cohort
246

Spring Cohort 2017

Amanda Rosenblum
Young Women’s Leadership Network
Amanda Rosenblum
Young Women’s Leadership Network

Amanda Brooke Rosenblum graduated from Dartmouth College in 2007 with a B.A. in English Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies. She has completed coursework towards a Masters in Liberal Arts, Urban Education, at the CUNY Graduate Center. Amanda is a native New Yorker who has worked in the education field for over a decade. She currently serves as the Girls’ Education Associate Director, Programs and Partnerships at Young Women’s Leadership Network, a network of all-girls 6th-12th grade district public schools. She founded the non-profit Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, Inc. and serves as Vice President of its Board of Directors. She is a co-chair of the Education from the Inside Out Coalition, a national group working to remove barriers to higher education for people in prison and with criminal justice involvement, and volunteers as an Emergency Department Advocate for the Mount Sinai SAVI program for survivors of IPV and sexual assault. Amanda is a life coach for the Ali Forney Center, a program for homeless LGBTQA young people and serves on advisory boards of The Other Side Intercultural Theatre and the Riley Sandler Memorial Foundation, which promotes kindness and empathy. She is a Board of Director of DGALA, the Dartmouth Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Alumni/ae Association, and serves on the Women of Dartmouth national committee for Community Development. She is constantly reading for her two books clubs, traveling, seeing plays, laughing, and walking around Central Park.

Anca Dragomirescu
BronxWorks
Anca Dragomirescu
BronxWorks

Anca Dragomirescu is the head of Human Resources and Employee Relations for BronxWorks, a non-profit human service organization that helps individuals and families in the Bronx improve their economic and social well-being. Anca is a seasoned human resources professional with over 15 years of progressive experience across industries from startups to large matrix organizations. She began her career in Los Angeles, CA where she graduated from California State University Long Beach with a degree in Criminal Justice. Eventually she started working in nonprofit for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, where she managed their Global Human Resources operations. She moved to New York in 2010 and worked for LVMH and Al Jazeera America before joining BronxWorks in June 2016. Passionate about social justice and equality, Anca volunteers her time to various causes.

Aryo Wicaksono
Chamber Music America
Aryo Wicaksono
Chamber Music America

Hailed by the SF Examiner after his San Francisco recital debut as a “virtuoso talent, offering an excellent combination of solid technique and sensitive expressiveness,” pianist Aryo Wicaksono has performed as a featured soloist and chamber musician in venues and festivals throughout the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe – and was the first Western classical music artist to hold a visiting artist-in-residence position at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. He was recently invited on a panel at the World Bank (Washington DC) to speak to emerging leaders, thinkers, and diplomats about the role and relevance of arts-education in the sustainable 21st century society. As an educator, his former students have been accepted with full scholarships into prestigious institutions such as the Curtis Institute of Music, New England Conservatory, Peabody Conservatory – Johns Hopkins University, and University of British Columbia Vancouver. He is currently the Membership Manager for Chamber Music America, a national service organization serving ensemble music professionals

Aundaray Guess
GRIOT Circle
Aundaray Guess
GRIOT Circle

Aundaray Guess is currently the Director of Programs for GRIOT Circle and the Site Manager for the partnership GRIOT Circle currently have with SAGE USA. As a director, he develops wellness programs designed for the aging community to promote the betterment of their lives as they age. In addition, a large component of his work involves implementing communication strategies to funding officials and the health community at large. He recently collaborated with BRIC TV, based in Brooklyn to produce a promotional video to help increase awareness of the agency mission.

Aundaray has used his experience in public relations and communications to develop communication strategies for non-profits such as GMAD and Pride for Youth both based in New York. As the Communication Director of GMAD, he helped institute social media communication strategies which resulted in increase awareness within the non-profit industry. He is responsible for creating the agency’s HIV stigma poster marketing campaigns which are recognized locally and nationally. As a Marketing Coordinator for Pride for Youth, he helped designed marketing public service announcement and provided content for media spots which included televised commercials and radio announcements. He was also the manager for media relations and providing talking points for Pride for Youth’s management team.

Aundaray has a Bachelor of Science degree from New York University in Media Studies and a Master’s of Science in Public Relations and Corporate Communications from NYU. In addition to completing his studies, Aundaray is a contributing writer for the Huffington Post and a regular featured writer for Poz Magazine. He recently submitted an article for publication in the professional peer review journal, Generations, a magazine designed for professionals working in the aging community.

Aundaray has sat on the grant review committee for Philantro Fund and has served five terms on the board for HCCI, A Haitian HIV-focused agency located in Brooklyn, where he headed the communication committee.

