Meet the Team

Applied Theater Specialist

Jeffrey Allen Steiger is The Mouse & The Elephant’s applied theater specialist. An accomplished actor, director, playwright, and facilitator, he uses theater to bring challenging diversity, equity, and inclusion topics into the room, turning them from abstract ideas into live scenes performed before participants’ eyes. These scenes engage the audience, and enable a deep level of dialogue and honest examination.

Jeffrey is also the Artistic Director of The New Theater of Medicine and Adjunct Instructor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, the founding Artistic Director of the CRLT Players at the University of Michigan’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, and the Creative Director of AWED (Advance Women, Equity & Diversity) Theater at Florida International University. He has presented original interactive plays and sketches for over 100 academic institutions and conferences, including Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Nagoya in Japan.

He has also collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Universidad de la República in Uruguay, and Bob Mankoff, The New Yorker cartoon editor, on a project that examined Mankoff’s ideas regarding status and the psycho-biological roots of humor. His recognitions include the TIAA-CREF Hesburgh Certificate of Excellence and the James T. Neubacher Award.

Small Group Facilitators

Jamaal Downey, PhD, comes to academia and consulting after a life as a blue collar worker. His expertise derives from a life of experiences as a biracial male living in predominantly white spaces with his white mother and stepfather. His personal story and academic interest converge around: identity; language, ideology and consciousness; pedagogy, and epistemology.

Jamaal received his B.A. in Education from New England College, M.A. in Globalization and Cultural Studies from Dartmouth University, and his Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture in Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also has received a graduate certificate in Social Justice Education, and is trained in Intergroup Dialogue [IGD]. His doctoral dissertation focused on the ways that humanizing and culturally sustaining pedagogies can help promote and foster racial literacy in predominantly white spaces.

Karishma Furtado, MPH, PhD is the Data and Research Catalyst and a founding staff member of Forward Through Ferguson. In this position, she leads the use of human-centered data, research, and reporting to facilitate accountability, measure impact, deepen understanding, and imagine what’s possible on the path to Racial Equity. Prior to her role with Forward Through Ferguson, Karishma served as staff to the Ferguson Commission. She has completed a doctoral degree in public health sciences, and her research at the intersection of race, racism, and health is in the service of closing the school discipline gap, or the disproportionate rate at which Black students are suspended from school and pushed out of the classroom. She has published articles in the leading public health and health policy journals on the Ferguson Commission, the role of public health in advancing the mission of Racial Equity, and operationalizing a commitment to health equity in applied public health spaces. She teaches graduate level courses in biostatistics, epidemiology, and translating epidemiology into policy. She’s also a big fan of baking and DIY home renovation and design.

At the heart of Karishma’s work is a profound belief in the ability of people to accomplish the incredible. A desire to apply her public health training to social justice issues in her own community brought Karishma to this work and will likely keep her engaged with it in some fashion for the rest of her career.

Dr. Richard D. Harvey is an expert in the fields of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and Change Management. He received his PhD from the University of Kansas in Psychology and Management. He has over 28 years of experience in providing a range of consulting services including engagement and DEI surveys, program/training evaluation, strategic planning, and DEI workshops and interventions for-profit and non-profit organizations. Furthermore, he has been on the faculty in the Department of Psychology at Saint Louis University with a joint appointment in the Social Psychology and Industrial/Organizational Psychology programs for the past 25 years, where he supervises the Collective Identity Laboratory that regularly conducts and publishes research on topics such as bias/prejudice, inclusion, social identity, and work engagement. He teaches courses on Stigma & Prejudice, Psychology of Oppression, Leadership, HR Selection & Performance Management, Organizational Development & Change, Social Psychology, and Research Methods & Statistics. Finally, he is the recipient of several research, teaching, and mentoring awards.

Adelaide Lancaster is a social entrepreneur, community builder, innovator, communicator, and advocate. Most recently she co-founded We Stories, where she serves as the Executive Director of Strategy. We Stories is a St. Louis-based non-profit organization that engages White families to change the conversation about and build momentum towards racial justice and equity.

Prior to that she co-founded In Good Company Workplaces, a first of its kind community and co-working space for women entrepreneurs in Manhattan, which opened in 2007. In Good Company served thousands of women entrepreneurs and has helped shape the shared workspace industry of today. At In Good Company, Adelaide co-authored a book, The Big Enough Company, with her partner Amy Abrams, featuring the stories of over 100 women entrepreneurs.

Adelaide’s focus on racial justice galvanized while earning her B.A. in Educational Studies and Sociology from Colgate University. She went on to earn a M.A. in Organizational Psychology and a M.Ed. in Counseling Psychology from Teacher’s College at Columbia University, where she studied racial identity development and group dynamics.

Adelaide also serves as a founding board member and current co-chair for Forward Through Ferguson, the organization carrying on the work of the Ferguson Commission. She is also a fellow with the Pahara Institute, an organization focused on developing leaders in the education equity movement.

Applied Theater Artists

Loren Bass has been a professional actor for over 40 years from New York to Los Angeles and numerous stops in between.  Performances include (Stanley)A Streetcar Named Desire, (Treves)The Elephant Man, (George)Of Mice and Men,(Marc)Art, (Robert)A Life in the Theatre, (Rosencrantz)Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, (Finzi)Tamara, (Otto Frank)Diary of Anne Frank, (Styler)Mind Game, (Emperor Joseph II)Amadeus, (Earl of Leicester)Mary Stuart, (Judas)The Passion, and (Tom)The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin. Shakespearean characters include Macbeth, Richard III, Iago, Brutus, Petruchio, Lysander, Mercutio, Malvolio, Marc Anthony, and Jacques.  Films:  Gifted Hands, Kill the Irishman, Street Boss, AKA Jimmy Picard, Ocean of Pearls, War Flowers, Batman vs. Superman, and It Follows.