Join the team

Are you passionate about empowering girls and fostering self-confidence? The Dinner Table is in an exciting capacity-building stage as we prepare to hire our general operating team and expand our impact. We’re always looking for dedicated and qualified individuals eager to make a difference. Follow us on LinkedIn for updates on volunteer roles and staff opportunities, and join us in shaping a brighter future!

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Asha Boston | Founder and Interim Executive Director

Born prematurely, at one pound and two ounces, Asha Boston knows a thing or two about fighting for the things you want in life-- including life itself. Asha is a filmmaker that additionally serves as the founder of non-profit organization, The Dinner Table Doc. Her passion for empowering Black and Brown girls has led her to become a member of several advocacy organizations.

From 2020-2022 she served as the Brooklyn Representative for the United State of Women Ambassador Program. She also served as an Advisory Board member for Columbia University’s Collaborative to Advance Equity through Research (CAETR); a committee where she helps oversee the distribution of grants for research focused on women and girls of color.

In June of 2016, Asha was honored by the Obama Administration’s White House Council for Women and Girls as a "Nominated Change Maker" at the United State of Women Summit. In addition to her advocacy work, Asha is a passionate creative problem solver. With over 10 years of experience in the entertainment industry. Asha currently serves at the President and CEO of Passion Fruit Vineyard Productions where she oversees all pre, post and current production services for documentary A Time Before Kale and sometimes freelances as a producer and director for several film, tv and digital program's.

SchoolED LLC | Curriculum Development Partner

Demetria Gillies is the founder of SchoolED LLC - an education consultancy for families, schools & communities. As a Manager of Resident Development, Demetria Giles also coaches and trains Nashville Teacher Residents. Demetria Giles has over 15 years of experience in education and is passionate about culturally responsive pedagogy, student-centered approaches to learning, and teacher development. Previously, she was the Director of Curriculum & Instruction at 9th Bridge School, a private early childhood and elementary school in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. She holds a Bachelor’s in Communications/Journalism from the Pennsylvania State University.

Catchafire | Pro Bono Operational Support Platform (to Capacity Build)

Catchafire is a New York-based organization which makes skill-based connections between professional volunteers and other non-profits.. Catchafire matches professionals who want to donate their time with nonprofits who need their skills.

The Board of Directors

is the Clinical Experiences and Internship Manager at National Louis University. She is also a Career Transition Coach and Professional Networking Strategist at She Leads Beautifully, where she teaches mid-career women how to tap into their networks to access their next dream jobs. Dr. Uzoma is a contributing author of No Ways Tired: The Journey for Professionals of Color in Student Affairs. She has graced local and national stages, leading career and leadership development talks. Dr. Uzoma was the 2019 recipient of the Up and Coming Woman in Education Award for the Influential Women of Northwest Indiana Awards. Dr. Uzoma holds a B.A. and M.S.Ed. from Indiana University Bloomington and a Ph.D. in Higher Education Leadership from Indiana State University.

has over 10 years of experience working in higher education, specifically in career services. She is currently the Assistant Director of Career Advising for a higher institution in New Jersey, where she conducts career advising sessions with students about their career interests and internship/job opportunities. Also, she assists with managing career programming. She has a passion for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging and encouraging students to build their confidence in their unique skill set. She finds that it is important for students to explore finding their voice and authentically creating their professional identity in a welcoming space. She graduated from Pace University with her BA in Communications and a MA in Counseling, with a specialization in School Counseling from Montclair State University.

Lynette is a California native who, after achieving her dual bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley, made it her mission to explore the world. After college, she relocated to New York City and worked at Goldman Sachs as a financial analyst. Feeling the exploratory urge, Lynette leveraged her exemplary track record at Goldman Sachs to transfer to the firm’s London office, where she was the lead project manager for the operational launch and regulatory compliance of the International Lending Business.
A couple of years later, Lynette again felt the need to travel and decided to leverage her minor in Education to move to Vietnam and perform non-profit work in the Education sector, focusing on K-5 enrichment programs. While Lynette loved performing work that made a direct impact on people’s lives, the siren’s call of finance proved too strong, and she found herself back in finance working at a small start-up that specialized in the buying and selling of online businesses. Luckily, the start-up encouraged her exploratory nature and allowed her to work on-site with clients operating in Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and Mexico City, among others.
Satisfied with her exploration of the world, Lynette returned to London to work on her Master of Finance degree from the London Business School. Her global travel plans were sidetracked when she received an opportunity to establish the Richmond, VA office of Capstone Partners, becoming the third Richmond hire and packing her bags one final time to Richmond, VA.
Lynette still enjoys traveling, especially visiting her family on the West coast. She takes full advantage of everything that Virginia offers, including hiking, hunting, and visiting wineries and breweries.

Samantha Callender is a multimedia journalist whose work ranges from beauty and lifestyle journalism to pieces highlighting social issues in multicultural communities. Samantha strives to find intersection between entertainment and social matters, believing that pop culture has the power to not only entertain the masses but to educate them as well. Her goal when storytelling is to write pieces that serve as a catalyst to prompt dialogue and activism.
When she's not writing, Samantha can be found enjoying the amazing food and arts scene all across Chicago.
Aside from her reporting with Austin Weekly News, her editorial work can be seen in ESSENCE, Cosmo, People,and more. Catch her at @OnYourCallender

Yahira Melgard is a seasoned finance and operations leader with 15+ years of experience driving growth, efficiency, and scalability across SaaS, private equity, and healthcare sectors. She specializes in M&A integration, financial transformation, and system automation, having led over six acquisitions and implemented tools that significantly improved compliance, reduced costs, and accelerated close cycles. Yahira has managed financial operations for companies ranging from $20M to $100M+ in revenue, consistently aligning strategy with execution to support rapid growth. She is known for building strong cross-functional teams and unraveling operational complexity to deliver lasting impact.

