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
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.
Aleister Avenmarch
Aleister is a queer advocate dedicated to trauma-informed social justice, with a focus on helping cultivate other people’s strengths in order to empower them to find their own call to action.
Tremayne Horne
Tremayne is committed to supporting the success of families.
Katie Trozzo
Katie is committed to exploring ways of being that bring us in closer relationship with nature in ourselves and all around us.
Charles Neidenbach
I seek to make value-adding contributions toward a flourishing and sustainable future through relational bridge building, innovative systems thinking and collaborative visioning.
Jessica Gilbert
As a scholar-activist, Jessica uses research to support food equity initiatives in Buffalo, NY, and their efforts to bring about social and ecological justice.
Parkhat Yussupjanov
Parkhat is an international public policy expert focused on development policy, committed to increasing support for people with disabilities (specifically those with visual impairment).
David Paull
I am compelled to create a better future for all through the soil and have been a co-founder of a social enterprise doing just that!
Chelsea Masler (previously Biegler)
Chelsea is committed to fostering a world where reproductive rights are fundamental human rights, and all people have access to excellent healthcare.
Linus Beer
Building Bridges between Politics, Business and Nonprofits for the Environment.
Flora To-Miles
Flora is committed to improving the health of others through occupational therapy, research, and community involvement.
Sofia Velez
Sofia is committed to supporting women of marginalized communities through developing collaborative social and environmental enterprises.
Katie Brimm
Just Food Advocate, Writer, Educator and Beginning Farmer
Eriqah Vincent
A proud native of Newark, NJ, Eriqah R. K. Vincent is the Just Energy Portfolio Manager for the Partnership for Southern Equity and is inspired by the love she has for for her family, seeing little black girls dream and dream HUGE, the Sun, and The Creating Force that runs through all of us.
Elizabeth Walsh
As an action researcher, regenerative designer, and professor of Community and Regional Planning, Elizabeth is committed to awakening love, leadership and wisdom to inspire collective action in service of a world where all beings may thrive.
Cody Harrison
To work toward the humane application of technology for the regeneration, and then preservation, of the natural environment and humankind
D.Richard Merritt
Richard Merritt is a campaign and issue organizing management specialist
Josephine Chu
Josephine Chu is the co-founder of Zenful Bites, a women of color- owned business that provides eco-catering services in the DC metro area.
J. Andrés Ballesteros
Andrés is a composer and teacher bringing together art and activism with an eye towards global thinking.