Our Team (Main, Advisory Group, Operations Team)

Leaders

Ultimate Peace was conceived and developed by its three founders: Dr. David Barkan, Linda Sidorsky and Dori Yaniv. Linda and David currently lead the organization, bringing expertise and experience from multiple domains of interest. David and Linda are committed to building the organization into an entity that can be increasingly inclusive, adaptable, and relevant.

Dr. David Barkan, Founder and Chief Executive Officer,  lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also volunteers year-round for Ultimate Peace, and is the Director of Camp UP in Acco Israel every summer.

David has led many Ultimate teams over the course of his thirty-year career to compete at the highest national and international levels of the sport. He has coached youth Ultimate for over 30 years on 4 continents, won a world championship as a player in 1995, and was inducted into the USA Ultimate Hall of Fame in 2010.

David has worked with youth earlier in his career in the USA and Israel as a teacher, counselor, therapist, and program administrator. He has an international reputation as a master group facilitator and consultant to organizations dedicated to social change, holds a Ph.D. in Clinical/Organizational Psychology, and consults to schools, non-profit organizations and community collaborations across the USA and around the world. He has dedicated his career to helping people and groups find creative solutions to life and work’s most challenging problems.

His wife, Nancy Melrose, a long-time high school educator, plays a key role in Ultimate Peace, assisting as a key administrator and educational adviser.

Linda Sidorsky, Founder and Chief Operating Officer, has dedicated many years to growing and promoting youth Ultimate on the east coast of the United States. She and her husband ran a high school program for 10 years, developing and establishing their local high school program as one of the first varsity Ultimate teams in the country. Together they founded a high school league in New England, working hard to establish Ultimate as a recognized competitive sport.

In 2006 she organized and ran the World Junior Ultimate Championships (WJUC 2006) for youth teams throughout the world to compete. It was through this project that she met David Barkan and Dori Yaniv. Together they made it possible for an Israeli youth team to travel to the US to participate in the week-long event. She also worked tirelessly to bring youth from Columbia and South Africa to the event, countries that did not have sufficient support or resources.