Chair/President of Board
Danny J. Rice
Danny has been working with children, youth, and families on issues of education, social justice and equality for nearly two decades. As an undegraduate at Syracuse Univeristy, Danny fought alongside other students for the tenure of African-American professors. He also mentored and provided counseling and academic support to high school students attending an after-school program at The Urban League of Onondaga County. Danny received a BA in African-American Studies (1994), graduating Magna Cum Laude from Syracuse University (SU). A recipient of the WEB Dubois Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, Danny created and was later elected the first president of CAMA (Concerned African-American Studies Association), designed as a way to empower students to have a more active role in the development and decision making processes of the AAS Dept. at SU.
Danny went on to earn an MA in elementary education from Teachers College of Columbia University (1995 -97), working closely with undergraduates who were fighting to create an Ethnic Studies Department at Columbia.
After teaching experiences in Brooklyn and lower Harlem, Danny worked for a literacy and mentoring program called Everybody Wins, later creating Project FLARE (Future Leader Are Readers Empowered) as a means of helping older students empower their younger counterparts through literacy and mentoring (1997 - 2000). Danny led Everybody Wins' volunteer recruitment efforts in Harlem, working closely with District 5 (Harlem), Harlem Hospital, Columbia University, and a host of other community based organizations, hospitals, colleges, social service agencies. Danny was honored with the Uijma Award for collective work and responsibility at PS 125 in Harlem.
Danny served as a program officer and the director of TASC’s (The After School Corporation) Community Works and Teach After Three AmeriCorps programs in NYC, working with community based organizations operating in-school after-school programs. As AmeriCorps Director, Danny helped raise the graduation rate of AmeriCorps members from 58% to 89% in less than three years, by creating a sense of unity around community service, while helping over 500 young people earn college scholarships.
From 2004-2007, Danny served as both a Senior Research Associate and Director of School and Community Initiatives at The Hamilton Fish Institute on School and Community Violence of The George Washington Univeristy. Danny worked closely with Wasahington, DC elementary, middle and high school principals to create positive school climates and cultures for students, parents and teachers. Danny also served on No Murders DC and the Safe Schools Coalition in an effort to reduce violence on a community and school-based level.
Currently, Danny is an Education Program Specialist in the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education. At the Department of Education, Danny monitors and provides technical assistance to mentoring programs and grants to reduce alcohol abuse among secondary school students.
Vice President
Richard Harding
Richard Harding, Jr. is among the newest members of the Cambridge School Committee. He is a lifelong resident of Cambridge. He attended the Roberts and Kennedy Schools and graduated from Cambridge Rindge & Latin. He went to Fitchburg State where he captained the basketball Falcons while earning a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology. During college he worked with Joe Kennedy at Citizen’s Energy and in youth service with the City of Cambridge. Upon graduation he became the Cambridge liaison in the office of Sen. Warren Tolman and continued in the office of Sen. Steven Tolman as the Director of Constituent Services. He is currently the Director of the Men of Color Health Initiative for the Cambridge Health Alliance. As President of the Port Life Foundation he administers a variety of youth programs including a chess club, a basketball league and a dance team. Active in Democratic politics, he is the chair of the Ward 2 Democratic Committee. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Cambridge Community Arts Center and the Cambridge Youth Program.
Committee Chair
Jessy Molina
Jessy Molina graduated from Harvard College in 1999 and from Yale Law School in 2002. Upon graduation from law school, Jessy accepted a Soros Justice Fellowship to work at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights on the Books Not Bars project, with the goal of shifting state funding priorities away from incarceration and toward education and youth opportunities. After completing her fellowship, Jessy worked for the John Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University. As Program Director for the Gardner Center’s West Oakland youth initiative, she worked with high school students at McClymonds High School in Oakland to develop and implement a youth-led social justice curriculum. Jessy currently serves as National Co-Coordinator of Quality Education as a Constitutional Right (www.qecr.org), along with her husband, Michael Molina. Jessy enjoys learning from and with the young people she works with, especially her daughter, Maya.
Secretary
Java Jackson
One of the founders of YPP, Java is a junior at Southern University, Baton Rouge, La., majoring in Economics. As a freshman at SU she served as Miss Honors College and recently received the All-American Achievement award. A 4.0 student, Java is a participant in the Southern-Orizaba exchange program, teaching disadvantaged youth in rural Mexico English while learning Spanish.
Treasurer
Niesha Hamilton
Niesha Hamilton has over 14 years of financial management and budgeting experience. She has audited financial statements of Fortune 500 companies including Sony and Bristol-Myers Squibb, projected the salary cap for the National Football League and forecasted & managed the P&L for an $800MM pharmaceutical product promoted by Pfizer. She is active in not-for-profit activities having served as a mentor, Big Sister in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Workplace program and tutored for the Fresh Air Fund. She obtained her Bachelors of Science in Accounting from Syracuse University in 1994 and her Masters of Business Administration from Darden Business School at the University of Virginia in 2003. In addition, Niesha owns a personal finance and budgeting company, In The Black Financial, LLC.
Board Member
Peter Henry
Peter Blair Henry is an Associate Professor of Economics in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Henry conducts research on the financial and real effects of economic policy reform and teaches courses on macroeconomics, international finance, and emerging markets. The National Science Foundation’s Early CAREER Development Program supports his research and teaching.
Professor Henry received his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1997. His thesis received the National Economic Association’s Award for the best Ph.D. dissertation written between 1995 and 1997. Prior to attending MIT, Dr. Henry was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University where he received a B.A. in mathematics. His first undergraduate degree is a B.A. in economics from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Marshall Scholar-Elect, a member of the varsity football team, and a finalist in the 1991 campus-wide slam-dunk competition.
Professor Henry’s wife of 5 years, Lisa J. Nelson, received both her B.A. and M.D. from Yale University; Dr. Nelson received both degrees Magna Cum Laude. She is a child psychiatrist and was a Glaxo Welcome Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association from 1995 to 1997. They have two sons: Christian Blair and Langston Alexander.
Board Member
Hector Acevedo
Born in El Salvador Hector moved to Cambridge, MA in the sixth grade and became involved with YPP as a workshop participant at a local youth center. He went on to be trained and work as a Math Literacy thru high school in the program and is now a senior at Hamilton College majoring in Womens Studies with a minor in Latin American Studies Hector has begun the first stages of launching a YPP program in Hamilton, NY upon graduation this spring.
Board Member
Jonathan Husband
A member of YPP since 1997 and former Algebra Project student at Brinkley Middle School in Jackson, Ms, Jonathan graduated from Jim Hill High School with honors, and currently is a sophomore at the University of Mississippi, majoring in pharmacy. One of the original members of the Graphing Calculator workshop, Jonathan continues to work with children and older adults in the community.
Advisor
Khari is a former Algebra Project student and a founding member of the Young People's Project. Khari received a Master's with a concentration in Adolescent Risk & Prevention Programs/Technology at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and a Bachelor of Arts, Journalism – Advertising Sequence with a minor in African American Studies from the University of North Carolina. He is currently the Director of Cambridge Public School's After school Partnerships.