BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Kimberly Kelly, Chair
...formerly a resident of the Bronx for 32 years, is currently serving as a federal government attorney. Previous to her position with the federal government, Ms. Kelly was an Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the New York State Attorney General and an Assistant District Attorney for the Office of the Bronx County District Attorney. Ms. Kelly is admitted to practice law in New York State, all four United States District Courts situated in New York, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Ms. Kelly received her Juris Doctor degree from St. John's University School of Law in 1998, and she graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. John's University in 1995.
Marvin Waldman, Vice Chair
...(fundraising/Development, Policy/Governance and Strategic Planning Committees) has served in a variety of positions in the advertising industry, from Copywriter to Executive Vice President and Executive Creative Director, the latter of which was with Young & Rubicam Advertising of New York City. Furthermore, he created advertising and developed strategy for Senator Bill Bradley's presidential campaign and was a member of the Creative Review Board of the Advertising Council of New York. Currently Mr. Waldman is an adjunct professor at the Pratt Institute and is the President of the Shadow Group, which specializes in strategic and creative solutions, primarily for not-for-profit companies.
Ariel Dobkin, Secretary
...is an attorney at WilmerHale LLP. She is based in Washington, D.C., where she specializes in Strategic Response, Cybersecurity, and Privacy. Previously, she was a judicial law clerk in the Southern District of New York, a Postgraduate Fellow at MIT’s Internet Policy Research Initiative, a Director’s Financial Analyst at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and a teacher at Breakthrough Collaborative, among other things. Ms. Dobkin is admitted to practice law in New York and Washington, D.C. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School in 2017, and she graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 2012.
Marilyn Maye, Treasurer
...(Finance/Audit and Strategic Planning Committees) is a long-time resident of the community in the North Bronx in which the charter school is located. She is a member of the board of her church and a prominent leader in the neighborhood. She has an Ed.D.in mathematics education from Columbia University, an M.A.T. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and a B.A. from Swarthmore College, where she majored in mathematics and anthropology, with a concentration in black studies. Currently an Assistant Professor in New Jersey City University's Department of Educational Leadership, she has also served as an Assistant Superintendent of Schools, an Assistant Commissioner in New York City's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications and in the city's Computer and Data Communications Services Agency, a mathematics instructor with the City University of New York and a mathematics curriculum development consultant in Community School District Five, in Harlem.
Marlon Henry, Parent Representative
...is a Licensed social worker and a Director at Pibly Residential, Adult Home Program. Pibly is an agency located in the Bronx that works with The Office of Mental Health in providing housing and wraparound services for people with serious mental illnesses. Marlon who resides in the Bronx, received a master’s degree at Fordham University, and in his belief that early childhood education has a tremendous impact on a child’s development, he formed Urance Inc. Urance is a not-for-profit corporation that provides school supplies commonly used by students, to primary schools located in Jamaica W.I., where he migrated from in 2007.
William Bernhardt
...(Complaint Review, Teacher Employment and Policy/Governance Committees) is an Associate Professor of English, Speech and World Literature with the City University of New York. He also serves as a Faculty Fellow in the City University's Office of Computing and Information Services. A Phi Kappa Phi award recipient from his graduate work at Cornell University, Professor Bernhardt was invited to guest lecture at Hebei Teachers University in the People's Republic of China. He has extensive expertise in the uses of computers to augment instruction, particularly in the area of writing. He has served as a professional development consultant to urban school districts and has participated as a presenter at professional conferences on the improvement of instruction in literacy. He is the president of the Gattegno Foundation for Education.
