Our Team
Janet Arelis Quezada, Community Engagement and Program Advisor
Janet grew up in the Bronx, the daughter of Black, immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic. After Wellesley College, she began a 20+ career in non-profit service in various roles, most recently at GLAAD as the Campaigns Manager for the Spanish-language and Latinx department, honing her skills in communication, facilitation and organization. Her passion is expanding equity and access. She joined the Population Change team in January 2020 as a Capacity Building Coach for the Magnolia Community Initiative. A writer and producer, she finds creative pursuits vital to peace of mind.
Joyce Bosco, Organization and Program Advisor
Joyce Bosco has been recognized for her strong leadership, parent engagement, and community organizing skills, as well as her dedicated civic engagement commitment of over 30 years as a Hartford resident to improving services to families in the Greater Hartford Area. She previously served as the Director of Catholic Charities’ Southside Family Center, a position she held for 10 years. During her tenure, she and the family center received numerous awards of excellence at the city, state, and national levels. The major emphasis of her work after that to the present has been to support systems change by providing technical assistance and professional development in the areas of family support and engagement, parent leadership development, and civic engagement that align with local, state, and national initiatives. She has sat on numerous planning tables across the state and nationally In 2015, Joyce developed the Capital Region Alliance for Family Support and Engagement (C.R.A.F.S.E.) — in partnership with the Office of Early Childhood (OEC) to connect family support professionals to best practices and to offer opportunities to learn and grow together. She has presented both locally and nationally and is a strong proponent of authentic resident/ parent engagement, which supports residents/parents as partners, leaders, decision makers, and advocates. She believes that they need to be at the table to have a strong voice in developing solutions to the issues that affect them most to advance equity and create sustainable solutions for generations to come.
​Patricia Bowie, Managing Director for Learning and Design
Patricia serves as project lead for a national cross-site learning community supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. This community of learners dedicated to early childhood outcomes includes the Magnolia Community Initiative in Los Angeles, one of Ms. Bowie’s long-term endeavors. Ms. Bowie is a Senior Fellow with the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, and as part of this partnership, provides consultations on early childhood systems building to the cities and communities participating in TECCS – Transforming Early Childhood Community Systems. Most recently this has included supporting the design of a Southern CA and national Early Development Index (EDI) learning exchange, providing direct support to the place-based strategies supported by the Children’s Bureau of Southern CA, partnering with UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities and First 5LA in launching a LA County City Leaders Learning Community, supporting the New Mexico Early Childhood Education and Care Advisory Body and working with the Riverside County First 5 on a design of a county-wide Family Resource Center Network.
Liz Welch, Managing Director for Strategic Partnerships
Liz works with leaders, organizations, and movements to implement change strategies. She approaches this work with the belief that relationships lead and that systems change is how we will build a more equitable world. She was previously Director of Advancement for Thunder Valley CDC. In this position, she led fundraising efforts to grow the organization from a budget of under a half a million dollars to over eight million in four years. During that time, the organization grew from a vision to a community development and from a staff of four to a staff of over 100. Liz is also the founder and Principal of Emergence LLC. A social worker by training, she is currently working on a PhD in Leadership and Change through Antioch University.
Carletta Woods, Project Management and Operations
Carletta Woods has 20 years of experience in the nonprofit world, local government in Los Angeles, and the tech industry in both Program and Project Management. She joined the Population Change Institute in 2021 to support the many projects of the Institute. In addition to project management, she is also manages the Population Change Institute operations.