DESIGNING
TEEN ENGAGEMENT  STRATEGIES THAT WORK  

Bina Martin has been a faculty member at The Second City Training Center since 2001. She is the director of numerous sketch shows and improvised plays produced there. Bina has appeared Off-Broadway in Lifegame, played on various improv teams at iO and around the city and been featured in sketches on 'Late Night with Conan O’Brien.' She is the co-author of the nationally syndicated column, Miss Manners. Bina is a graduate of Harvard and The Actors' Studio MFA Program at The New School.

Tanner paints optimistic, typographic, and larger-than-life murals. His work has appeared at the WNDR Museum, Soho House Chicago, and is permanently installed at Weber Shandwick in the John Hancock Building. In 2020, Tanner was appointed to Chicago’s Cultural Advisory Council. As a designer, educator, and entrepreneur, he has taught, lectured, and led workshops on design issues, social change, and design history. He believes design has the capacity to fundamentally improve the human condition.

The Jewish Teen Education & Engagement Funder Collaborative, powered by JFNA, unites national and local funders and practitioners to create, nurture, sustain and scale contemporary approaches to Jewish teen education and growth. We invested in shared  tools which may be adapted by any experiential or immersive program, and share our learnings to help advance the entire field. 

Megan DeWald (she/her) is the Director of the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary, where she oversees research, facilitates training, and designs resources for people engaged in youth ministry. With over two decades of experience in youth and young adult ministry, Megan is passionate about nurturing authentic connection and friendship among people from different social locations and equipping leaders to understand and navigate systems, structures, and relationships. She writes and speaks for national and international audiences and served as a collaborating author with Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster on the revised version of The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry.

Tal has been a leader in the nonprofit world for the last two decades. Previously, she served as Chief Program Officer of the Israeli-American Council where she led the organization’s national programs connecting the U.S. Jewish community to Israel. As Senior Vice President at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Tal reimagined Federation's relationship with young adults and worked extensively on Israel immersive programs and post-trip engagement.

Keren serves as Dean and Chief Academic Officer at Spertus Insitute, where she also holds the appointment of Professor of Israel Studies. Keren works with Jewish organizations across the country to support their Israel educational efforts, and also serves on the faculty of the iFellows Masters Concentration in Israel Education, Hillel International’s MasterClass Israel, and the Wexner Heritage Program. She received her PhD in International Relations and Security Studies from MIT and her BA in Political Science and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from The University of Chicago.