Dana Freling – Chair

Dana Freling is a Texas voter, born and bred in Dallas. After completing degrees at Smith College and Stanford University in Social Anthropology, she set out on a course of research and advocacy to improve the plight of communities at home and around the world.  Dana has resided in Finland for decades and has also lived in France, Japan, Taiwan, the People’s Republic of China, Mozambique, and India, among other places.

Dana is the founding Chair of Democrats Abroad Finland and is currently serving her second term. In early 2018, she worked diligently with a group of passionate and engaged Americans across Finland in getting out the overseas vote to combat the destruction wrought upon the world by the Trump administration. In early 2019, Democrats Abroad Finland was formalized, and its members were delighted to contribute to DA’s decisive margin of victory in the 2020 Presidential and Congressional races in the US.   

Professionally, Dana has worked in the environmental sector for bi-lateral and multilateral institutions and NGOs, and has worked across countries in East and South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe. Most recently, she was Co-founder and Executive Director of a Finnish non-profit which provided curriculum for climate change education (and its intersection with the Sustainable Development Goals) for 3000 schools across India. Dana has also worked in local Finnish community politics, serving as the Campaign Director in a successful 2021 candidate’s bid for Espoo City Council. She chaired the board of a large international school for six years and has served on numerous educational and community boards over the last two decades.

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Dash Nesbitt – Secretary

Angela Fobbs – Communications Director

Angela Fobbs grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she studied finance at Xavier University. She has lived in Germany since 1999. Throughout her professional career, she has worked in both the private and public sectors as an IT professional and project manager and currently teaches English part-time. She recently joined the Black Women in Europe™ board of directors.

Angela has an insatiable desire for knowledge and reads prolifically. She loves history, astronomy, gardening, and her family. She is committed to working for unconditional equality for all people, saving our civilization by fighting to get the governments and the people of earth to act against climate change, and ridding the world of all the conservative policies and practices that keep humanity from making progress.  

Angela is a founding member and was the Chair of Democrats Abroad Global Black Caucus from 2017 to 2021.  She is also an elected member of the Democrats Abroad Germany Executive Committee and the Chair of the Wiesbaden-Mainz Chapter in Germany.

Inge Kjemtrup – Voter Outreach

Inge Kjemtrup is a member of the Executive Committee of Democrats Abroad UK (DAUK) and a DPCA voting representative. She was Chair of DAUK from 2017 to 2021, after serving as Vice-Chair and Secretary. She is on the steering committee of Democrats Abroad’s Environmental Climate Crisis Council.  

As Chair, Inge led a diverse, energetic, and engaged group of U.S. citizens in the UK dedicated to increasing the Democratic vote of Americans living abroad, a goal achieved in the November 2020 elections, which saw a doubling of the overseas vote. She has been a surrogate speaker for Democrats Abroad, appearing on SKY-TV, BBC TV and radio, CNN, Newsweek magazine, and other news outlets.

Born in Denmark and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Inge has lived in London for 24 years. Her involvement in DAUK stemmed from her activism in the 2008 Obama campaign. As an elected DAUK officer and Chair, she has initiated national and international events and fundraisers for Democrats Abroad, including the 2020 Call the World campaign and the 2021 opposition to the California governor recall.

Professionally, Inge is a music journalist who has written, edited, and given talks for Pianist magazine, The Stage, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and Strings magazine, among others. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Santa Clara University, located in Silicon Valley. A professionally trained violinist and violist, Inge has played with ensembles including the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in California and the Salomon Orchestra in London.

Like other members of Democrats Abroad, Inge was delighted at the election of Joe Biden as President and Kamala Harris as Vice President and is working on DA’s next big challenge: getting out the overseas vote for the 2022 midterms.  

Bruce Murray – Legislation Liaison

Anthony Akerman

Eric Burns

Eric Burns is the chair of the Switzerland chapter of Democrats Abroad. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, to a family of scientists and votes in North Carolina, where I last lived prior to leaving for higher education in Europe. He has a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from ETH Zürich, where he studied artificial photosynthesis and renewable energy.

Most of his time outside of research has led or founded social initiatives. During the last 4 years in Switzerland, he cofounded a ‘union’ to represent academic staff at his research institution called the Ph.D. and Postdoc Association at the Paul Scherrer Institute, where he was also president of the 12-member board. Eric also cofounded and was president of the Mental Wellbeing association (MeWell) nonprofit, where they advocate for mental health awareness within academia. During the last 10 years, he has founded and/or was president of 6 organizations (5 in Switzerland) and has sat on 8 boards.

Eric is very passionate about making music and performing ‘live looping’ concerts on the electric violin. He also loves to cook and creatively explore new flavors and ingredients. In addition, he is a fiend for a good map and enjoys all things geography and history.

Martha McDevitt-Pugh