Mentors & Staff
Each year, we invite a collective of academic teachers, active practitioners and community leaders to serve as mentors for our fellowship program. Some join us for a few hours, while others are a part of the whole week. Read about our core mentors below, or click here to read about mentors from past programs.
Elizabeth Walsh
Mentor
Gabriel Grant
Michaela Cisney
Program Director
Fellows
Emerging leaders from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, making a difference around the world.
Fellowship Alumni
Years of Byron Fellowship
Academic Fields Represented
Interested in Joining Our Community?
Find out more about becoming a Byron Fellow.
Meet Our Fellows
2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2023 | 2024
Maya Bullock
Maya is committed to making housing more affordable, and is passionate about ensuring that community voices are heard.
Jasmin Barco
Jasmin is committed to creating environments where individuals can embody their highest selves and co-create their ideal world.
John Kern
John is a co-founder of SOS Fund, which disrupts and dismantles predatory housing systems in Baltimore.
Andrea Martinie-Eiler
Andrea finds joy in sharing life with others and creating vibrant, intentional communities.
Benjamin Ray
Benjamin believes in the transformative power of music to create meaningful community and facilitate personal and communal healing.
Lové Lemon
Lové is deeply committed to bridging social justice and healing by ensuring that every person has access to community healing centers.
Braxton Allen
Braxton is an Operations Manager for CompostNow, where he draws from a diverse background in community outreach, urban farming, and AmeriCorps to drive the company’s mission of recycling food waste nutrients back into the soil.
Kai Cash
Kai envisions a world where human collaboration mirrors the symbiotic relationships in a rainforest, fostering support and growth across diverse communities.
Genesis Granados
Genesis fosters partnerships and guides advocacy efforts to address the public health impacts of air pollution and climate change.
Alejandro Baquero-Sierra
Aspiring to create more equitable and inclusive classrooms, Alejandro hopes to collaborate with educators and institutions to combat racism in schools and promote compassion and collaboration.
Yom Fox
Yom seeks to transform independent schools into environments where students can thrive and actively contribute to society.
Arpitha Peteru
Arpitha is committed to leveraging collaborative policy and governance to address complex challenges, especially at the intersection of emerging technologies, security, and harm mitigation.
Patrick Buggy
Patrick is a purpose-driven business leader focused on helping create a more flourishing world.
Eli Hernández
Eli is committed to creating communities where Black and Brown communities thrive together.
Eleanor Harry
Eleanor is committed to combatting child labour by harnessing the power of AI.
Kristine Lorenzo
Kristine finds joy in helping people expand their awareness of the natural world and ecological processes in everyday life.
Manuela McDonough
Manuela is committed to creating a world where mental health is not stigmatized.
Peter Kobak
Peter is a human rights advocate, community organizer, and local gov nerd.
Abigail Steinberg
Abigail is the executive director of the Eyeglasses Initiative of the Livelihood Impact Fund focused on providing reading glasses to 800 million people who need them.
Aonghus Kelly
Aonghus Kelly is a lawyer who focuses on the rule of law, international criminal law, human rights and the intersection of those areas with climate justice.
Isioma Nwayor
Isioma is a researcher, a teacher, a student representative, and a fitness content creator.
Laura Lasuertmer
Laura is a writer, a mother, a co-founder of Common Home Farm (an interfaith Catholic Worker farm) and assistant creative director for Women Writing for (a) Change in Bloomington, Indiana.
Noah Marsh
Noah is the vice president of operations at CompostNow, making it easy for households to turn waste into nutrient rich soil in Raleigh, Durham, Atlanta, Asheville, and Cincinnati.
Meaghan McSorley
Meaghan is committed to contributing to a future where everyone can thrive.
Bree Jones
Bree is the founder and CEO of Parity Homes, an equitable development company proudly headquartered in West Baltimore that acquires and rehabilitates abandoned properties by the block to create affordable home ownership opportunities.
Heera Sharma
Heera is the founder and CEO of Go Laadli and believes deeply in the vitality and dynamic potential of young women.
Mahima Rai
As a scholar-activist in the field of Sociology of Religion, Mahima is committed to being curious about things she does not agree with.
Jeff Stoike
Jeff is the co-founder of Blue Action Lab, a network developing solutions for coastal communities and marine ecosystems to thrive in the face of climate change.
Cristian Vargas-Ordóñez
Cristian is committed to cultivating an engineering ethos rooted in compassion and shaking the prevailing profit-centric paradigm. .
Kyla Sokoll-Ward
Kyla is committed to creating inclusive and connective spaces of belonging for adults to explore their inner landscape through ritual, introspection, and spirituality.
Gunil Chung
Gunil builds various executive communities of purpose where leaders are brought together to collectively tackle complex challenges.
Paris Price
Paris recently started the Harriet Tubman Liberation Foundation to empower youth and young adults to take part in community building and responsibility.
Kelley Van Dilla
Kelley is a commitment to vulnerability and inner peace, and through this commitment is creating a world where making films is a healing, care-centered, accessible, and community building art-form.
Rebecca Burton
Becky is committed to creating a global economy that relies more on experience, learning, and being than consuming.
Vanessa Chisakula
A poet and facilitator based in Lusaka, Zambia, Vanessa is the Co-founder and National Coordinator of Word Smash Poetry.
Mariana Vélez
Catalyst for positive change: through dialogue facilitation, powerful storytelling and integral coaching Mariana seeks to bridge divides across inner and outer landscapes. Currently working as Maya Forest Program Specialist in The Nature Conservancy.
Traer Price
Traer is a designer committed to celebrating the power of visual expression to connect us with ourselves and each other.
Lauren Owen
I work to bring the vastness of nature into the vastness of each person.
Grace Amponsah
I envision a world where all girls have adequate resources to unleash their full potential.
Ndéye Marie Aida Ndieguene
An optimistic engineer and writer!
Emil Goldsmith Olesen
Emil is a Software Engineer and facilitator currently exploring how these ways of being could possibly meet in order to create a world with more connection and belonging in it.
Dana Menlove
Dana is committed to unveiling the moment-to-moment joy of aliveness and understanding that we are not separate from nature.
Brittany Bennett
Brittany Bennett is a data analyst, nonprofit fundraiser, and social entrepreneur dedicated to securing a safe climate.
Micah Kessel
As an empathic design strategist with a desire to inspire deeply human connections, Micah works to create experiences that connect immersion and science to enhance empathic communities.
Jillian Richardson
Jillian is on a mission to make the world less lonely, starting with her book Unlonely Planet and her newsletter, The Joy List.
Calvin Eaton
Calvin is a socially-conscious entrepreneur and founder, committed to teaching, service-learning, and education through community-engaged volunteer work.
Michael Lebwohl
food & farm lover
Vicky Abad
Vicky is committed to creating growing environments for children to learn, play, and explore while immersed in music.
Kori Crockett
Kori is committed to building community among first generation and low-income college students.
Rafael Pérez Yan
Helping others: advocating for those in need, building bridges in our society, and creating equal rights for all. Being the hands and feet of Jesus.