Bailey Griswold
Row New York
Bailey Griswold
Row New York

Bailey Griswold is the Director of Academics and College Readiness at Row New York. Bailey began her career as an educator for the Department of Education, teaching earth science to Brooklyn’s high schoolers. After having volunteered for several years at Row New York, first working with the adaptive teams and later as a committee chair on their Young Executive’s Board, Bailey started full time to oversee the academic programming in the fall of 2016. Bailey graduated with a Bachelor’s of Arts from Barnard College, where she studied Environmental Biology and rowed for Columbia University. Bailey earned a MS in Teaching from Pace University in 2014, and is working on a second master’s degree in Urban Informatics at NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress. Bailey is originally from Baltimore, Maryland, and now lives in Brooklyn.

Brooke Berescik-Johns
Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York
Brooke Berescik-Johns
Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York

Brooke Berescik-Johns is the Manager of Individual Giving and Special Events at the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York), the leading service and advocacy organization, which supports the city’s nonprofit theatre companies focus on their art by providing subsidized rehearsal, office and performance space, funding through loans and grants, and education and training. Brooke received a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Drew University and has worked in New York City theatre for over ten years, during which time she has also been involved with multiple nonprofit organizations, including serving on the junior board for Education Through Music, coordinating events for Ethel Walker School alumnae, and volunteering with The Friends Shelter.

Caroline Young
New York Hall of Science
Caroline Young
New York Hall of Science

Caroline Young is a Portfolio Manager for the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI). She is responsible for facilitating partnerships that support NYSCI’s goal to improve STEM education through a set of methodologies called Design-Make-Play which promote deep engagement with content and offer many points of intersection between building, tinkering, community outreach, innovation, and STEM learning. In her role she executes an institutional giving program and gifts strategy; manages a portfolio of donors and prospects; and works collaboratively to help shape programs. She is especially interested in early childhood education and STEM for girls.

Previously, Caroline served as the Program Associate for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology program at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Public Understanding program reaches a broad lay audience through support of books, television, theater, radio, and film. Prior to the Foundation, Caroline worked at the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consulting firm, where she benefited from a dynamic working experience founded in the TBG core values: Impact, Respect, Candor, Collaboration, and Passion. As a NYC Teaching Fellow at Truman High School in the Bronx she wrote and instituted a school-wide sophomore English curriculum.

Caroline has a BA in American Literature from UCLA, a Master’s of Science in Teaching from Fordham University, and a certificate in Philanthropy and Grantmaking from NYU’s School of Professional Studies.

Christina Samuels
The New York Immigration Coalition
Christina Samuels
The New York Immigration Coalition

Christina Samuels is the New York Immigration Coalition’s Development Manager. She oversees the organization’s fundraising strategies and leads the Development team in advancing the organization’s mission and goals. Previously, Christina was a Development Associate at Facing History and Ourselves and has held positions in the corporate sector and with government contractors. Christina holds an MA in Anthropology/International Development from The George Washington University and graduated summa cum laude from the Robert E. Cook Honors College at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Anthropology.

Delsenia Glover
New York State Tenants & Neighbors Information Service, Inc.
Delsenia Glover
New York State Tenants & Neighbors Information Service, Inc.

Delsenia Glover is currently Director of Education and Organizing at Tenants & Neighbors, and Campaign Manager for the Alliance for Tenant Power, a broad coalition of housing, community, legal service, and research organizations for their ongoing NYC campaign to strengthen the New York State rent laws and tenant protections. She has been Tenants & Neighbors’ lead organizer for rent regulated tenants, and has organized tenant associations across the city, supports tenants with apartment and leasing issues, and provides information to regulated tenants about their rights, including SCRIE and DRIE support. Delsenia developed and leads Tenants & Neighbors’ Tenant Leadership Institute and Tenant Association Leadership Programs: The Tenant Leadership Institute, a 4-month program for T&N member leaders, to develop their leadership and community organizing skills, building capacity within communities where we serve, and the Tenant Association Leadership Program, a 3-session program designed to strengthen active tenant association leaders’ skills to efficiently organize and maintain their tenant associations, as well as increase their skills as building leaders and organizers.

A fearless supporter of tenants’ rights, in 2007, Delsenia formed a group called “Harlem Gang of Six” (G6), a coalition of tenant leaders from three of the largest rent stabilized apartment complexes in Harlem — Lenox Terrace, Riverton Houses and Savoy Park. As president of G6 she was instrumental in the 2011 campaign to renew and strengthen the rent laws, and had a significant impact in the process leading to the DHCR’s creation of the Tenant Protection Unit which has to date returned 50,000 apartments to rent regulation.

She has a long background in public relations and education, and is a Founder of the Bronx Career & College Preparatory High School in the Bronx, New York. Delsenia has a B.A. from Fordham University, New York.