Advisory Board Role

The Advisory Board provides informal strategic guidance to the Resource Center of the Americas and has no fiduciary responsibility to the organization.

Barb Frey
Barb is the Director of the Human Rights Program in the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Global Studies. She has been an international human rights advocate for more than two decades, serving in a variety of positions in non-governmental organizations and academic institutions. Barb served from 2000-2003 as an alternate member of the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, a body of independent experts who advise the United Nations on human rights policy. Since 2002, she has served as Special Rapporteur to the Sub-Commission on the issue of preventing human rights abuses committed with small arms and light weapons. From 1985 through 1996 Barb was Executive Director of Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights. She is the co-convener of the Midwest Coalition for Human rights and serves on the Board of Directors of Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights. She is the immediate past Chair of the St. Paul-Minneapolis Committee on Foreign Relations.

Abigail Gadea
Abigail works for the Community-University Health Care Center of the University of Minnesota as an adult rehabilitative mental health practitioner for the Latino community. She has a Masters degree in Social work with an emphasis in community organizing and advocacy, and a Masters degree in Public Policy with a focus on human rights advocacy. Her extensive work and volunteer experience has included program design and evaluation, surveying and interviewing, community organizing, and case management.