Team
Founders
Darnell Leatherwood is currently Visiting Faculty at Saint Louis University and a National Science Foundation Fellow in Advance Quantitative Research Methods at the University of Chicago and Michigan State University. He is also Faculty Affiliate at the University of Michigan School of Social Work’s Center for Equitable Family and Community Well-Being.
Additionally, he is a Young Scholar on The Journal of Negro Education Editorial/Advisory Board out of Howard University in Washington DC, is a Board Member (publicly elected office) on the Matteson School District 162 Board of Education, and is the founder of the Black Male Educators Alliance of Illinois (BMEAIllinois). Darnell is also a former Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences Fellow, Illinois Board of Higher Education Fellow, Expert Mentor for the IVenture Accelerator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and was a founding member of Thrive Chicago and President Barack Obama's My Brother's Keeper (MBKChicago) Action Team. He was awarded the 2020 Allison Davis Research Award and was named to the Chicago Scholars' 35 under 35 list in 2020. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Social Welfare from the University of Chicago, Certificate in Education Sciences from the University of Chicago, M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, and B.S. in Management (concentration: Entrepreneurship) and Business Process Management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. |
Chad Lyles is currently pursuing advanced certifications in the field of information technology. As an operative in one of his fields of interest, he is a technology analyst lead at School Sisters Notre Dame and information technology technician at the Saint Louis Zoo. He also works as a staffed mathematics tutor at Harris Stowe State University. He holds the ambition to gain public office, ideally in an educational capacity.
Chad is motivated by his passion to establish STEAM hubs and likewise professional opportunities in underserved communities . His interests include developing comprehensive STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) matriculation education and job-readiness programs for underserved youth and cross-training adults by way of making available sustainable knowledge/training hubs in various community hot-spots – high volume areas. Such programs provide opportunities to become industrially knowledgeable in various foundations of programming languages for various age scopes and to become professionally certified in various information technology practices through facilitation and workshops. A final note, in 2016, Chad co-founded Leatherwood & Lyles, L.L.C., a social entrepreneurial business dedicated to developing underserved communities through home-ownership and gainful employment. He completed a B.A. in Applied Mathematics and a B.A. in African-American Studies while also minoring in Theology.at Saint Louis University. |