fbpx

Meet Our Team

Click our pictures to read more about us!

Astrid Castro, Founder and CEO

Astrid Castro (she/her/hers) is the founder and CEO of Adoption Mosaic. Her life-long interest in adoption is rooted in her own adoption at the age of four from Colombia (along with her older sister). Astrid has been in reunion with her birth family in Colombia since December 2012. Read about Astrid’s journey searching and finding her birth mother in The Oregonian Part 1 and Part 2. 

Astrid has a degree in sociology with an emphasis in adoption. Since 1992, she has traveled the country to lead youth groups, present workshops on transracial parenting, talking with children about adoption and various other workshops focusing on adoption. Prior to creating Adoption Mosaic, Astrid worked in both the private and public sectors of various adoption organizations such the Oregon Post Adoption Resource Center (ORPARC), Holt International, Rocky Mountain Adoption Exchange, and VIDA (while living in Italy).

She has also sat on several boards of directors (North American Council on Adoptable Children, Open Adoption and Family Services, Northwest Adoptive Families Association, Spoon Foundation) to support the adoption community. 

Astrid has also been featured on many podcasts and contributed to a chapter in the Parenting as Adoptees. She has also helped to develop materials such as Adoption in the Movies, and Adoptive Parent Training: Developing Communication Skills, an innovative, evidence-based, 27-minute training DVD. 

Astrid’s personal experiences as an adoptee, a woman of color, and growing up in a white family and community, fuel her professional path to helping others.

Astrid is aware of the benefits of post-adoption services for individuals and their families and seeks to bring these services to the adoption community.

When Astrid is not working she loves training for half marathons, firing up her outdoor pizza oven and sharing homemade pizza with family and friends, and biking with her little dogs, Guapo and Baci. Her absolute favorite thing is to enjoy the adventures of life with her amazing daughter. 

Our Operational Team

Shelise Keum Mee Gieseke
Joanie wears a white shirt and smiles at the camera.
Ben wears a blue button down shirt and smiles at the camera.

Our Course Facilitators

Our Event Support

Special thanks to Jessica Xavier of Planet X Design, Nico Lim of Lumae Photography, Liz Kwon, and KJ Roelke of KJ Roelke Online for our visual cohesion and web support.

Shelise Keum Mee Gieseke

Shelise Keum Mee Gieseke

Head of Operations
(she/her)

Shelise has been involved with Adoption Mosaic since 2008, as a volunteer and employee of Adoption Mosaic nonprofit. She has been involved in the adoption community for over a decade as an educator, editor, and mentor, including the honor of editing the blog Land of Gazillion Adoptees and the Gazillion Voices online magazine. 

At the end of 2020, Shelise rejoined her friend and mentor, Astrid in building and growing Adoption Mosaic LLC. She loves that her position at Adoption Mosaic allows her to connect with all members of the adoption community and brings opportunities to reframe the adoption narrative.

Shelise is an intercountry, South Korean, interracial adoptee. She was adopted as an infant and raised by a white family in Minnesota. She has three siblings who are her parents’ biological children. She has been to Korea to search for her family, but did not find them. In her free time she likes to watch k-dramas, go to taekwondo with her family, and pretend she is going to learn to speak Korean.

Joanie wears a white shirt and smiles at the camera.

Joanie Alminiana

Executive Assistant
(she/her)

Joanie is a domestic adoptee, born and adopted at 3 months in Portland, Oregon. She has been in reunion since 1986. 

Joanie worked on Ballot Measure 58 with Helen Hill, achieving open records for all adoptees born in Oregon. Prior to this she was involved with Oregon Adopted Rights Association for many years. 

In 2019, Joanie led the Portland chapter of Adoptees Connect, where she met Astrid and started volunteering with Adoption Mosaic. Joanie loves listening, learning and growing with the adoptee community. 

Joanie and her husband enjoy family dinners, games, and get-togethers with their 3 adult children, and multiple dogs.

Ben wears a blue button down shirt and smiles at the camera.

Ben Baumann

Finance Intern
(he/him)

Ben first heard about Adoption Mosaic when a friend brought him to a volunteer event in 2010. He was welcomed with smiling faces and a true sense of belonging that has kept him involved throughout the years.

Ben loves witnessing the drive, passion and purpose of Astrid and Shelise and all the others involved in the organization. Everyone is striving to improve the individual and collective lives of adoptees and their circles. Ben is committed to Adoption Mosaic for the community, the opportunity to explore how adoption has shaped his life and especially serving those around him. 

Ben likes dogs.

