Board of Directors
Fernando Javier Morales
Fernando was born and raised in Honduras and currently lives in Mexico City. He first became involved with Chispa in summer of 2016, spending time working on Chispa’s educational programs and traveling to far away and welcoming areas of Honduras. He is now the Sr. Impact and Environmental Social Governance Manager at a global impact investing fund manager. In his job he has traveled to 10+ countries to work with business support centers and investment funds to maximize their impact, including ensuring companies’ Environmental, Social and Governance policies enable them to receive investment and have a positive social or environmental impact in their communities. He comes to this board after literally bumping into Chispa’s director at a security line in an airport in Costa Rica.
He is drawn mostly to nonfiction, particularly books with historical and social content that provide a better understanding of our world. When it comes to fiction, his favorite authors are José Saramago and Kurt Vonnegut.
Leah Hodder, Treasurer
Leah is a strategic finance and accounting leader with a passion for solving complex challenges. An active CPA with a background in FP&A, she utilizes her expertise to help organizations make informed decisions with improved accuracy and transparency of financial reporting. She earned her master’s and bachelor of science in accounting from Penn State University. Leah comes to Chispa Project with years of experience auditing and consulting for a variety of US-based nonprofit organizations.
It's impossible to pick a favorite book, but she credits her lifelong passion for reading to childhood memories with an amateur sleuth named Nancy, a wizard named Harry, grandparents with revolving currently-reading and to-be-read piles on the coffee table, and her dad, who let her read past bedtime.
Gustavo Ochoa
Gustavo is from Santa Lucia, a small town in the mountains of Honduras. His day job is marketing movies and series at Amazon Prime Video and he is currently based in Seattle, WA. He earned an MBA at the University of Minnesota and a BFA in Film from the Academy of Art in San Francisco.
In the past, he has worked as a consultant for nonprofits and managed communications for a violence reduction program focusing on youth in Honduras.
Reading John Steinbeck novels was a primary driver in getting him to apply to colleges in California and he thinks about details from 100 Años de Soledad (100 Years of Solitude) at least five times a week. Aside from reading and nonprofits, Gustavo enjoys riding bikes, watching bike races, saunas, and hot springs.
Comfort Sampong
Comfort Sampong shares stories of justice to spark international action and relationships. For the past four years, she has worked at the Association for a More Just Society-US, which uses its Spanish initials ASJ, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making public systems like education, health, and security, work for the Honduran people. As ASJ’s Program Coordinator, Comfort develops creative monthly communications, facilitates research connections, and supports storytelling and advocacy initiatives. She studied Economics and International Development at Calvin University, and previously worked as a research assistant at DataWise Consulting. The Ghanaian-American daughter of immigrants, Comfort is passionate about celebrating the bonds and justice movements between the African and Latin American diasporas. Comfort calls many places home and currently lives in Washington, D.C.
Kelsey Schreiber, Secretary
Kelsey is a research support specialist in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Systems Engineering and Design and a Master of Science degree in Agricultural and Biological Engineering, both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professionally, she manages a fellowship program that provides mentoring opportunities to young-career scholars in low- and middle-income countries. She also works closely on research projects related to U.S. public and private food assistance, international food and water security, and agricultural extension systems.
While at Illinois, she also co-founded a nonprofit that provided consultation on rural drinking water projects in Senegal, Honduras, and Guatemala. She comes to Chispa Project excited and uplifted by its mission and with over five years of nonprofit board experience. Her most recent favorite read was Recursion by Blake Crouch.
Emily Smith, Vice-President
Emily first met the Chispa Project team in 2017 when she was serving as a bilingual primary school and resource teacher in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. She fell in love with the mission to get books into the hands of Honduran kids and hasn’t looked back. Since moving back to the US from Honduras, Emily has spent time as an academic assistant and internship program coordinator for the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense studies, a government research center where she specialized in Women, Peace and Security and focused on preparing student interns for their future careers. She then returned to her passion for immigration and citizenship, serving as the Citizenship Program Manager and Paralegal for CARECEN DC, an organization that provides low or no cost immigration benefits for individuals from Central America in the DC Metropolitan area. Emily now works as a Senior Project Coordinator for EnCompass LLC, collaborating with USAID’s Monitoring & Evaluation for Learning and Sustainability platform in Peru, Paraguay, and Brazil. Born in Anchorage, Alaska, Emily has a B.A. in Psychology and Spanish from Dickinson College. In her free time, Emily can be found doodling mural ideas, training for marathons, hiking with her rescue pup Obi, and talking excitedly to anyone who will listen about her latest, favorite read.
Emily’s favorite book is usually whichever she is currently reading, but some of her all time favorites include Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, and anything by Chloe Liese or Sarah J. Maas.
Joanna Tanger
Joanna started her career as a Business English teacher in Prague, Czech Republic before discovering her love of digital marketing. She has 15 years of experience managing marketing, technology, fundraising, and strategic communications for international nonprofits, higher education institutions, and startups. Her affection for Honduras began while working for a clean water and sanitation organization in Trojes. She is the founder of Joanna Tanger Consulting LLC, a digital strategy firm that works with clients across the United States and is a proud member of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. Joanna is TEFL certified, and has a B.A. in cultural anthropology from Bard College, a graduate certificate in digital marketing from Cornell University, and an M.A. in digital communication from Johns Hopkins University. She is passionate about using technology for good and enjoys traveling, learning, reading, playing soccer, and kayaking.
Joanna grew up without a television and was always reading, so it's challenging to choose a favorite book. She often revisits Originals by Adam Grant and Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth.
Maiko Uchida, President
Maiko is an international development professional and has managed agriculture and nutrition projects for the UN agencies and bilateral government agencies for over 10 years. She has worked in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Zambia, and South Africa, and currently resides in Tegucigalpa. She earned an M.A. in International Development at the University of California, San Diego.
As a mother of three, it has given her great delight to see her children learning to love reading. She looks forward to supporting Chispa as they bring the joy of reading to many more children in Honduras. During her childhood in Japan, her favorite books were a Japanese detective series in which a girl, with help from her grandfather, solves mysteries in her community. She now enjoys reading the Harry Potter series with her children.