Staff
Leadership
Margery Rossi
Minister
A warm welcome to our new pastor, Margery Rossi! She joined us on May 1, 2022.
Rossi’s career has spanned roles including pastor, youth minister, chaplain, program director and retreat leader. Throughout, her driving principle has remained the same: to spark meaningful, faithful engagement, and change for the common good. Most recently, she served as pastor to the First Presbyterian Church of Wappingers Falls, NY. Previously, Margery was the pastor at the Stony Point Presbyterian Church.
In addition to moderating the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Gun Violence Prevention Working Group for six years and serving on its executive committee, Rossi has written and led vigils for victims of gun violence, facilitated workshops on the issue for congregations, and spent a decade helping to create the Presbyterian Church’s policy on gun violence prevention and intervention. She is also involved in the Presbyterian Church’s regional, national and international mission and partnership efforts in peacemaking and church change.
Rossi was ordained as an Interfaith Minister in 1996 at The New Seminary in New York City. She holds a Master’s in Religion and Religious Education from Fordham University and a B.A. from Northeastern University.
Linda Jo Platt
Director: Community Nursery School
Linda Jo Platt became the director of Community Nursery School in January 1981 after joining the staff in 1979. She graduated from Eckerd College (formerly Florida Presbyterian College) and received her MEd from University of Virginia where she met her husband Bruce.
After a stint as a social worker she taught public school in a variety of positions throughout the South. Bruce and Linda Jo moved to Dobbs Ferry in 1973 and joined South Church in 1974 when their children, Jennifer and Jonathan, were baptized here. Linda Jo is on the South Church Session, president of the Westchester Association for the Education of Young Children, and member of Springhurst Compact Committee, DF Schools District Finance Committee, and the Dobbs Ferry Schools Foundation.
Dr. Amir Khosrowpour
Director of Music
Praised by The Los Angeles Times as having “irresistible verve, unpretentious directness, and fingers of steel,” pianist and composer Amir Khosrowpour “seeks out what is new and vital and delivers it with passion, considerable drama, and poetry” (NY Concert Review). His focus is new music as well as improvisation, and he incorporates both in his concert programming. The son of Iranian immigrants, Khosrowpour studied piano in his early years in Southern California under the mentorship of Scott McBride Smith. He continued at University of Kansas, graduating with Distinction with a B.M. in Piano and Composition under the invaluable tutelage of Jack Winerock and James Barnes. Khosrowpour then traveled to New York in 2004 to earn a Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts degrees in piano at Manhattan School of Music with Phillip Kawin as his piano guru. Khosrowpour has served on faculty at Hunter College, Manhattan School of Music, The Cortona Sessions for New Music in Italy, and the Horace Mann School. He lives in Manhattan with his lovely family and fine-tuned Steinway.
Marie-Louise Miller
Director: Faith & Justice Learning Lab
Marie-Louise is a theater director, dramaturge, teaching artist, arts events producer, grant writer and multicultural book fair producer. She loves reading historical fiction, philosophy and poetry, hiking and walking the family dog, Xena.
Her work includes serving on the Steering Committee of RiverArts, chairing the Inclusion Working Group (IWG), a Hastings-on-Hudson PTSA sub-group with operating budget, and co-chairing the Multicultural Book Fair and Festival for the Hastings-on Hudson School District. She is the originator and lead teacher for StoryCamp, an intensive week-long camp for children that explores narrative of self through story writing and story-telling, and she directed “The Vagina Monologues” 2015- 2017 at South Church. Marie-Louise earned her BA from Oberlin College and her MFA from Northwestern University.
Marie-Louise is a member of South Church and lives with her husband Alex Navarrete and two sons Zachary and Tobias in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.
Robin Larkins
Church Administrator
Bio to come … she’s amazing!
Dorothy Muller
Parish Associate
Dorothy has been a part of South Church since the 1990’s. As a member, and then an elder, she raised her children, Chris and Kate O’Donnell with us. Her husband, Jeff O’Donnell, has been and remains a friend of the church.
Most recently, Dorothy spent ten years as a half-time, volunteer chaplain at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a women’s maximum security prison. She also founded and continues to lead Woman 2 Woman, a visiting program for the prison. While working at the prison, Dorothy earned a M.Div. Degree from Union Theological Seminary. She was ordained at South Church in January, 2015.
Dorothy’s role as Parish Associate is unpaid and up for renewal on an annual basis.
Session
Cirstin Conneely (Worship) 646-504-8124
John Gunther-Mohr (Clerk of Session) 914-357-6193
Kris Kliemann (Stewardship) 914-907-6965
Alex Navarrete (Finance)
Lenore Lelah Person (Communications) 914-420-6864
Linda Jo Platt (Building & Grounds) 914-564-9359
Deacons
Peter Brenner 914-693-2441
Anne Day 914-499-7482
Eric Greenberg 914-648-0674
Molly Rodriguez 914-522-1154
Andrew Smith 646-379-3438
Nathalis Wamba 914-500-3360
COMMITTEES
ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE: responsible for planning and personnel matters.
Patricia Fischer Donohue
GENEROSITY & FINANCE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE: oversees church finances, manages endowment and encourages generous giving.
Alex Navarrete (president, session), Patricia Fischer Donohue (treasurer). John Gunther Mohr (session), Kris Kliemann (session)
FACILITY MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE: oversees care of the South’s buildings and grounds
Henry Marroquin (sexton – liaison) / Robin Larkins (church administrator – liaison)
Linda Jo Platt, Stanley Fox, Duke Coffey. Looking for a person with earth-care knowledge.
WORSHIP PLANNING COMMITTEE: helps plan Sunday worship services and special services
Amir Khosrowpour (Director of Music – liaison)
Cirstin Conneely, Dorothy Muller, Anne Day, Kris Kliemann, Robin Larkins
COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE: shares South news to members, friends and the general community.
Lenore Person, Tanya Hunt
CHURCH SCHOOL COMMITTEE: organizes teachers and materials for preK – grade 5 Sunday morning classes
Marie Louise Miller, Linda Jo Platt (preK – liaison)
MIDDLE SCHOOL AND YOUTH GROUP COMMITTEE:
Looking for middle school group leader and teen group leader
SOCIAL JUSTICE COMMITTEE: a liaison between the various initiatives that exist (Roots & Wings, Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry and the Lab) and Session as well as looks for broader opportunities to servexx