Neal Myerberg
...is an attorney and a principal in the firm of Myerberg Philanthropic Advisors, a company which provides consulting services in planned giving and endowment development for not-for-profit and charitable organizations, foundations and philanthropists. He also teaches the introductory and advanced planned giving courses in the Columbia University Master’s Degree Program in Nonprofit Management. He was National Director of Charitable Giving Services for Bernstein Investment Research and Management, a unit of Alliance Capital Management, L.P. His work at Bernstein involved investment planning for private clients with special emphasis on the investment management, asset allocation and administration of charitable planned giving vehicles and endowment funds. He was also a founder and the first president of FJC, a New York not-for-profit organization that holds and administers donor advised, designated and endowed funds, and is a member of its board of directors. He received his law degree from the University of Baltimore School of Law and a master's degree in nonprofit management from the New York University Wagner School of Public Administration.
Jem Pagán
...is CEO of BluSky Consulting, LLC. A New York and Maryland based technology firm providing strategic and technology design and delivery services that enable organizations to leverage digital transformation for growth, revenues and market differentiation. Mr. Pagán is the former co-owner and Global Conference Chair - High Performance Computing and AI on Wall Street Conference https://www.hpcaiwallstreet.com/ As General Conference chair, Mr. Pagán works with the conference executive advisory boards, technology vendors and capital market executives to showcase and share thought leadership and technology innovations in Fintech and Financial Services global markets. Jem is a member of the Cloud Standards Customer Council, Open Network Users Group, The Wall Street Technology Association, Chief Marketing Officers Council, and the New York CTO and Boston CTO Clubs. Jem holds a B.S E.E Electrical Engineering, Morgan State University, M.S I.T Information Technology, University of Maryland Global Campus. Jem Pagán servers on several non-profit boards.
Dean Thomas
...is the founding partner of Flatiron Strategies, a firm that provides executive management of partnership initiatives to drive new revenue and market share opportunities for private sector and government clients. Mr. Thomas has also worked as with Consulting Engagements providing leadership for partner and client initiatives to deliver production innovation. He brings over 14 years of financial experience in both the private and public sector to the BBL Board.
Syrion Jack
...is a diversely talented attorney with over eight years of demonstrated success in employment, insurance coverage, and commercial litigation. He currently serves as Associate General Counsel at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He previously served as Deputy General Counsel/Chief Compliance Officer/Title IX Coordinator and Assistant General Counsel at Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey. Syrion is currently a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association, Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA), and National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA).
Gregory Kimble, Jr.
...is an attorney with a solo practice (Kimble Law, PLLC) which concentrates on providing affordable transactional legal counsel and governance to individuals, small businesses, and nonprofits, primarily in communities of color. He also serves as Counsel at Goldstein Hall PLLC. Gregory graduated with a Bachelors in Africana Studies from The University at Albany, SUNY in 2009. He graduated with a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 2017. He previously spent two years working as an Equal Justice Works Fellow, where he provided legal counsel and general non-profit guidance to small nonprofits in Westchester County, New York.
Dr. Arthur Powell
...is one of the founders of BBL. He is a Professor of Mathematics Education at Rutgers University-Newark and the Co-Director of the Robert B. Davis Institute for Learning at the Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University-New Brunswick. He is affiliated with the Department of Africana Studies on the Newark campus. He is a member of two doctoral programs - Mathematics Education and Global Urban Studies – on the New Brunswick and Newark campuses, respectively. Powell holds a Ph.D. in mathematics education from Rutgers University, a master’s degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor's degree in mathematics and statistics from Hampshire College. Among his books are Math: A Rich Heritage (1995), co-authored with Beatrice Lumpkin; Ethnomathematics Challenging Eurocentrism in Mathematics Education (1997), co-edited with Marilyn Frankenstein; Culturally Responsive Mathematics Education, co-edited with Brian Greer, Swapna Mukhopadhyay, and Sharon Nelson-Barber; and Combinatorics and Reasoning: Representing, Justifying and Building Isomorphisms (2011), co-edited Carolyn Maher and Elizabeth Uptegrove. Finally, he researches and publishes articles about Dr. Caleb Gattegno’s instructional theory called the subordination of teaching to learning, which is BBL’s pedagogical approach.