Britta Ellwanger

Britta Ellwanger

Ukraine Relief Project Director

Until February 24, 2022, Britta was a graduate student at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy in their flagship Anticorruption Studies program. Originally planning to do her research in the use of environmental, social, and governance services (ESGs) as a mechanism of oligarchic legitimization. She has switched to full time humanitarian aid until the war is over. She has been living, working, and investing in Ukraine for ten years. She has a B.A. from Stanford University in Political Science.

Dear followers and supporters of forPEACE's work in supplying urgently needed supplies in Ukriane. A CRITICAL URGENT PLEA.

— Britta Ellwanger🇺🇦 (@diddabee) April 12, 2022

Dr. Aragon Ellwanger

Dr. Aragon Ellwanger

Frontline Lead Surgeon & Medical Director

In August 2022, Major Dr. Aragon Ellwanger separated from the US Air Force after 13 years of service as an oral maxillofacial surgeon (OMFS). With more than a decade of surgical trauma experience including wartime injuries at a Level One trauma center in San Antonio, TX he has performed more than 13,000 procedures, many of them high-risk surgeries, and treated more than 2,000 patients. While being stationed in South Korea, he established an oral maxillofacial surgery clinic, earning a Commendation Medal from the Air Force. During his tour of duty in Japan, he performed the region’s first allogenic nerve transplant surgery.

Since 2021 Dr. Ellwanger has been stationed in Biloxi, MS where in addition to continued surgical practice he teaches oral and maxillofacial surgery to residents with a faculty appointment from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. He has published in academic journals and is an accomplished lecturer in a broad variety of topics including anesthesia, life support, surgical airway management, ballistic injuries, and infections.

In addition to his professional expertise and contributions, Dr. Ellwanger has extensive experience over the past decade with medical and dental missions to The Philippines and Cambodia.

Dr. Ellwanger graduated magna cum laude from Brigham Young University with a B.S. in biochemistry and a minor in psychology and from the University of California San Francisco School of Dentistry, earning his doctor of dental surgery. Upon joining the US Air Force, he completed advanced education in general dentistry (AEGD) at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, DC and was accepted into the highly competitive four year oral and maxillofacial residency program at San Antonio’s Lackland Air Force Base.

This week in Ukraine, I evaluated a young man who’s partial jaw was blown off from artillery fire. He will wake up to a reality where he may never eat solid foods again because hospitals in Ukraine simply do not have the basic equipment needed to reconstruct it.

— Aragon Ellwanger (@AragonEllwanger) November 5, 2022

John Vsetecka

John Vsetecka

Academic Advisor

John Vsetecka is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at Michigan State University where he is finishing a dissertation on the effects of famine in Soviet Ukraine. Until February 24th, 2022, John was conducting research in Kyiv, Ukraine on a Fulbright fellowship. After being evacuated out of the country, John moved to Warsaw, Poland where he began working with refugees who fled Ukraine due to the war. Additionally, John is the founder and editor of H-Ukraine, part of the larger H-Net platform, which promotes scholarly and intellectual content related to the study of Ukraine.

Erin Dial

Erin Dial

Community Organizer

Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Erin studied in Virginia where she graduated from the University of Richmond with a B.S. in Psychology, a Concentration in Neuroscience and Minor in Chemistry. Upon graduation, she moved to Eastern Europe where she learned Russian and lived amongst its people for a year and a half. When she returned to the States she worked intimately with adults suffering from eating disorders as a Milieu Coordinator at the Eating Recovery Center in Denver, Colorado. Erin currently resides in Utah with her husband and three children. Her strengths lie in communication, public relations, and networking.