Staff

Donna Walker James Executive Director

Donna brings over 30 years experience in nonprofits and management to the Executive Director position. She has deep Alexandria and Arlington roots and long-standing Fairfax County residency, coupled with a love of building connections and networking with volunteers, staff, board members, students, alumni, sponsors and donors. She provides leadership to the organization and will strategically position CORE for future growth, while ensuring that CORE clients receive the highest quality of services through effective and efficient program management. She is eager to increase enrollment, honor and increase volunteer participation, and expand business partnerships. Most recently she served concurrent roles as Programs Coordinator with the Goodwin House Foundation, Executive Director, Agenda:Alexandria, and Program Manager, First Night Alexandria. Previously, Donna was Deputy Director of Senior Services of Alexandria and Acting Executive Director of Volunteer Alexandria. Earlier in her career, Donna ran an after-school work experience and community service program in West Philadelphia, worked on School-to-Work at the U.S. Department of Labor, and wrote about effective workforce program evaluations at the American Youth Policy Forum. Donna is a graduate of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA, and earned both her BA in Urban Studies and Masters in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Donna follows Computer CORE founder Deb Roepke and Lynn O’Connell who each served as Executive Director for ten years.

Eunah worked at a martial studio in VA as an Office Manager and Instructor for five years where she performed administrative work and taught courses. Eunah continued her administrative work and service journey at Great American Restaurants as a Lead Host for three years. Her passion for working hard, taking initiative, learning new administrative skills and helping people to achieve their goal led her to join the Computer CORE as an Operations Manager.

Nagia Kurabi Student Recruitment & Classroom Operations Manager

Nagia is a recent graduate of Computer CORE’s Flagship program. She previously worked at BB&T Bank as an Assistant of Business Banker. She also assisted the City Executive in Springfield. Nagia holds an associate’s degree in General Studies from the Northern Virginia Community College, a degree in Physical Therapy from the college in Syria. She joined Computer CORE as the Student Recruiter and Classroom Manager. Nagia has a long term commitment to helping others by working with volunteers to help new immigrants & refugees settle in the United States and improve their lives.

Adeel Awan is another student from Thomas A. Edison High School, who has been with Computer CORE since his freshman year. He also has taken a number of courses in computer science and appreciates the opportunity at Computer CORE to work with a lot of hardware. In addition, Adeel has been asked to stretch himself by working with the staff and many students, alumni and volunteers of the organization. It is a powerful learning and workforce community, that is rich to experience in a lot of different ways and at a lot of different levels.

Waleed Ahmad is a student from Thomas A. Edison High School as well as the Edison Academy. Waleed has been with Computer Core since the start of his senior year in high school. He has undertaken many Cyber related courses at his school, of which include Cyber: A+, Cyber: Net Admin, Oracle I, and Oracle II. These various courses have developed his understanding of both the infrastructure and data concepts of Information Technology. Once Waleed graduates from high school, he will embark on advancing himself academically by attending George Mason University and laying a focus on Computer Science. By joining Computer Core, Waleed made the decision to expand his skill set by collaborating with fellow staff as well as a wide range of volunteers and students, and he hopes to make many memories along the way.