Our Team

Van started her professional career at Michigan State University as the Outreach Coordinator for the Asian Studies Center. As an advocate for global studies in the local classroom, her work included partnering with regional immigrants and refugees to incorporate their voices into the Center’s programming and the state curriculum as part of the governor’s special task force on Asian American history in K-12 schools.

An immigrant and refugee herself, Van came to the U.S. as a child from Vietnam. Growing up in a refugee community, and later, studying the diaspora in college and graduate school, Van is most at home in a multicultural environment. With a passion for cooking, eating, and everything food-related, she is excited to join Project Feast where her interests in food intersect with her desire to support the immigrant and refugee community.

Danny has lived in over 13 locations, taught thousands of students of varying ages and backgrounds, and immersed herself in the food and gardening cultures of each place she has been fortunate to reside in or visit. While her professional background centers around environmental education and justice, she has also supported herself with part time work in the service industry for over 14 years and is ready to help others navigate this profession through a supportive and hands-on learning environment.

Danny is committed to providing a safe and respectful space for learning together, cultivated through cultural humility and inclusion, and building a sense of belonging and community through curiosity and honest exchange—all centered around the shared experience of nourishment through food.

Born in Vancouver, Canada, Josef has dedicated his entire working life to culinary pursuits. Working his way up from dishwasher to executive chef, he has a strong appreciation for the intrinsic value of every position in a restaurant. With twenty five years of kitchen experience, Josef has developed an encouragement based leadership philosophy that he feels is conducive to developing the soft skills needed to succeed in a kitchen work environment. Project Feast’s core values and mission align strongly with Josef’s own beliefs and desire to be an asset to immigrant communities. Josef believes that food is one of the great unifiers and is integral to the development of familial and communal bonds.

Nancy started her food career at a fast food chain, but dreamed about one day opening her own catering company. She started at Project Feast as an apprentice in early 2023, graduated in May 2023, and joined our staff in August 2023! Needless to say, we love Nancy and are so happy to have her in our kitchen. Not only does she cook amazing Mexican food, she is also curious about other cuisines and loves meeting and learning from the apprentices that come through our program.

Sara has been working in the food industry for over 15 years and has been passionate about all things food for as long as she can remember. Currently, Sara works on the Marketing team at InnovAsian, where she manages product development projects from concept to launch. She enjoys spending much of her free time exploring diverse cuisines and edible gardening.

Sara believes in using food for cultural sharing, learning, and community building, and has been a fan of Project Feast since 2015 when she first took a Project Feast Somali cooking class. Sara started volunteering in 2019 and joined the board in 2022. She looks forward to further supporting refugee and immigrant cooks on their journeys to employment in the food industry.

Originally from NYC, Sara moved to Seattle thinking she would stay a year, but over 20 years later, is still here and happy to call Seattle home. She lives in north Seattle with her husband, Todd, and their garden of “veggie babies.”

Radhika Makhija is an accomplished analytics and insights professional with over 20 years’ experience in consumer retail and consulting sector. Radhika has spent her career leading organizations in growth strategy development, brand equity and customer experience measurement and advancement of business objectives through analytics and insights. Radhika believes that food is a powerful catalyst for change and a medium that connects people in a unique way. Her passion for helping refugees and immigrants get the valuable education and experience they need, brought her to serve on the Board of Project Feast in 2021.

Radhika holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration focusing in general management and marketing. She has volunteered for non-profits through her entire career focusing on organizations that help provide sustainment in life skills, housing and education. She grew up in India and has been a Seattle resident since 2013. Radhika currently lives in West Seattle with her husband and 2 daughters.

Chef Pranee first learned to cook as a child in Phuket, Thailand where her mom was a village chef famous for her Hua Mok (fish cake). By age 12, she had become the substitute cook for the family. After completing school, she worked for the Public Health Department and and became a certified midwife, but continued to help on the weekends with her family’s food business.

Then Pranee met and married Robert Halvorsen, an economics professor at the University of Washington on sabbatical in Thailand. She moved with him to Seattle, leaving her family and homeland behind—but not her mortar and pestle. Filling her kitchen with Thai herbs, spices and cooking equipment helped her to feel at home in Seattle, and soon her new American friends were asking her for Thai cooking lessons.

Today, Pranee is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) and Women Chefs & Restauranteurs (WCR), a caterer, tour guide and cooking instructor whose popular classes in Thai cuisine are sellouts throughout the Northwest.

