Our People
Staff
Eric Komoroff: Founder and Executive Director
Eric Komoroff is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of youth development, urban education, social emotional learning, mindfulness, school culture development, youth spirituality, empowerment, and relationship-building, whose work has been the subject of various academic studies including in 2010, “Creating Sacred Space with Youth”, a Doctoral Dissertation published at Teachers College at Columbia University, and in 2012, “Community of Unity: The Theory of Change of an Afterschool Youth Development Program,” at Fordham University.
Eric’s career in urban education began in 1988 at the ArtWorks in New York City, where he ran after-school programs while studying Art Therapy at the New School for Social Research. Shortly thereafter, Eric discovered his passion for working with children with Autism, which led to a decade spent in special education pre-schools, therapeutic nurseries, day-treatment facilities, summer camps, and afterschool programs. At the same time, Eric worked on developing educational materials for various Sesame Street educational outreach programs at the Children’s Television Workshop, and earned degrees in Art Therapy, Early Childhood Education and Human Development.
In 2001 Eric founded COMMUNITY of UNITY, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering underserved youth to achieve success and fulfillment by awakening an understanding of their unique purpose and potential. As COMMUNITY of UNITY’s Executive Director, Eric has designed and implemented social emotional learning (SEL), life skills and school culture building programs for over 200 schools, enrichment programs, therapeutic environments, camps and correctional facilities around the world, reaching tens of thousands of youth, families, and educators.
As a consultant and collaborator, Eric has worked with organizations including A Better Chance, Bank Street College of Education, the Institute for Student Achievement, HealthCorp, Northside Center for Child Development, the New York City Department of Education, Union Seminary, Face2Face, Steve’s Camp at Horizon Farms, SUCCESS Academy Charter Network, Urban Assembly, Auburn Theological Seminary, the YMCA, the Center for Mindfulness: the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Hoops 4 Hope (South Africa & Zimbabwe), Hunter College, the Genesis Society, Big Brother/Big Sister, and the Department of Correctional Services in South Africa. Eric is also a frequent presenter at schools and conferences including the BOOST Collaborative Conference and the Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.
Eric has played an active role in the founding of over 20 urban public and charter schools, as well as camps and other youth programs including New Design High School and Middle School, and Steve’s Camp at Horizon Farms.
Eric currently teaches classes at New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development on Socially Responsible Teaching (a graduation required course for all undergraduate and graduate students in the education program), and Social Entrepreneurship for Urban Youth, and has taught courses at Bank Street College of Education on School Culture Development and Advisory Programs.
Since 2010, Eric has been the host of YOUTH EMPOWERED, a weekly podcast with over 50,000 listeners, and a featured blogger on www.dailystrength.org, and www.teendailyshare.com.
Audrey Jaynes: Manager of Operations and Communications
Audrey currently works as the Manager of Operations and Communications at Community of Unity. She previously held the position of Director of Community Engagement for Newark Now, a non-profit founded in 2003 by then Newark Mayor Cory Booker, where she served disadvantaged youth through the pivotal Super Summer Initiative, and through organizational support and advocacy on the behalf of Newark-based grassroots organizations and neighborhood associations. After transferring to Mayor Booker’s office at Newark’s City Hall, Audrey spent the next eighteen months working as a liaison with the Newark Municipal Council and on several special projects originating out of the Mayor’s office, including a city-wide youth mural project and neighborhood youth empowerment program.
Audrey’s recent nose-dive into motherhood has deepened her compassion for youth and her belief in the essential role of guidance and mentorship in any young person’s life. Outside of her work at Community of Unity, Audrey is a freelance writer and dedicated first-time mom
Jean C. Artiles: Youth Empowerment Leadership Community (YELC) Program Manager and Group Counselor
A member of The Youth Empowerment Leadership Community (YELC) during his four years of high school, Jean was awarded a scholarship to attend an international multi-faith camp, Face to Face/Faith to Faith, along with 50 other youth from around the world. The following year Jean was invited back as a counselor, and his professional work with youth began. He spent the following years interning with CofU Founder Eric Komoroff, developing his skills as a Youth Empowerment Specialist. During this time Jean developed his passion for new media and technology while working at MVMT, a cutting edge media and branding company. At Whole Foods Market, Jean worked as a Catering Specialist, where he was able to feed his passion for healthy food and cooking. And a founding staff member of Steve’s Camp at Horizon Farms, he was able to take part in the creation of a dynamic camp program for youth whose upbringing is very similar to his own. In 2010 Jean began running his own YELC groups, becoming the first YELC graduate to accomplish this.
