Meet Our Team
Board Members
|
Ozkan Boyar
President Ozkan Boyar was born and raised in Turkey before moving to San Francisco in 2014. He is a civil engineer with an MBA degree from Istanbul Technical University. He worked at Tekfen Construction Co. for Istanbul Subway Project as an engineer. Afterwards, he focused on real estate financing and he switched his career to banking & finance to become a project finance specialist at Finansbank, a leading Turkish bank. For the past 11 years, he has been the General Manager and member of the Board of Fiba Real Estate Development Co. at Fiba Holding in Istanbul. He has vast experience in construction, financing, project management, project development & asset management. Currently he is a freelance consultant and asset manager in real estate sector. |
|
Kelly Walsh
Secretary Kelly Walsh is a business development analyst at Fenwick & West law firm, where she focuses on strategic business planning and execution for the international and intellectual property practice groups. In addition to her marketing role, she is a tireless advocate for gender and sexuality equality. Kelly holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from the University of Vermont. She has a son named Oliver. |
|
Tim McQuillan
Treasurer Tim McQuillan has a Master's Degree in Taxation from Golden Gate University. In addition to his educational background, he comes to The LGBT Asylum Project with several years' experience as an accountant at a Bay Area Refugee-focused non-profit. He originally hails from Iowa where he is half of the first legally married gay couple in the state. In this capacity, he was involved in the campaign for marriage equality and served as a spokesperson for Lambda Legal, who represented the plaintiffs in Varnum v Brien. Tim and his husband have a daughter. |
|
Adam Sandel
Director of Fundraising and Events Adam Sandel served for six years as the Leadership Council and Media Awards Chair for GLAAD in San Francisco. He's a playwright, screenwriter, and journalist who's contributed to LGBT publications including The Bay Area Reporter, dot429.com, StartOut.org, and The Advocate. He is currently teaching at De Anza College, Skyline College and Berkeley City College. His satirical web series "The Gay Husbands of San Francisco" recently launched on www.revry.tv and will soon appear on Funny or Die. |
|
Desmond Adebayo
Director of Client Relations Desmond was an human rights activist in Love Planet Organization in his home country of Nigeria. He is the first client of The LGBT Asylum Project and has since been a part of The LGBT Asylum Project since his stay in the United States. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in health administration and has a passion to assist LGBT immigrants in every way possible. He is currently working as a patient access representative for California Pacific Medical Center. |
|
Ryan Hundley
Director of Corporate Relations For the past seven years, Ryan has worked at Google where he leads a team that creates outreach events and programs. He's received degrees from the University of the Pacific and University of St Andrews, Scotland. Ryan has volunteered for a number of organizations through the years, as well as serving as a board member for the Monterey County Chapter of the ACLU, and helped to found a local marriage equality organization in the wake of California's Prop 8. |
|
Neil Austin
Outreach Manager Neil is a human resources professional with over 25 years of experience. He is currently working as business development director at Nuna, and his work experience include companies like PG&E, Optum Health and Medstat. Neil and his husband Tom are LGBTQ activists volunteering at several organizations including San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, SF AIDS Foundation and GLBT Historical Society. |
|
Yigit Ucar
Information Management Yigit Ucar was born and raised in Izmir, Turkey. He moved to the United States in 2011. He is a civil engineer with a master’s degree in water resource engineering from Istanbul Technical University. He worked for Parsons Corporation as field project manager. He is currently working for a local utility company as Sr. Records and Information Analyst. He has experience about project management, construction management and information management. Since he moved to US, he is actively involved in LGBT community here. |
Staff
|
Okan Sengun, Esq.
Executive Director and Co-Founder Okan Sengun is a passionate immigration attorney, and an immigrant himself, with a great understanding of each individual’s unique needs throughout their immigration journeys in the United States. Since 2012, Okan has been serving on the Advisory Council and as the LGBT Coordinator and San Francisco Asylum Office Liaison of American Immigration Lawyers Association, Northern California Chapter. Okan also serves as a panel attorney at AIDS Legal Referral Panel (ALRP). Okan is a mentor immigration attorney at Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. He is also a member of Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF). Okan worked at several non-profit organizations and law firms in California and Turkey prior to starting his own immigration law firm. Okan is admitted to New York Bar and U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit. |
|
Brooke A. Westling, Esq.
