Maia Ferdman is a skilled facilitator, educator, and consultant with a passion for community development, peace-building, and education. She is the founding Principal of Bridges Intergroup Relations Consulting, a firm that supports organizations and communities to build vibrant spaces of belonging – celebrating our complex identities, proactively exploring our differences, and fostering resilient relationships between groups.
She has worked with and consulted for agencies and organizations including the California State Water Boards, the City of Los Angeles, Pepperdine University, the Western Justice Center, Abrahamic House, and NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change. She has trained government and nonprofit groups in cultural competency, and facilitated conversations across differences about policing, homelessness, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and more.
She develops training for the UCLA Dialogue Across Differences Initiative, is the Program Manager of the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, and is the former Assistant Director of the University of California Los Angeles Luskin Center for History and Policy. Maia loves studying and is a product of globalization; she is a Jewish Argentinian Southern Californian who has lived in Bulgaria and Argentina and has spent extensive time in India and Israel. She received her B.A. in Global Studies and M.A. in Latin American Studies from UCLA.
Speaker: Take Heart Now Series