Jean also manages the Community of Unity office, website, and social networking. He is also working on his degree in the field of Mathematics at Borough of Manhattan City College.
Dilyon Stanislaus, Youth Empowerment Leadership Community (YELC) Group Counselor
Susan Donovan: Design Your Future (DYF) Counselor, Program Director
Susan Donovan joins Community of Unity as the Head of the College Office at New Design High School.
Most recently Susan was the Children’s Aid Society college counselor at the Theatre Arts Production Company School. While there, Susan developed and honed a repeatable system for guiding underrepresented students through the college process, from school choice and application submission through financial aid filing. While at TAPCo Susan also started up and ran the Transition to Adulthood program, a Workforce Investment Act funded In-School Youth program developed to offer year-round services to at-risk high school juniors and seniors. As the Director of the program, Susan ensured that the TTA participants had access to the resources and supports necessary to graduate from high school, pursue college education, and develop career goals. Prior to her work as a college counselor, Susan worked as a third and fourth grade teacher in the New York City public school system. Susan has also been a NYC public school parent for the past 12 years, which has allowed her to bring valuable insights to her work within the system.
Susan received her BA from Dartmouth College and continued her studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Susan is a native New Yorker and lives on the Upper West Side with her husband, John, and their daughters Molly (17), Helen (13), and Trixie (10).
James Giordano: Design Your Future (DYF) Counselor, Program Director
James has an Education Specialist Degree (Ed.S.) in School Counseling and is a certified school counselor. He graduated from the State University of New York at Albany with a BA in criminal justice and sociology in 1997 and an MA in criminal justice in 1998. James was admitted to Albany under the talented student athlete program where he was the captain of the Division I-AA football team and voted one of the teams most valuable players as a senior. After graduating from Albany in 1998, James moved to Miami, Florida in search of warmer weather. With hopes of entering the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James began working as an investigator of insurance fraud. After three months in this role, James realized that this type of work was leaving him unfulfilled. After applying to numerous positions in a variety of fields, James was offered two positions which appeared promising, but from entirely different ends of the spectrum. The first position was with the legal department for the United States Attorney Generals Office and the second was as an overnight case worker for Covenant House making $9/hr. Although the first position appeared the better option from a financial and logistical perspective, James decided to begin his work with homeless runaway teenagers. James stayed at Covenant House for four years where he became a community services specialist whose responsibilities included managing a community center that housed a pantry, a soup kitchen, a housing program, an employment assistance program, and a community school. This center served an average of 100 homeless and community teenagers/day. James was very successful at creating many community partnerships while at Covenant House. James assisted thousands of youth and families in obtaining a large range of services.
After 9/11/2001, Covenant House decided to close the community branch of the organization as a result of a reduction in donations. Coincidentally, at about the same time, James was contacted by his former principal from Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx, who was the current principal at Monsignor Edward Pace High School in Miami, Florida. James was very successful at Monsignor Pace High School with 100% of his students gaining acceptance into a wide variety of colleges and universities.James and his wife decided to return to New York. James received a position as the Director of College Counseling at Saint Agnes Boys High School, a Title I institution under the auspices of the Archdiocese of New York serving students from Chinatown to Washington Heights. While at Saint Agnes, James has created a school counseling program which has resulted in a 100% college acceptance rate every year, yearly college acceptances into a full range of institutions (including the Ivy leagues), over 9 million dollars per year in scholarships and grants for students, and successful partnerships with a variety of institutions of higher learning. James is now seeking to expand his success to other communities.
Nicole Lavonne Smith began her work with youth in 1998 as a Vocational Specialist at Covenant House NY, where she aided students out of incarceration and substance abuse into job training programs. Other positions that have helped to shape her as an educator included her role as an Education Consultant for the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment and as a Teacher’s Aide at International Children’s Workshop. In 2000, Nicolespent eight magical months in Brasil teaching English, learning Portuguese and writing her thesis on disenfranchised quilombo communities and cultural land preservation. This led to her becoming a founding member of KIPP:AMP middle school in Crown Heights, where she remained for seven years, teaching capoeira and creating the school’s culture, which centered around the Afro-Brasilian art form. Following this, Nicole became the Expanded Success Initiative Coordinator at New Design High School, working with Black and Latino male students in an effort to create and expand best practices leading to their academic, socio-emotional, college and career successes.
