Inclusion in Europe: Past, Politics and People

David Evangelista oversees program operations in 58 countries in Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia providing strategic direction and engagement with the public and private sector to raise awareness and gain support. He also leads fundraising efforts for the region.

Evangelista has extensive global experience in the areas of government relations, industry engagement, international development, and global partnership building in support of marginalized populations. He was a founding member of the Sports Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA), and a current member of the Centre for Sports and Human Rights. Evangelista was a former member of the High Level Group on Sports Diplomacy for the European Commission, and is a member of the Advisory Board of Access Challenge. He is a Progressive Melvin Jones Fellow of the Lions Clubs International Foundation, and is Founding President of the Washington, D.C., Special Olympics Lions Club. Evangelista has served as a guest speaker for the United Nations, European Union, universities, and a number of civil society organizations on issues related to international development, disability, and government relations.

Annie Tane is a Special Olympics Orange County athlete living in Chapel Hill. For more than 23 years, Tane has trained and competed in basketball, bocce, bowling, softball, and tennis. Since 2010, she has taken on leadership roles within the Special Olympics movement, including being a spokeswoman as both a Special Olympics Global Messenger and Special Olympics Health Messenger, and serving on the Special Olympics North Carolina Athlete Council. Currently, she serves on the Special Olympics North Carolina Board of Directors. Apart from Special Olympics, Tane spends her time working as a team member at Whole Foods, where she has been employed for more than 15 years.

Priscilla Layne is the Director of the UNC Center for European Studies. Priscilla’s first book, White Rebels in Black: German Appropriation of Black Popular Culture, is forthcoming April 2018 with the University of Michigan Press. In this book, she examines how, following WWII, German artists often associated white, rebellious male characters with black popular culture, because black culture functioned as a metaphor for rebellion. Priscilla is currently working on her second book, Out of this World: Afro-German Afrofuturism, which focuses on Afro-German authors’ use of Afrofuturist concepts in literature and theater. In addition to this project, some of the broader themes she is interested in are German national identity, conceptions of race and self/other in Germany, cross-racial empathy, postcolonialism, and rebellion.

Noreen McDonald is a professor in the department of city and regional planning at UNC Chapel Hill and Senior Associate Dean for Social Sciences and Global Programs in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Her work is at the intersection of planning and public health. She studies how changing technology and policy impact road safety and access to healthcare. Noreen’s previous work has focused on how infrastructure such as schools, roads, and bike lanes impact road safety and physical activity especially for children and young adults. Her research is funded by the US Department of Transportation through the Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety and Southeastern Transportation Research, Innovation, Education and Development Center.