Staff Attorney and Co-Founder Brooke Westling is a California-licensed attorney who is dedicated to fighting human rights abuses by challenging social and legal constraints on gender and sexuality. She first realized the crucial need for greater social awareness and legal advocacy in this realm after serving as a high-school peer group facilitator, addressing gender and sexuality biases among high school students, as an undergrad at The Ohio State University. After graduating with a BA in Psychology, Political Science, and Women's Studies, Brooke went on to obtain a JD from Capital University Law School in 2009 then relocated to the Bay Area. In 2015, she received her LL.M. in International Legal Studies from Golden Gate University School of Law, where she focused on human rights. Brooke began working on asylum cases with Okan Sengun in January of 2015. The two co-founded the Center for Immigrant Protection in order to alleviate the financial burden placed on their clients. Brooke currently serves as a Panel Attorney for the Aids Legal Referral Panel, is a member of BALIF (Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom) and of the Policy Subcommittee of Women Get It Done. She is also a member of the State Bar of California. |
|
Kenan Arun
Project Manager Kenan is an LGBT activist and has been working on LGBT issues for more than 10 years both in Turkey and in the United States. He was born and raised in Gaziantep, Turkey, and moved to the U.S. in 2013. He is an active member of The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, The Turkish-American Gezi Platform and Kaos GL (a Turkish-based LGBT nonprofit organization), and he is thrilled to be a part of The LGBT Asylum Project. He is also a resident makeup artist at Golden Thread Productions. |
Advisory Council
|
Jason Hall
Founding Member Jason is the vice president, Enterprise Regional Compliance, with the National Compliance, Ethics & Integrity Office (NCO) at Kaiser Permanente. Jason joined Kaiser Permanente in 1995 in the Southern California region, where he held various roles in Health Plan Administration, Regulatory Services, and Compliance and Privacy. Jason served on various community boards in Southern California and Hawaii and he is currently on the board for the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Greater Bay Area. He is also an executive sponsor of KP Pride, Kaiser Permanente’s LGBTI multicultural business resource group. Jason holds a bachelor’s degree in Global Peace Studies from Wilmington College, a master’s degree in Public Health from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a member of the Health Care Compliance Association. |
|
Cip Cipriano
Entertainment Liaison Cip Cipriano has been a San Francisco nightlife entrepreneur since 1992. His hardworking approach as an owner/operator has made him well known in the nightlife, DJ, and live music scenes. In 1992, Cip became a partner in My Place, a seedy leather bar on Folsom St with barely any business. Through his leadership and programming, My Place became the go to destination for the leather/sex positive community. As the co-owner of Insipid Productions, starting in 1998, Cip’s career as a talent buyer & independent promoter, brought hundreds of bands to the Bay Area in almost every live music venue. Through Insipid Productions, his love of extreme music led him to being a co-owner of the Pound SF, a live music venue famous in the metal, hardcore & punk scenes. As the chief talent buyer - he brought his years of expertise to the Pound, hosting 300+ shows per year and providing a home to live music fans of all ages. As the sole owner, property owner and founder of Underground SF, Cip hosted parties nightly in the Lower Haight nightclub. From iconic gay parties such as Cockfight and Drunk & Horny to the city’s longest running drum and bass club, Underground SF offered something for everyone. After 10 years, Cip decided to sell the venue and promote events in SF and NYC. Eventually, having decided to live full time in SF again, Cip became the general manager at QBar SF in 2012. He is proud of the diversity he has brought to QBar and looks forward to many more years in this iconic location. |
|
Ayse Nur Yilmazer
Cultural Liason Ayse was born and raised in Turkey, and is a political activist focusing on human rights and freedom. She is the founding general manager of Arsan Travel Center, the first travel agency of Gaziantep,Turkey and the South East Anatolia. In addition to her professional life in tourism, she has served in community as deputy Mayor and member of Municipal Council for 15 years. She is a board member or founding member of American Society of Travel Agents, United States Tour Operators Association, Lions Club, Museum Friends Association, University Women’s Association, Association of Turkish Travel Agencies, and Zeugma Platform. Ayse started Gay Tourism in South East Anatolia in 1986 and is still the leading figure, being featured in Lonely Planet Turkey. She has received several national and international awards on her social and professional work. She has two sons. |
|
Yad Konrad
Yad is an applied researcher within the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The starting point of his journey to immigrate to United States originates from Mesopotamia (current day Iraq). His profession concerns around educating science and reasoning, freedom of thought and building more habitable societies. |
Volunteers
|
Alan Rafael Delamora
Legal Volunteer Born in California and raised in a Mexican family, Alan is an advocate for elevating LGBTQ people, women, refugees, and migrants in the United States and around the world. A native Spanish speaker, and armed with a BA in International Relations from Stanford University and a JD from UC Hastings, Alan has worked for the rights of vulnerable individuals and marginalized groups in California, DC, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico, and Spain; he is also literate in French, Italian, and Portuguese. Alan and Okan began working together in 2010 when Alan interned for Organization for Refuge, Asylum, and Migration (ORAM) reporting on the conditions facing sexual minorities and refugees in Iran, Mexico, Turkey, and Uganda. Alan subsequently worked for the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS) to support the asylum claims of women fleeing gender-based violence in Latin America. He has volunteered for The LGBT Asylum Project since its founding, and has worked on the cases of refugees from Colombia, India, Iraq, Peru, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela — the list keeps growing. Aside from his main passion in asylum and immigration law, Alan is a Certified Equity Professional with practical experience in equity compensation matters, as well as alternative dispute resolution, family law, estates and trusts, and contract litigation. He is a member of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and a cyclist in AIDS/LifeCycle (currently on leave from both, returning in late 2018). Alan is the proud parent of two chihuahuas, Momo and Zia. |
|
Rod Finetti
Legal Volunteer Rod is a Planning Analyst and Project Manager for the San Francisco Human Services Agency - or as his wife likes to describe him, a starry-eyed bureaucrat à la Leslie Knope of the TV show Parks and Rec. Rod also serves as the president of the board of Community Awareness and Treatment Services, one of the oldest and most central behavioral health treatment organizations in the city for homeless persons. He has a J.D. from Golden Gate University and prior to working for the City, worked in grant and contract management at UCSF, as well as at La Raza Centro Legal, where he provided legal advocacy services to low-income immigrants. He is passionate about serving the public interest, with a particular commitment for immigrant and LGBT rights. |
|
Justin Patrick Lopez
Country Conditions Volunteer Justin is a graduate student in bio-engineering at both the University of California, San Francisco and the University of California, Berkeley. In both of these institutions, he has worked to increase the visibility of LGBT+ individuals in STEM, and is currently a member of the American Society for Engineering Education's Virtual Community of Practice for LGBT Inclusion in STEM. As the son of two political refugees, Justin has long been interested in international human rights, and is thrilled to be a part of the LGBT Asylum Project. He is also a volunteer and singer for the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, and participates in its RHYTHM program, which provides outreach and anti-bullying curriculum to schools around the SF Bay Area. |