Rene Yung
Artistic and Project Director – Rene Yung is an internationally exhibiting artist, designer, and writer, whose cross-disciplinary works combine the poetic and the incisive. She specializes in civic engagement and heritage reclamation projects that help communities to address social and cultural issues in the local environment, by connecting people, history, and place to articulate the hidden and the overlooked. A native of Hong Kong, Rene thrives amidst cross-cultural dynamics and has worked with diverse global communities. She has exhibited at venues including TransCulture, part of the 46th Venice Biennale; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, Texas; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco.
Yung has created extensive public projects for organizations including the City of Oakland Cultural Arts and Marketing Division, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and the Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle. A graduate of Stanford University, Rene has received grant awards including from the San Francisco Foundation, the Creative Work Fund, the Center for Cultural Innovation, and the California Story Fund of the California Council on the Humanities. She is on the faculty of City College of San Francisco, and is Artistic and Project Director of Our Oakland: Eastside Stories.

Jeremiah Moore
Sound designer, mixer and sound artist - Jeremiah Moore works with field recordings and signal processing to create works centered on human perceptions of time, the human/nature/technology interface, unearthing hidden beauty, and transformation of commercial culture into meaningless bliss. His work appears regularly in documentary films, permanent museum exhibits, art gallery installations, commercials and interactive projects. Jeremiah currently serves as co-chair of Bay Area Sound Ecology (BASE), organizing BASEbot listening salons, public soundwalks and other projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. He lives in San Francisco with his family including two boys who get far more sleep than he does.

Richard Kos, AICP
GIS Consultant – Rick Kos is a Digital Cartographer and independent consultant whose professional skills encompass many facets of urban and regional planning, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and education. He has served as GIS Manager for Design, Community & Environment, a Berkeley based design firm, and as GIS Planner/Analystwith the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Currently. Richard holds aposition at WorldLink, a non-profit organization whose mission is to inspire understanding of critical global and local issues through transformative learning experience. He is creating a software program designed to engage school-aged children about geography and global citizenship. Richard teaches GIS at San Jose State University and is co-author of GIS Tutorial for Economic Development. He holds a M.A. from theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and B.A. in Environmental Planning and Urban Design from Rutgers University.

Joel Chaidez
Web developer – Joel Chaidez hails from Southern California and moved to the Bay Area to surround himself with others also passionate about the potential of the Internet as a means to connect people. He previously worked in production management for web content providers. He is currently a graphic design and web programming student at City College of San Francisco.

Drew Darmon
Project Associate – Drew Darmon grew up in Kansas, but has called San Francisco his home for the last 5 years. After having worked for two different start-ups, he is now pursuing a Masters in Architecture while working as administrative and production support for Chinese Whispers. Drew’s passion for history and culture is what drives his interest in Chinese Whispers, where he provides administrative and production support.

Tessa Koning-Martinez
Storytelling performance coach – Tessa Koning-Martinez is an actor and teaching artist with 31 years of experience. She has worked with the California Shakespeare Festival, Palo Alto Children’s Theater, Brava! for Women in the Arts, Berkeley Rep, San Jose Rep, New Mexico Rep, Teatro Campesino, and was artist in residence with Artworks/Center for Youth and Elder in the Arts.

Dorothy Mak
Project Associate, graphic design and project coordination - Dorothy Mak, a bilingual native San Franciscan, attended Mills College for business administration and studied visual design for print and web media at City College of San Francisco. She enjoys developing branding strategies, publication design, and bookbinding. For the past year, she held the position of Design Director for Etc. Magazine, a CCSF student-publication. She helped give the magazine a facelift and streamlined the production process. Dorothy works closely with Rene on Chinese Whispers graphic design and project coordination.

Marcus Tolero
Project Associate – Marcus Tolero is a San Francisco native who has a fascination with the culture and history of the city by the Bay. He previously worked in journalism and public relations. He received his B.A. in Journalism from San Francisco State University. He does research and publicity for Chinese Whispers projects.