Becky and her family recently relocated to Santa Barbara following 35 years in Denver and Charlottesville, Virginia. She holds a masters and PhD in Social Work and worked in the social services field before serving as a public policy analyst in health and mental health for the National Conference of State Legislatures. Becky currently directs family foundation efforts to address support service, housing, education, and health/mental health concerns. She’s been a member of the Women’s Fund since 2020 and joined the Research Committee in 2022.

Sherry Robin is a licensed marriage and family therapist who has worked in the field of developmental disabilities and early childhood education. For the last 18 years, she was a child and family therapist at CALM in Santa Barbara. She recently retired and is happy to be a member of the research committee. She is also a Montessori teacher and started a Montessori preschool in Guatemala. She regularly visits Guatemala and will be starting another program in Peru this summer. Sherry enjoys traveling and learning languages. In her free time she enjoys hiking and dance.

Susan Washing began her professional career in a telecommunications startup company based in Colorado. She was transferred to Los Angeles to assume the management of the western region in sales and marketing. After 5 years she moved back to Colorado to work in a tax investment finance organization. Ultimately, she started a small company focused on sales training and public speaking.

Susan has served on nine non-profit boards, dealing primarily with children’s issues, including homelessness, sexual abuse, and illness. Most of these NGOs were virtual startups. She has also built guilds and boards and founded an annual fundraiser for most of them. In addition, Susan served as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) in Colorado and California for a decade, handling numerous cases, from dependency and neglect to family resolutions for each. Currently she is on the steering committee of Human Rights Watch Santa Barbara and on the research committee of the Women’s Fund.

Sylvia grew up in the San Gabriel Valley and graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in history. She attended U.C. Berkeley and obtained a law degree in 1972. After a short period with a law firm in San Francisco, she decided she wanted to work in a field that was beginning to attract a lot of attention: environmental law. Sylvia worked for the California Attorney General's Office in a newly formed environment section until her retirement. In 2012, she moved to Santa Barbara and is happy to make this community her home. She was drawn to the Research Committee by her interest in doing research about critical issues in the community.

Wendy joined the Women’s Fund in 2023, a year after retiring and moving to Santa Barbara. Wendy has a BS/MS in Materials Science Engineering from Brown University and a PhD from Stanford University in the same field. Wendy has enjoyed over 35 years in high tech manufacturing where she has held a variety of positions with IBM, NXP Semiconductors, Philips and most recently, Fujifilm. She serves on the boards of two public companies: Power Integrations and ICHOR Holdings. She is also serving as VP Communications for the local chapter of Newcomers.