Meryn is a strategic support professional who excels in planning and leading comprehensive programs in support of business goals and objectives. She currently works at BECU as their Senior Technology Business Operations Manager. An immigrant twice over (born in India, lived in England, before moving to the US), Meryn has been a customer of Project Feast since 2019, eating at the cafe (pre-COVID) and regularly coming for the Family Meals. She loves the values, mission, and philosophy of Project Feast as they closely aligns with her personal values.

Originally from California, Cynthia earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her Master’s in Counseling Psychology from Santa Clara University. She joined Orion Industries in 2009 as a Vocational Counselor, working one-on-one with participants in the transitional employment program. Three years later, she transitioned into her current role as the Training Program Manager where she oversees the different training programs Orion offers, including developing curriculum, managing vocational and clerical instructors, and overseeing Orion’s internal mentorship program. In 2019, Cynthia and her husband welcomed their first child!

Liz was drawn to Project Feast because of our mission of providing pathways to employment in the food industry. She currently works as a Program Development Manager with FareStart where she works one-on-one with organizations to design, lanuch, or enhance their job training enterprises. As an immigrant from the Philippines, and with her lived and professional experience with FareStart, Liz is excited to bring her knowledge to her role as a PF board member and continue to support PF in our growth.

Justin Smith is currently the executive director of Catalyst Kitchens, an organization that works with clients and members across the country to build sustainable job training programs and social enterprise operations in the food service realm.

Before moving into a consultant role, Justin worked as a chef trainer and job developer with multiple programs, including Farestart in Seattle and Inspiration Corporation in Chicago, IL. He also has experience as a special education teacher with Chicago Public Schools, and designing and running after school cooking programs for a Chicago nonprofit called Common Threads.

His largest motivators in wanting to serve on the board of Project Feast is to help build a strong and lasting program that will impact the lives of immigrants and refugees. He believes in the ultimate power of food to build community.

Annie is currently the Economic Development Manager for the Port of Seattle. She grew up in Shoreline, Washington and has spent her entire life in the Pacific Northwest. Her parents emigrated from Vietnam after the Vietnam War and were part of the “Boat People” era. As a beneficiary of many of the sacrifices her parents endured, she is actively seeking different ways to give back to the community and hopes to help support and uplift newly arrive refugees and immigrant communities in the region.

In her current role at the Port of Seattle, she manages a $2 million grant program that supports economic development initiatives with city partners across King County. In addition, she has helped design and implement a new Community Business Connector program that is set to launch in early 2023 that is focused on serving Black, Indigenous, and People of Color businesses to help them access business resources. Primarily, this program is set to reduce the linguistic and cultural barriers that some immigrant and refugee-owned businesses face when seeking resources to help start or maintain their businesses. The intention is to partner with community-based organizations who have language skills and cultural understandings to best serve these communities.

Born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, Abby started cooking and baking with her mom at the age of 6. In 2022, she started Trini Plate, a Caribbean food business featuring dishes from her culture and heavily inspired by the street vendors in her birth country. She found further inspiration after joining Project Feast in early 2023 as an apprentice. PF helped expand her skills and gave her a sense of direction for her business. She also made lifelong friendships with other apprentices, which even influenced her cooking (Trini Jjajang!). She’s excited to sit on the board of PF to help support future apprentices.

Karoline is Nordstrom’s Vice President and CPO leading Strategic Sourcing and Procurement for all non-merchandise spend. Prior to joining Nordstrom, she was Starbucks Corp Vice President leading Global Sourcing, Store Development, and Siren Retail Supply Chains. Karoline was born in Poland and came to the U.S. as part of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. She understands the hardships and the opportunities of starting a new life in a foreign country. As Karoline has been able to overcome many obstacles in her journey as a refugee, she is finally in a position to give back to those in early stages. She looks forward to working with PF, and to sharing her experience, support, and encouragement.

Currently, Karoline lives in Issaquah with her husband Josh, two children Morgan and Max, and their Samoyed-Husky rescue dog, Yeti.

Giselle Leung is a senior purpose-driven professional with more than two decades of experience and leadership in impact investing, global development, and consulting. She is passionate about harnessing the power of finance and philanthropy for sustainable impact and creating the enabling conditions for all people to thrive. From 2010 to 2023, she held a variety of roles – most recently as Chief Partnership Officer – at the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), an organization dedicated to shaping finance as a force for good and mobilizing capital to social and environmental solutions. As a founding team member, Giselle helped build the GIIN from a start-up in a nascent industry to a recognized leader in impact investing.

A firm believer that talent is universal but opportunity is not, Giselle is excited to support Project Feast’s work in empowering refugees and immigrants by creating pathways to opportunities in the food industry and celebrating our shared humanity across diverse cultures.

A New Yorker at heart, Giselle moved to Seattle in 2019 with her partner to be closer to the great outdoors.