the team

Mikell Stringham – MAP Founder and Director

mikell2 (2) Mikell first had the idea for the Mondo Art Project (formerly named International HeART Exchange) a few years ago when she coordinated a humanitarian trip to an orphanage and various villages in Peru in collaboration with Southern Cross Humanitarian and the Hope Alliance.

Though children come from different cultures and circumstances, they all share the common thread of creativity, wonder, and imagination. Our goal is for them to experience just how much they have in common with their international peers by letting them communicate through the language of art – a universal medium of communication.

Not until the Fall of 2009 did this vision of exchange come to fruition, thanks to amazing partnering non-profit and humanitarian organizations that extend our global reach through their connections, relationships, and expeditions.

Mikell is a Utah native who’s background includes international humanitarian work with children in Peru, health policy legislation with the US Senate, volunteer work for Primary Children’s Medical Center for 2 years, and is currently on the board for the Central Utah Art Center. She studied at the Florence University of the Arts in Italy as well as the University of Utah, where she earned her B.A. She loves traveling and has visited 6 of the 7 continents (Antarctica one day!). She is also the owner of Mondo Fine Art, where she is a private art dealer and consultant.

Laura Chukanov – MAP Assistant and Project Manager

Art and travel are Laura’s two favorite things. She was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and moved to the United States in 1990. While living in Bulgaria, Laura remembers a foreign visitor who brought her class play dough. Art supplies were limited, so having a chance to see play dough was a rare treat. She has since been interested in all mediums of art. In 2008, Laura interned at an art gallery in Park City, UT where she met Mikell Stringham and was introduced to the wonderful world of art. She now currently works for Mondo Fine Art as Assistant. Along with traveling and art, Laura has been involved with multiple humanitarian organizations over the past 5 years including: Big Heart Humanitarian, Rock The U, Hometown Heroes Fundraising Marathon Team, Best Buddies Utah, and many more. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah in International Relations with minors in Art History and Leadership Studies. This past year, Laura had the honor of representing Utah as Miss Utah USA 2009 and was able to travel to Bulgaria in order to visit orphanages and to speak at a UNICEF conference. The Mondo Art Project (MAP) is something that Laura is very passionate about because of her childhood experience of receiving art supplies from a visitor from another country as well as her past opportunities working with humanitarian organizations. Cultural exchange in any form is necessary in order to have peace in our world.

Chris Peterson – Great West Institute

Born in 1975 and raised mostly along Utah’s Wasatch Front, Chris Peterson grew up exploring the wildlands of the American West. He began painting in his early twenties, drawing inspiration from his excursions to the Colorado Plateau, the Great Basin and the Central Rockies. He attended Brigham Young University and Kansas City Art Institute and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2001. Upon graduation, he founded a nonprofit organization (Great Basin Foundation) with the mission of using art to increase public awareness of environmental issues. He organized and curated a group show (Utah Environment: Opening a Dialogue) at Art Access Gallery in Salt Lake City in 2003.

Chris worked as Executive Director for Glen Canyon Institute (2003-2005) and subsequently earned a Master of Public Administration from the University of Utah (2004). During the Spring of 2005, while directing the campaign to restore Glen Canyon, he explored dozens of the canyons that emerged at drought-impacted Lake Powell. In 2006, he returned to the University of Utah Graduate School, obtaining a second Master’s degree in Environmental Humanities with interests in art-activism and leadership development. He worked as Program Director at the Murie Center in Wyoming, followed by a year teaching K-6 art classes in the Salt Lake City School District as a Beverly Taylor Sorenson Arts Specialist. He is currently directing the programs of Great West Institute (co-founded with Brooke Williams). He lives in Salt Lake City with his wife Lisa, and daughter Shiloh and flyfishes the Provo River whenever he can.

Laura Chabries – Southern Cross Humanitarian

Laura worked in Educational Fields for 20 years, teaching youth, training teachers and writing curriculum. She was President of a CA teacher’s union, a Lead Union Negotiator as well as a National Writing Project presenter. Although a fellow for Harvard’s “Project Zero”, an honoree for the Random House teacher of the millennium, consultant for Bay Area science integration, her humanitarian trips to Russia, Fiji, Africa and South America convinced her to step into humanitarian work with both feet. She has been President of Southern Cross Humanitarian for 3 years and is loving it!

Judy Zone
Executive Director and Founder of Youthlinc

Judy Zone has worked with youth all her life, as a secondary and college educator. Now as the Executive Director of the Youthlinc program, Judy still considers herself an educator — but the topic she is teaching is service education. Judy’s undergraduate work is in English and Journalism from Boston University, and graduate work in (M.Ed. and ABD in a Ph.D. program in Education) from the University of Utah. She has used her background and experience in education to formulate the strategies that underlie the effectiveness of the Youthlinc program in creating lifetime humanitarians.

Judy also has experience in both print and television journalism, skills that have helped her promote Youthlinc.

Since 1999, the program’s inception, Youthlinc has been a consuming passion, purpose, and joy for Judy – rivaled only by her commitment to her husband, Dr. John Zone of the University of Utah Medical Center, and her daughter, Sara Conger, who was instrumental in developing the Youthlinc concept of bringing students to both local and international service.