Meet Our Team
Alex Burdulia
Co-Founder
Alex first visited Bihar while traveling through India in 2016. Around Bodhgaya, he found communities of bright, motivated students whose desire to succeed was strikingly at odds with the resources at their disposal. After getting to know the founder of one of the schools serving these students, and learning of the relatively small investment that it took to construct their school building, he saw an opportunity to make a real difference in their lives. Since then, he has focused on understanding the needs of private schools in rural Bihar and helping BE Change to meet those needs.
Alex is a corporate sustainability consultant and former corporate lawyer based in Hong Kong. He’s also led the Asia-Pacific public policy function at a global financial services institution and has been involved in numerous pro bono matters, including by advising nonprofit entities on corporate governance issues. He earned a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, a Certificate in Management from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Rutgers University.
Michelle Bos-Lun
Co-Founder
Michelle Bos-Lun, M.A. International Education (from the School for International Training), made her first visit to India with her parents at age thirteen. She has led cultural immersion service programs with youth to Asia since 2001 and started leading programs for adults to India and Nepal in recent years. Michelle helped start a lunch program at Prema Metta School in 2014 after making multiple visits and realizing during a five-week stay as a volunteer teacher that many of the students were chronically undernourished. After COVID, she hopes to resume leading travel programs to India to support BE Change programs.
Michelle was elected in 2020 to serve as a State Representative in the Vermont Statehouse. She also teaches social studies, English, and Chinese to secondary students and leads youth leadership programs each summer.
Elaine Gordon
Director
Elaine visited Bihar with Michelle Bos-Lun in the fall of 2018 and was introduced to the students and communities served by our two partner schools. She was impressed with the dedication of the school staff and the widespread support of the community for the schools. On morning runs through the villages and fields, it was evident that students and families were proud of, and committed to, these schools.
Elaine has been involved in education for over 40 years, initially working with underserved populations in outdoor settings and most recently as the coordinator of After School and Summer Programs at a K-6 public elementary school in Vermont. She has worked as a Guardian Ad Litem for children involved in the judicial system and delivers Meals on Wheels. She earned a Master’s in Education from the University of Colorado, Boulder.