Leadership
Mary Lim-Lampe is the Executive Director of Genesis. She graduated cum laude with a B.A in Political Science from University of Missouri-Saint Louis and Juris Doctorate from Saint Louis Unversity. Mary was blessed by God and the Universe to mother a 15 year old who shows her a great example of courage everyday. The proud daughter of Chinese immigrants, she was summoned into organizing during a "perfect storm" at a Gamaliel Network organizer training when a good agitation by her mother was followed by her throwing up and deciding to come out of the shadows and build power.
Mary began her work as the community organizer for MORE2 (Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity), the Gamaliel Affiliate in Kansas City, Missouri (her home town). She cut her organizing teeth by leading MORE2 to monitor a community benefits agreement with the Missouri Department of Transportation that required that .5% of the total project budget must be reserved for training and apprenticeship programs to prepare minority workers for jobs on the Christopher S. Bond Bridge. This agreement was part of the “Missouri Model” which set a precedent throughout the country on how transportation/infrastructure contracts could benefit communities of color and women. Her current work includes a campaign to Disrupt the School the Prison Pipeline, and Bringing Justice to People with Different-Abilities.
Monith Ilavarasan joined Genesis in 2021 as a Community Organizer. Monith grew up in the Bay Area and attended UC Davis where he earned a BA in economics & BS in statistics. A proud immigrant from India, he went on to work in large tech companies and startups in San Francisco for 6 years. Throughout this time he volunteered at after school programs throughout the Bay Area and participated in local elections.
Monith eventually decided to run for office in his hometown of Pleasanton to fight for his progressive values. Through the networking on the campaign trail, he met Mary Lim-Lampe and was inspired by the organizing work of Genesis in the Bay Area. He is committed to living out his values of equity and fairness by focusing on the Tri-Valley region of the Bay Area. As someone who is affected by the ever rising cost of living in the Bay Area, Monith looks to push forward the affordable housing campaign in the Tri-Valley.
Rev. Dr. Ray Pickett, is serving as Chair of Genesis and is Rector of Pacific Theological Lutheran Seminary in Berkeley. A pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and has been a professor of the New Testament for more than twenty years. He came to PLTS from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
Dr. Pickett has been involved in faith-rooted community organizing in various contexts. He has been working with a national group of ELCA leaders who are creatively adapting the arts of community organizing to engage the larger community around issues of racial equity and social justice. He has collaborated with Genesis and the Gamaliel Network to create a five day training at PLTS in this vein.
Dr. Pickett is deeply committed to forming faithful leaders equipped to mobilize individuals and communities of faith to make a diffeence in the world by taking risks, collaborating with others and acting on our faith to make a difference in our communities.
Rev. Dr. Hubert Ivery is on the At-Large Caucus of Genesis and is currently the senior pastor at Geneva Avenue United Methodist Church in San Francisco. Born in Clayton, Alabama during Segregation, Dr. Ivery’s family moved to Miami, Florida when he was about 3 years old. Because of intermittent periods of time when he lived with his grandparents, he grew up in both Miami and Alabama. Dr. Ivery experienced the harsh reality of injustice towards African Americans in the post-Reconstruction South, while also experiencing firsthand the riots in Miami stemming from violence and injustice.
Dr. Ivery has a PhD from California Institute of Integral Studies (San Francisco) in East-West Psychology, where he did his dissertation on Howard Thurman. He also has Master degrees from Boston University School of Theology (Boston) and the Interdenominational Theological Center (Atlanta, Georgia) and a Bachelor of Science from Texas Southern University (Houston).
Dr. Ivery has facilitated Intercultural Communication workshops for the California Nevada Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. He has served as the Chair of the Committee of Christian Unity and Interreligious Relations. He is the current convener of Ecumenical Officers Committee of the Bay Area. Genesis’ goal to work towards dismantling structural racism dovetails with Dr. Ivery’s passion for working for the transformation of our society towards a Beloved Community.
Marie-Linh Baseel works with Genesis as our 2021 MICAH summer fellow. She is a college senior studying Political Science and Sociology at the University of San Diego. She will be completing her bachelor's degree December 2021 and finishing her MA in International Relations in her final spring semester at USD. Marie is passionate about increasing institutional accessibility for differently abled persons and has led USD Mulvaney Center community outreach programs working with differently abled transitional age youth. Growing up in a military family Marie has been fortunate enough to spend the better part of her childhood abroad in Asia, and aspires to have a career with international impact hoping to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer following college. The intersection of social justice and policy is fascinating to Marie and she plans to attend policy school before beginning her political career.