Tyler M. Bryant is an entrepreneur, strategist, and advocate for diversity in the food and beverage industry. As the Founder of Eat Noire, she has built a global platform celebrating Black culinary excellence, connecting over 1,500 Black chefs, artisans, and entrepreneurs with visibility and economic opportunities.
With nearly a decade as a technology and strategy consultant, Tyler bridges food, tech, and culture to drive innovation.
Currently an MBA candidate, Forte Fellow, and Consortium Fellow at Cornell University, Tyler is focused on brand management, reshaping the food industry to be more inclusive, innovative, and culturally rooted.

is a professor of African American Studies and French at Yale University. She is the author of A Regarded Self: Caribbean Womanhood and the Ethics of Disorderly Being and of Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon, as well as of numerous essays, articles, and chapters concerning race, gender, and representation in the francophone world. Her current project is biography of Haitian former communist militant, novelist, and erotic poet René Depestre. She is the prize-winning translator of several works of Haitian prose fiction and francophone non-fiction, the founding co-editor of archipelagos | a journal of Caribbean digital praxis, and the founding co-director of the digital humanities project In the Same Boats: Toward an Afro-Atlantic Intellectual Cartography. She is also a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review and the co-host of the podcast WRITING HOME | American Voices from the Caribbean. Her scholarly, translation, and digital humanities work has been supported by fellowships at the New York Public Library Cullman Center, the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, the PEN/Heim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Mellon Foundation.

is an author, speaker, leadership coach and HR Director who specializes in helping individuals transform their experience into influence, impact and income. For over a decade, she has provided advice and strategy to employees about how to define their career trajectory and execute a path to achieve their professional goals. With endless joy in seeing individuals succeed in life, Courtney also encourages her clients and staff to strike a balance between career pursuits and personal life. Courtney enjoys learning, cooking delicious meals and binge watching Bravo.

Paige McCrensky is a marketing executive and founder of the Storytelling Catalyst Group, helping brands thrive through authentic storytelling. Formerly VP of Sales Marketing at Getty Images, she promoted inclusive media and drove global brand connections. Known for her disruptor mindset, she has led bold initiatives with brands like Dove and GLAAD to challenge stereotypes. A sought-after speaker at Cannes Lions and AdWeek, she is also a proud mom of three, passionate about empowering girls.

Parys A. Grigsby is the founder of Good Help Here, a boutique administrative and project management firm dedicated to helping small teams do big work. As a type B creative in a type A careerfield, Parys specializes in creating human-centric, efficient processes grounded in clarity while alleviating urgency in the workplace. She prides herself on working with team members across all organizational levels with respect, curiosity, and joy.
With a decade of experience, Parys honed her skills by providing admin, project management, and operations support to nonprofit organizations, foundations, world-known social justice practitioners, and federal populations. She also works closely with teams dedicated to codifying equity into organzational practices through strategy and innovation across a wide range of sectors.
Parys is a proud graduate of the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications. (Go Dawgs!) When she’s not nerding out about continual process improvement and world news, you can find her hanging out with her pup, Cheddar Baé, driving her classic Mustang, Huny Baby, or wandering around Atlanta discovering the many joys of Black womanhood.
Pronouns: She // Her // Shawty ✨

is a savvy brand marketer with decades of experience working with some of the most recognized brands on the planet including Diesel, Cadillac, Refinery29, and Instagram. Her love of art and creative expression have always informed her work. Her sweet spot is marketing that drives cultural conversations, connects creatives with brands, and creates projects that support and uplift diverse communities. She is currently the Instagram Creator Brand Marketing Lead, where she helps creators harness the power of Instagram’s creativity and vibrant community to achieve sustainable career growth. A project she is most proud of in her time at Instagram is, We Create, which brought together Black creatives and Black business owners to empower each other during the pandemic (when Black businesses were closing at 3x the rate of other businesses). The program deployed art to empower creatives and small businesses - with the creatives designing assets that would engage customers and grow the businesses.

In her personal life Guia is committed to building community, uplifting marginalized people, and making efforts to level the playing field to create a more equitable world. Actively participating in community and supporting others is a core value Guia was raised with. She is especially energized around empowering women and children of color, believing it is everyone’s birthright to thrive. She volunteers her time as a board member for Housing Works, Athens Cultural Center, and she is very proud and excited to recently join the board of Dinner Table Doc in 2024.

Sonia Smith is an IT professional and entrepreneur in the financial technology and logistics industries, specializing in project management, business analysis, quality and operations management. Her expertise spans digital transformation initiatives, system implementation, cybersecurity and information security governance, and risk/compliance management. As the owner of Smith Consulting Services LLC, Sonia partners with clients to deliver tailored solutions that streamline business processes, modernize legacy systems, and align technology with strategic goals. She has led enterprise-wide technology projects across areas such as trade lifecycle automation, cloud migration, regulatory reporting, and identity and access management.
Sonia holds a B.A. and M.S. in Information Systems from NJIT and Rutgers University, providing her with a strong foundation in both technology and strategic leadership. She is also a graduate of the Executive Women’s Leadership Program in Information Security, Risk Management, and Privacy, where she strengthened her leadership skills and deepened her subject matter expertise in cybersecurity and governance.
Committed to paying it forward, Sonia actively mentors young women entering STEM and tech-adjacent fields, helping them build confidence, navigate career transitions, and develop the skills needed to thrive in today’s digital economy.