A variety of professionals are providing oversight and perspective to the CV/L Project. Their insight, oversight, and input will ensure a successful production.
Silvia Bunn is a veteran librarian, community builder, and advocate for libraries. Her tenure at the historic Mildred L. Terry branch of Chattahoochee Valley Libraries is marked with public commendations for her role in revitalizing a branch slated for closure, and for the partnerships she formed with staff and community that returned the branch to a vibrant cultural center. In 2003, Silvia was named a “Mover & Shaker” by The Library Journal and a New York Times “Librarian of the Year.”
Dr. Virginia E. Causey retired as a professor of history from Columbus State University in 2012. Her research and teaching interests focus on Southern, Georgia, and Columbus history with an emphasis on race, class, and gender. She is currently finishing a comprehensive analytical history of Columbus.
Doug Purcell served as executive director of the Historic Chattahoochee Commission, a joint Alabama-Georgia agency promoting tourism and historic preservation, between 1972 and 2011. He is past president of the Alabama Historical Association, the Alabama Historical Commission’s Board of Advisors, and the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation.
Nadine Regis is an emergency medicine physician currently practicing in Columbus, Georgia. She studied medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia before completing her residency training in New York City at Jacobi Medical Center. Her family originates from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Though born in the United States, she learned to speak Haitian Creole from her late grandmother. Her first visit to Africa was to Liberia in the spring of 2015 where she volunteered teaching residents at John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Monrovia.
Vanessa “V. J.” Roberts spent 10 years working in New York and 5 years in Los Angeles as an actress, appearing in a variety of popular television shows. For the past seventeen years, she has worked for TSYS, a global credit card processing company, where she develops, implements, and evaluates training for clients and team members.
Born in Liberia, Dr. James Sirleaf is the son of current Liberian President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. James completed his undergraduate work at Morehouse College and trained in emergency medicine at New York’s Metropolitan Hospital, Meharry Medical College and Atlanta University. Sirleaf is currently the Medical Director for the Department of Emergency Medicine at Midtown Medical Center in Columbus.
Althea Sumpter is an Emmy-nominated producer and editor. A native of St. Helena Island, South Carolina, she uses digital media to capture the stories of her own culture, the Gullah culture of the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry. Althea currently teaches digital media production at The Art Institute of Atlanta.
Paul Yarwaye fled Liberia’s civil war in 1999 and arrived in Columbus in 2005. He recently earned a BA in Health Sciences from Columbus State University. He hopes to return to Liberia and improve living conditions, particularly water safety. Paul is originally from River Cess County, formerly part of Bassa County, where most Chattahoochee Valley emigrants historically settled.