Nicole earned a Masters of Urban Planning from New York University and a Bachelor in Psychology from Howard University. Nicole is from Long Island but is also now considered a Brooklynite, having lived in the borough since 1998. Nicole lives a comical life with her fiancé and her son, Noon. Outside of her work in education, Nicole is a writer currently working on a short story memoir and children’s book collection, and contributes essays on education and culture to various publications.
Sonia Roubeni, Director of Research and Evaluation
Sonia Roubeni is a teaching fellow and doctoral candidate in Applied Developmental Psychology at Fordham University. Her program of research centers on ethnic disparities in academic achievement, particularly among first and second generation immigrants. In an ongoing prospective, longitudinal study, she is examining the ways in which socioeconomically and ethnically diverse parents strategize for their children’s education, including the ways in which parents’ education-related beliefs, aspirations, and environmental constraints impact children’s early learning environments and school readiness. Sonia has parallel applied interests in the design, implementation, and evaluation of social programs, as well as in engaging all program stakeholders via a participatory action research process in evaluating the operations and effectiveness of their own programs. Sonia hails from Hamburg, Germany, and is of Iranian-Sephardic descent.
Lisa Jacques, Operations Coordinator
Lisa Jacques is a junior at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study creating a concentration around entrepreneurship, education policy, narrative identity. She is passionate about understanding the different narratives and power structures that help to shape the lives of people of color and how entrepreneurship especially can serve to disrupt the narratives of young people of color in order for the creation of a new narrative to take place.
Lisa is actively involved on NYU’s campus, serving as a charter member and Community Service Chair of The Colony of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Incorporated as well as Treasurer for the Organization of Black Women. She also serves on the Youth Leadership Council for the GO Project, a non-profit in NYC aiming to mitigate the education gap between low-income and high-income students.
Dr. Jason Stein: Co-Host of Youth Empowered Radio Show
Dr. Jason Stein is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. He has been working in the field for over twelve years as a therapist and clinical supervisor. He conducts seminars on teenage drug and alcohol issues, workshops on ‘Pro-Active Parenting’ and ‘Family Communication’, and teaches other therapists how to do family therapy. His specialties include family and couple issues, childhood anxiety, teen substance abuse, ADHD, socialization/peer relationships, and school-related behavioral problems. Dr. Stein’s approach focuses on empowering clients to utilize their strengths, and the ability to make choices.
Dr. Stein has received expert training in family therapy, couples counseling, cross-cultural issues, behavioral therapy, and school-based services. He facilitates workshops and seminars at public and private schools, after-school programs, places of worship, weight loss centers, and clinical settings. The topics include ‘How to talk about drugs and alcohol with your teenager’, ‘family communications’, ‘family rituals’, ‘how to contain behavioral problems’, and ‘parent/couple communication’. He teaches parenting classes on family communication, drug and alcohol awareness, proactive parenting, and developing structure and routines within the family.
As a provider within the community, Dr. Stein has held clinical and administrative positions in hospital settings, schools, and community agencies. He is an honorary member of the National Psi Chi Society for his contributions in academia and the Los Angeles community. Currently, he is working as a clinical supervisor and teacher at Los Angeles Child Guidance Clinic, a consultant for a Boys Group Home, and has private practice consisting of adults, couples, children, and families.
The services offered by Dr. Stein include individual, child, couples, and family therapy. He also provides more specialized services including child behavior assessment, in-home family therapy, co-parenting (divorce/separation issues), group therapy, and parenting classes. Dr. Stein is available for various workshops and seminars.
Josh Borkin, Ed.D.: Steve’s Camp at Horizon Farms
Dr. Borkin graduated from Clark University with and MA/BA in American History in 1997. An interest in Religion and Social justice led him to Chicago where he led peer facilitation workshops for high school students for the Institute for Cultural Affairs. From 1999 until 2004 Josh directed youth programming for the Council for a Parliament of the Worlds Religions. Internationally, Josh helped organize parliament events in Cape Town, South Africa, and Barcelona, Spain. Locally, he helped develop an inter-religious organizing immersion course for Chicago Colleges and organized an inter-religious coalition of diverse religious institutions in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.