Cal Storrs

Operations Assistant
(they/them)

Cal is an international, interracial, trans/non-binary, Chinese adoptee. Cal currently is the Operations Assistant at Adoption Mosaic.

Originally part of youth groups Astrid ran, Cal reconnected with Adoption Mosaic in 2021 when they and their parents began accessing Adoption Mosaic’s family consultation services. Then in the spring of 2022 they began working with Adoption Mosaic as the Operations Assistant and have enjoyed the supportive and open work environment the team has created together. 

They are passionate about trying to understand the adoption industry machine and how it ties into other global systems and are working on a project to address these topics. Their interests include publishing, writing, and art-making as a liberatory practice, graphic design, and looking at the adoption, foster care, and child welfare industries through a critical sociological lens.

Jennifer Quichocho

Database Coordinator
(she/her)
Jennifer Quichocho is a multiracial adoptee from Guam. She grew up in a transracial household and mostly lived in all white communities. Her adoption was private but she found both her first mother and father through her own research and through DNA testing.
 
She has been a volunteer with Adoption Mosaic since 2020 and has spent most of that time creating a client database and event planning contact systems. She enjoys being a part of the Adoption Mosaic community because it gives her the chance to be with others who share the adoption experience.
 

Jennifer Poole

Adoptee Outreach Coordinator and Parenting Coach
(she/her)

Jennifer Poole was adopted as an infant in a closed adoption. She holds a Masters Degree in Interfaith Pastoral Counseling, where she wrote her thesis on “Openness in Adoption as an Opportunity for Spiritual Growth”. It was during this time, in 2001, that she initiated her reunion with her birth mother and later with her birth father. 

Passionate about supporting families, she is certified in Hand in Hand Parenting, Redirecting Children’s Behavior, the Enneagram, and Whole Person Design Life Coaching. Drawing from a large tool box which includes continuing education in Mindfulness, High Conflict Diversion, ADHD, ACES, Attachment Theory and Trauma Informed Care, Jennifer provides counseling and coaching to help families move from conflict to the connection they seek. 

She currently lives in Oregon with her husband. Together they have 4 grown children.

Sujata Soni Wipper

Conscious Adoption Course Facilitator
(she/her)

Sujata Soni Wipper is an adoptive mother and school psychologist.

She has been working with children, educators, and families for the last 15 years in a variety of educational settings. Her expertise is in behavior consultation, psychological assessment and counseling. She also supports her district’s staff equity team and helped to create and to co-facilitate the student equity team.

She and her husband adopted their daughter through domestic open adoption. Sujata is a co-facilitator for Adoption Mosaic’s Conscious Adoption: Foundations course.

Maureen McCauley

Conscious Adoption Course Facilitator
(she/her)

Maureen is the adoptive parent of four children (all now in their 30’s), and also has two granddaughters.

Her professional background is in child welfare advocacy, as executive director of 3 adoption-related nonprofits. She connected with Astrid and Adoption Mosaic many years ago, and has presented and co-facilitated workshops with Adoption Mosaic for several years. Maureen loves the way Adoption Mosaic is adoptee-centered, and that it also welcomes all in the adoption community to grow and learn. 

Maureen lives in Seattle, working primarily as a writer and editor.

Jordan Davis

Conscious Adoption Course Facilitator
(he/him)

Jordan Davis is an African American domestic, interracial adoptee. After a closed private infant adoption, Jordan has been in reunion with his biological family in Louisiana for three years.

Jordan has been involved in Adoption Mosaic since 2020 and is currently serving as a Facilitator, but has also participated as a We The Experts panelist and in curriculum development. Jordan has loved being a part of the Adoption Mosaic community, and especially enjoys the intimate and in-depth work of Better Together.

He resides in Austin, TX where he is pursuing his PhD in Anthropology.   

Brooke Haynes

Business and Community Coach
Zoom Tech Wizard
(she/her)

Brooke Haynes is an adoptee and a first mother. Brooke lives in Louisville, KY and is a mother to her son, Jagger. 

Brooke has been involved with Adoption Mosaic for 2 years as a Business Coach and the Virtual Event Support. Adoption Mosaic allows Brooke to combine her love of building communities and seeing businesses thrive that are making a positive impact on the world with her personal adoption journey.

Carmen Hinckley

Meditation Teacher
(she/her)

Carmen Hinckley is an international adoptee from Brazil. She was adopted as an infant by a single mother. 

She has been involved with Adoption Mosaic since 2012. She loves to bring a sense of peace, presence, and calm through meditation with the adoption community. 

Carmen resides in Portland, OR.