Where Are They Now?
Meet Our Charter Public School Alumni

Aja has always been very clear about her goal to enter the medical field. However, early in her high school career, after repeated struggles in school, Aja dropped out. At 18, she chose to enroll in an alternative charter public high school so that she could earn her diploma, go on to college, and realize her dream of helping others through a career in the medical field. Aja achieved at high levels at Map Academy, and today, she is not only pursuing her degree at Quincy College, but is already working to help others as a certified advocate for victims of violence and abuse. Once she earns her degree, Aja looks forward to deepening the ways in which she supports healing and wellbeing within the community.

When faced with a significant lack of support and resources for women of color who are survivors of abuse, sisters Giselle and Kat discovered firsthand the healing power of community. Inspired to help others who have experienced trauma, Giselle and Kat launched two organizations to support the healing of women in communities that were close to their hearts - Time of Butterflies in Boston and, most recently, Centro Bonilla in the Dominican Republic. Both organizations are rooted in the power of storytelling and community, offering trauma-informed workshops and direct therapeutic services that support the development of community and holistic well-being, with a focus on healing both the mind and the body.

Rob believes firmly that his upper school math and computer science teacher at Rising Tide changed his life, leading him to where he is today. In her class, Rob fell in love with the way in which computer programming empowered him to find creative, efficient solutions to complex, open-ended problems. Rob is now a junior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he is pursuing a degree in computer science. Post-graduation, Rob looks forward to building a career in computer science that allows him to tackle meaningful problems in a way that helps people and contributes to the community.

Following his lifelong passion for racial justice, Kirby chose to pursue a career in the field of public health, with hopes of addressing systemic and institutional disparities impacting the Black and brown communities. In his role as Grants and Contracts Manager at the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, Kirby is able to make a meaningful impact by allocating funds to programs that increase equitable access to high-quality healthcare. Throughout the pandemic, Kirby has led the distribution of millions of dollars in funding to community health centers around the state to help fund vaccinations, potentially saving the lives of many and helping change the course of the pandemic.

As a junior at Harvard University, Mikaela seeks to cultivate a community rooted in an appreciation for diversity - something she came to value during her time as a student at Boston Renaissance. Mikaela mentors young Black women at Harvard and throughout the Boston area, in addition to serving on the Board of the Generational African American Students Association (GAASA), through which she educates her peers about African American history and culture. Mikaela is pursuing a degree in Linguistics with a minor in Psychology and hopes to one day earn her doctorate in Psycholinguistics. This summer, Mikaela will begin her thesis research, focused on tense, syntax, and semantics of African American English - one step toward her goal of contributing to a society that not only recognizes but celebrates linguistic diversity.

Driven by her faith, culture, and desire to make her Nigerian family proud, Isi has always strived to become her best self and to inspire others to do the same. An active student leader at Academy of the Pacific Rim, Isi went on to be an engaged leader throughout her undergraduate career at College of the Holy Cross and during her time at Suffolk University Law School. After earning her law degree, Isi served as an associate at a prominent Boston law firm before she decided to found her business, Reclaim Dignity. Through Reclaim Dignity's empowering apparel and speaking engagements, Isi seeks to continue inspiring those who feel underrepresented (based on race, nationality, gender, sex, etc.) to be confident in everything that they do, especially believing in themselves and their full potential and standing up for themselves whenever somebody attempts to dim their light.

As an elementary and middle school student at KIPP Academy Lynn, Chidalu never imagined herself in the STEM field. However, all it took was one engineering class to spark a passion for engineering - a passion that Chidalu knew she wanted to share with other young girls like herself. As a high school student, Chidalu launched a project-based engineering club for 5th grade girls, a vibrant club she now leads at her former middle school. While Chidalu is passionate about introducing girls from low-income communities to different types of engineering, she also aims to build confidence and skills that will empower girls to reach their goals, whatever those goals may be.

What Ella loves most about her work is that day in and day out, she gets to make musical dreams a reality. As a student at Innovation Academy, Ella was immersed in interdisciplinary learning, allowing her to see that connections across subject areas lead to deeper learning and the potential for greater impact. Today, in her work as a voice scientist, Ella channels the power of interdisciplinary learning through the marriage of vocal artistry, vocal pedagogy, and voice science. Through the studio she co-founded, Interlude Music, Ella brings her expertise in these diverse areas together to offer a unique approach to singing lessons and voice habilitation - one that empowers her clients to overcome medical, emotional, and developmental challenges to make their musical dreams come true. 

As an LA-based actor, writer, director, and producer, Dan brings stories to life that help people feel less alone and better able to face the messy reality of life. He seeks out projects that push his creative limits and allow him to tackle hard to answer questions. He and his writing partner, Lisha Brooks (also a 2009 graduate of PVPA) have written on both seasons of the Emmy-Award winning The Baby-sitter's Club for Netflix. As an actor, he's appeared on Search Party and Made for Love on HBO Max. He is the creator and director of a forthcoming scripted podcast with Broadway Video (SNL) for Audible.

It is Patrece’s passion for helping others, particularly those living in underserved communities such as her own, that led her to earn a doctorate in Child Study and Human Development from Tufts University. As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Patrece is conducting research to understand how teens from historically underserved communities learn about and make health-related decisions, as well as the role health plays in their personal identities. She aims to use her findings to develop culturally-relevant and developmentally-appropriate health programs that build on teens’ strengths, provide them with the resources they need to thrive, and empower them to create a more equitable society.

Sean has been living his dream career for the past seven years, chasing tornadoes and combining meteorology with social science to improve the ways in which we communicate the risk of severe weather. Always fascinated by the summer thunderstorms and winter blizzards we experience in New England, Sean dove deeply into his passion during his time at Parker, building tornado machines and learning how to interpret meteorological diagrams. After watching an EF5 tornado devastate Moore, Oklahoma on live television in 2013, Sean found the focus for his senior project - learning more about efforts to improve tornado warnings. Today, Sean is pursuing his doctorate in Meteorology, with a focus on improving the effectiveness of tornado and severe weather warnings to help protect a greater number of people

Sam-Keny loves asking questions; while questions sometimes lead him to answers, they often lead to even further questions and new opportunities for exploration and knowledge generation. Today, Sam-Keny is a student at Tufts University studying biochemistry and cognitive brain sciences, with hopes of one day becoming a neuroscience researcher. This summer, he will be conducting research at Harvard University, asking questions at the intersection of neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. While Sam-Keny acknowledges that the questions he will tackle in his professional research career are probably questions he’s even yet to imagine, he hopes that his research will enable him to help people - an even greater number of people than he will ever know or encounter in person.

After being encouraged to pursue her passion for math by her teachers at Sturgis, Jade found herself drawn to statistics and the ways in which math can be used to strengthen decision-making. Inspired to bring math together with her deep commitment to improving the lives of those around her, Jade earned a Master’s in Public Administration with a concentration in data science from Brown University. Today, Jade serves as Chief of Staff in the Rhode Island Department of Administration, where she is empowered to address challenges that matter most to her community, using her data-driven problem solving skills to help advance policies and programs that will allow her community to thrive.