Board Members
Christopher Oliver, Board Chair
Currently Chris serves as SVP, Corporate Development for Presidio, Inc (a leading IT solutions provider in North America). In that role, he is responsible for identifying, investigating, and evaluating acquisition opportunities across existing and future markets that will help drive Presidio’s mid and long-range strategic goals. In addition to acquisitions, the SVP role also includes review of joint ventures, spin-offs, mergers, etc. Given their strategic significance to the overall business, Chris also has P&L responsibility for the Cyber Security and Internet of Things (IoT) business units at Presidio.
Prior to joining Presidio, Chris was the Director of Strategy & Business Development for HP Technology Consulting where he was tasked with defining near, mid and long-term strategies to accelerate the growth of HP’s global consulting business (organic and inorganic).
Before HP, he was the Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for Dimension Data and was a member of the Americas Executive Operating Committee. There he was also responsible for M&A and post-merger integration activity across Latin America and Canada.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy from Brown University and a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the Yale School of Management.
Marene Jennings, Treasurer
Marene is a Vice President in the Investment Management Division of a major Wall Street firm where she works as a Product Manager. Her team provides external long-only investment strategies to high net worth and institutional clients. Prior to this role, she was a member of the corporate strategy and business development team at Fidelity Investments and a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. Marene holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Latin American Studies from Dartmouth College and a Master’s in Business Administration from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Marene has previously been on the Boards of two other non-profit organizations and is currently an officer for her Dartmouth class. A native of The Bronx, Marene now resides in Brooklyn, NY.
Holly Rudnick Kurtzberg
Holly a practicing physical therapist for the last 18 years, Holly received her degree in physical therapy from SUNY Syracuse Upstate Medical Center in 1991. She received her advanced specialization in mechanical diagnosis and treatment of spinal disorders in 2000 through the McKenzie Institute in New Zealand. She has practiced in multiple settings throughout the tri-state area including Kessler Institute, St. Barnabas Medical Center and presently at the Hospital for Special Surgery in the Sports Rehabilitation Department. In 2005, Holly edited the spine section and co-authored a chapter in the Post Operative Rehabilitation Guidelines text-book by Elsevier Publishing. She has also taught classes in the physical therapy programs at both Hunter College and Columbia University. Holly is also an accomplished musician and mother of two girls.
Clifford Cohen
Cliff is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. Since 2002, he has worked for the NYC Department of Education as a Related Services Counselor and currently provides counseling services at four Manhattan high schools. In addition, he is an Adjunct Lecturer at Hunter College, CUNY, in the graduate counseling program which includes school, rehabilitation and mental health counseling. He is also an Adjunct Instructor at the Steinhardt School at NYU as part of a team teaching panel on the Social Responsibilities of Educators addressing drug and alcohol education, child abuse identification, school violence prevention and AIDS/HIV education.
Michelle Priano
Michelle is the Director of Photo Production for Victoria’s Secret, where she has spent the last 8 years producing photo shoots for the iconic catalogue and VictoriasSecret.com. When she’s not making sure that supermodels get from Point A to Point B, or looking for the next face of Victoria¹s Secret, Michelle is busy raising her young daughter.
Michelle holds a B.A. in communications and studio art from the University of NY at Buffalo, where she was born and raised. She currently resides on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Jodie Patterson
Jodie is a unique voice in the industry. She believes in ‘beauty without struggle’ and is dedicated to helping women find their own uniqueness. She understands that beauty is not ‘ethnic’ and instead, women prefer to experience and shop beauty based on need. Jodie encourages both brand and consumer to go beyond standard confines and to share both product and trends cross culturally.
Jodie launched two beauty companies, Doobop and Georgia by Jodie Patterson. For both brands, Jodie is the editor-in-chief of their online magazines, Loudmouth and Stir It Up, which focus on inner and outer beauty. She produces two popular web series, Girl Crush and Real Women. Real Beauty.
Chosen by Dell Computers as one of their “Dell Inspire 100” recipients in 2013, Jodie’s work reaches a diverse audience. Previously, she was Director of PR for fashion designer Zac Posen and was a former publicist at her own PR company, Jodie Becker Media, where she worked with such mavens as Nike, Virgin Records, Sean John, Lincoln Center and Russell Simmons. Jodie helped launch and is a co-owner of the acclaimed Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater. Most surprisingly, Jodie was a circus acrobat performing with the Big Apple Circus.
She’s a hands-on mother-of-five and an “award-winning wife” living in Brooklyn, NY.
Benjamin Bernet
Advisory Board Members
Neil Samen
Aliza Cohen
Carole Hallac
Ocean Macadams
Rya Backer
Carl Navarro
David Reichsfeld