Middle Way Education: Board of Directors
Noa Jones | Executive Director and Chair of the Board
As founding director of the Board of Trustees, Noa led the establishment of the Middle Way School in 2017. She stepped back from her leadership roles at MWS in 2021 to focus on the Buddhist aspects of the school. As Dharma Curriculum Coordinator, Noa works with educators and dharma advisors on the curriculum framework and materials developed at the School. Collaborating with key Middle Way educational and strategic consultants, she articulates the MWS vision and mission, and helps to ensure its implementation through all areas of the MWS. She leads weekly assemblies and coordinates a variety of programs for the children and parents such as dharma talks and ceremonies.
Noa has worked for the school’s patron, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, since 2001 in a variety of roles—from personal secretary to film PA to Communications Director of Khyentse Foundation, where she helped create the foundation’s branding and chaired KF’s education steering committee for more than a decade.
In 2010, Rinpoche sent her to the Kingdom of Bhutan to develop education alternatives in association with the Ministry of Education, the Royal Education Council, monasteries, and a number of NGOs. She coordinated professional development and integrated curriculum design workshops for teachers while observing and participating in local classrooms. The Druk 3020 curriculum she developed in 2011 helped introduced progressive education methods and content into the monastic setting. Druk 3020 has continued to be implemented and refined at the Chokyi Gyatso Institute in Eastern Bhutan. In 2017 Rinpoche asked Noa to start a Buddhist school for children in Upstate New York.
Noa is also a writer and editor of creative fiction and nonfiction, and has worked on Rinpoche’s books, including What Makes You Not a Buddhist and The Guru Drinks Bourbon. She taught creative writing at Hunter College and, in addition to receiving a number of awards and fellowships for her writing, she has been published in many magazines and newspapers including the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Tricycle, Vice, and Conde Nast Traveler. She contributed a chapter to Global Perspectives on Spirituality in Education (Routledge, 2013). She graduated cum laude with a journalism degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with a minor in arts management, and an MFA in creative writing from Hunter College. She holds a Masters of Science Degree in Education (MSEd) from the University of Pennsylvania.
Anja Hartmann | Board Member
Brandon A. Lee | Board Member
Brandon was appointed to oversee the relationship between Canada and the U.S. as Consul General of Canada in San Francisco and then also in Seattle and was Canada’s Ambassador to Silicon Valley.
Brandon has a strong background both as an executive and leading innovation, and he has held several executive positions with national and international governments. From 2007 to 2011, he oversaw global reform activities to strengthen Canada’s international presence and became the Department’s first Director of Innovation. From 2012 to 2014, Mr. Lee held senior positions at the World Trade Organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross (both in Geneva), spearheading major organizational and international reform initiative.
Previously, Brandon worked in the private sector as a pioneer entrepreneur in online banking in North America and also with large- scale telecommunications management consulting.
Chagdud Khadro | Board Member
Chagdud Khadro is the spiritual director of Chagdud Gonpa in Brazil. She was ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist teacher in 1997, by Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche—a great master of the Nyingma school. Khadro and Chagdud Tulku were married in 1979. She remained his devoted student for twenty-three years.
Formerly the managing editor of Padma Publishing in the United States, Khadro has edited many translations of Tibetan works. She was instrumental in the publication of Chagdud Tulku’s autobiography Lord of the Dance. She has compiled commentaries of his teachings on the Dudjom Tersar Ngöndro, Longsal Nyingpo Phowa, and the concise version of Apang Tertön’s Red Tara practice. She is overseeing the construction projects, translation and publishing of texts in Portuguese and Spanish, and projects related to education and to death and dying. Khadro supervises the activities and teaches in all the Chagdud Gonpa Brasil centers and Chagdud Gonpa Hispanoamérica. She also teaches in Europe, United States and Australia. Khadro is a founding director of MWE.
Kuhn Sucharitakul | Board Member
Kuhn is a healthcare management professional with a focus on value-based care delivery, and a social entrepreneur with a diverse range of experience in the wellbeing sector, both academically and operationally.
Kuhn holds a master’s degree in Contemlative Education from the Buddhist-inspired Naropa University (Colorado, USA), and believes that Buddhism- far from being an archaic religion- is a multi-dimensional deposition of wisdom, knowledge, and cultural and spiritual capital. If its essence can be captured authentically, and if one’s view remains vast and open, Kuhn believes that innovative communication methods can unlock this capital, and transform the ways in which the next generation engages with the Dhamma.
Taking inspiration from his own experience as a monastic in the Thai forest tradition- as well as from his time spent studying and living in Europe, the USA, and China- Kuhn, and his friends, founded the Paccaya Foundation with the aspiration that the Buddhadhamma be made easily accessible and addictively engaging for the endless benefit of all.
Manwai Annie Ng | Board Member
Manwai grew up in New York City and now resides in Upstate New York at a Zen Buddhist monastery. She’s worked in healthcare technology for over 15 years, and has a BA in Religion & Economics from University of Rochester. She has been a grants manager and volunteer for Khyentse Foundation since 2017 and is a founding member of the MWE Board of Directors.
Michael Macioce | Board Member
Michael Macioce has been a school teacher since 2002. He most recently taught at a small Spanish-English dual-immersion elementary school in Santa Barbara California. He chose Adelante Charter School because it is a small school that was created to foster bilingualism, support Spanish speaking children, and prioritize social justice and equity alongside academics.
Michael has completed a multi-year cycle of teachings in Buddhist studies under the guidance of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and is active in a number of Siddhartha’s Intent’s study and practice groups. He integrates many core Buddhist ideas and values into his secular teaching, including mindfulness, emotional intelligence, the values of the paramitas, and the analysis of cause and effect. He joined MWE’s board of directors in 2020.
Pema Abrahams | Board Member
Pema is the communications director and an executive committee member at 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. Now based in Thailand, she serves on the board of the Neilson Hays Library (Bangkok) and considers herself fortunate to have entered the dharma as a child under the kindness of Thinley Norbu Rinpoche.
Pema has a range of experience across South and Southeast Asia: she founded northeast India’s first independent archive and research center, and her team’s work in the Himalayan state of Sikkim now sits with the British Library’s Endangered Archives Program representing the first collection of local origin to be made freely available online – a game changer for both international scholarship and in providing community access to their own untold histories. Her work has also included establishing Human Right’s Watch’s formal presence in South Asia; conducting field research in India’s Naxalite territories; managing a US State Department project to strengthen Nepal’s National Human Rights Commission; mapping gender-based violence and building access to justice in post-conflict settings; and researching possibilities around extraterritorial jurisdiction for war crimes committed in Sri Lanka.
Pema holds an MSc in Conflict Studies, focusing on International Human Rights Law, from the London School of Economics; and a bachelor’s degree in History and Art History from NYU.
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