dr. Johnson is the founding director of Baylor’s University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, where he focuses on how religion intersects with social dynamics such as volunteerism and purpose. 
  • Analyzing social enterprise: Dr. Johnson teamed up with William Wubbenhorst, his colleague at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, to conduct a case study of Purposeful Design, a Sagamore operating partner. 
  • What the data on flourishing tells us: From divergences in mental health between older and younger populations to the association of group activities with flourishing, check out the full GFS data set. 

Add Dr. Johnson to your reading list:

One Big Thing: Eric serves as a Sagamore Institute senior fellow and director of the Renewing Cities initiative.  This work seeks to replicate Eric’s success in acquiring 44 properties in under 20 months in Van Wert, OH. This private sector solution to revitalizing small towns is the most sustainable and scalable solution in America to reverse decades of decline.

  • Eric served as president of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, where he was the architect of the then-Gov. Mike Pence’s pioneering Regional Cities initiative.
  • Eric was the driving force behind the redevelopment of Fort Wayne’s iconic Electric Works campus.
  • Eric is a graduate of Hillsdale College and is actively working to restore the downtown of his alma mater.
  • Check out research from Ball State University examining the estimated $1.6 billion impact of Indiana’s Regional Cities Initiative.
  • Read Eric’s book on his work in Van Wert, Ohio, highlighting how the restoration of downtown commercial districts can revitalize small Midwestern towns.
  • Learn about the success of Electric Works in Fort Wayne, which at the time was Indiana’s largest redevelopment project.

Eric Doden

Senior Fellow

Director, Sagamore's Renewing Cities

Travis & Gina Sheets

Senior Fellows

One Big Thing: Travis and Gina Sheets are pioneering a faith-driven model of agricultural development in Liberia that combines training, entrepreneurship, and community transformation. After careers in Indiana, Gina as director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture and Travis as a county commissioner and diversified farmer, the couple relocated to Liberia in 2014 to launch an agriculture program at Liberia International Christian College. There, they established a demonstration farm, developed a curriculum, and trained local farmers and students in sustainable, market-oriented agriculture designed to increase productivity, reduce food imports, and cultivate economic opportunity. Their work, connected to Sagamore Institute’s Liberia initiatives, focuses on equipping local leaders and building enterprises that foster long-term national renewal.

  • The couple founded an agriculture training center and demonstration farm in Ganta, Liberia, where students learn diversified farming—including crops, poultry, fishery, and agribusiness—creating both education and income pathways
  • Gina nd Travis helped launch local enterprises such as a cocoa-to-chocolate business built with students and farmers, demonstrating how small-scale agriculture can evolve into a sustainable local industry.
  • Before moving to Liberia, both worked in public leadership roles in Indiana and later committed to multi-year service focused on teaching farming skills, entrepreneurship, and character formation to strengthen communities.

One Big Thing: Carole Kariuki is a leading voice for private-sector-driven economic growth in Africa, serving as CEO of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) and advancing partnerships that strengthen entrepreneurship, investment, and policy reform. Through her leadership, KEPSA has become one of the most influential business coalitions in East Africa, shaping public-private dialogue and helping guide national economic development. Her relationship with Sagamore Institute began early in her career, where she helped launch Africa-focused initiatives and build partnerships between U.S. and Kenyan leaders, work she continues today in connecting global business, policy, and development efforts.

  • Appointed CEO of KEPSA in 2010, Carol helped transform the organization into the apex body representing Kenya’s private sector, influencing economic policy, regulatory reform, and investment climate improvements across the region.
  • Carol was previously based in Indianapolis, where she served as a liaison to Kenyan business leaders and helped initiate cross-continental partnerships, including collaborations related to health and economic development.
  • She holds a master’s degree in public administration and international affairs from Bowling Green State University and a bachelor’s degree in economics and sociology from the University of Nairobi, and has served on multiple national and international advisory boards shaping private-sector growth.

Carol Kariuki

Senior Fellow

CEO, Kenya Private Sector Alliance

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