Meet Our Staff
Refugee Services
- Leslie Aizenman, Director, Refugee Services
- Alla Puchinsky, Refugee Caseworker
- Alexis Szymanski, Refugee Case Manager
- Sancha Rai, Interpreter/Translator- Case Aide
- Dawn Zuckerman, MSW, Refugee Employment Specialist and Program Coordinator
Leslie Aizenman
Director, Refugee Services
As Director of the Refugee Program, Leslie Aizenman coordinates and supervises the activities of the resettlement program, including case management and vocational and legal immigration services for refugee clients. She also develops, writes and oversees refugee-related foundation and government contracts as well as represents the program within JF&CS and in the external community. Prior to assuming this position, Leslie served for five years as JF&CS's grant writer and project developer. In that capacity, she worked agency-wide on grant applications, business plans, research and development for new and continuing programs.
Leslie's professional background is in writing. Prior to joining JF&CS, she held numerous positions in the publishing and writing field including managing editor for a nonprofit literary journal, reporter/research for Inc. Magazine and copy editor for Dow Jones News Services.
Leslie holds a bachelor's degree from Boston University and is pursuing a master's degree in Public Policy and Management (MPPM) from the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She is conversant in Spanish and assists with translation at JF&CS whenever needed.
Alla Puchinsky
Refugee Caseworker
Alla Puchinsky was herself a refugee, from Belarus, resettled by JF&CS in 1994.
She helps clients with anchor family issues, provides information and referrals and accompanies newly arriving refugees to government agencies to apply for social security and welfare. She also translates for other staff members who work with Russian-speaking refugees. In addition, she acts as Refugee Medical Case Worker, making doctor, hospital, and immunization appointments for all refugee medical needs and accompanying refugees to many of these appointments.
Alla still takes care of some elderly Russian-speaking refugees who need help with translation services, applications, housing needs, and social or medical issues. She spends one afternoon a week at Forward-Shady Housing, translating at administrative appointments or recreational activities for the Russian-speaking residents. She also spends one morning a week at Community Life, a daycare program for the elderly, where she performs the same services, as well as advising the social work staff on activities and socializing for the Russian clients.
Prior to emigrating, Alla was a professor at the Minsk Pedagogical Institute, teaching Russian Language and Literature and Russian as a Second Language to students from the Georgian and Turkmenistan republics.
Alexis Szymanski
Refugee Case Manager
Alexis Szymanski works as a refugee case manager, coordinating the arrival of new refugees and their subsequent integration into the community. She collaborates with vocational and medical case management within JF&CS and with myriad outside services to help clients obtain essential resources and develop stability and self-sufficiency. Alexis also will be providing acculturation training and assuming various other tasks within the refugee services department, as needed.
Alexis had completed an internship with the JF&CS refugee services department from October 2007 to August 2008. During that time, she conducted bus trainings, managed clients' participation in the WIC program and their medical appointments, assisted in delivering acculturation and Healthy Family workshops and much more.
Before coming back to JF&CS as a permanent staffer, Alexis worked as a family-based senior clinician at Every Child, Inc., conducting family therapy to help parents provide the care necessary to meet their children's mental health needs. She has also worked in adoption and early childcare.
Alexis earned a bachelor's degree of science in Human Development and Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State University and a master's degree in social work from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Social Work.
Sancha Rai
Interpreter/Translator- Case Aide
As an interpreter/ translator and case aide, Sancha Rai assists JF&CS in providing critical services to newly arriving Bhutanese refugees resettled by the agency. Sancha interprets at meetings and workshops at JF&CS and at various sites all over the city where new arrivals need information and connection to a wide range of services. He is responsible for welcoming new arrivals at the Pittsburgh airport and introducing them to their new apartments. He helps JF&CS teach the refugees about life in America and he teaches us about his culture and way of life.
Sancha was born in Bhutan, but due to political persecution of Nepali ethnic minorities in Bhutan, he and his family were forced to flee to a refugee camp in Nepal where he spent the following 18 years. He arrived in the U.S. in 2009. Prior to coming to the U.S., he was an English and social studies teacher and a school assistant administrator. He served as general secretary of the All Bhutan Artists Association (ABAA) and central executive member of the Refugee Rights Co-ordination Council of Bhutan (RRCC-Bhutan). Sancha is a founding member and regional representative of www.bhutaneseliterature.com, a website that represents Bhutanese writers scattered all over the globe as a result of refugee resettlement.
In Nepal, he was fortunate to secure a graduate-level education. Sancha holds a bachelor's degree in geography and English literature; and a master's degree in sociology from Tribhuwan University, Nepal.
Dawn Zuckerman, MSW
Refugee Employment Specialist and Program Coordinator
Dawn Zuckerman works as refugee employment specialist and program coordinator. She works closely with the refugee case managers to provide job leads to refugees from Burma, Bhutan, Iraq and other countries. She also is the program coordinator for the Refugee Healthy Families program. This program provides educational workshops on communication and financial planning skills to refugee populations in Allegheny County.
Dawn worked for Northwestern Human Services, facilitating groups in an alternative high school in McKeesport. She also was a Peace Corps volunteer, serving in the Eastern Caribbean island of Antigua.
She did her undergraduate work in history education with courses in peace and conflict studies at the University of Pittsburgh and was a volunteer for the International Arms and Disarmament Conference. She received her master's in social work from the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work.
