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Learn about the Ron Brown Scholar Program.
Kiya Jones serves as the Program Coordinator for the Guided Pathway Support Program. Kiya was named a Ron Brown Scholar in 1999. She most recently graduated from the University of Mississippi Law School, where she concentrated in poverty law, earning an Outstanding Student Award in Legal Problems of Indigence and a Public Interest Law Foundation Student Award. She was also selected to participate in the Mississippi Innocence Project and the Macarthur Justice Clinic. Before starting law school she worked with the Mississippi Center for Justice, helping to administer the Neighborhood Home grant program for Hurricane Katrina victims along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She earned her B.A. in government with a specialization in American campaigns and elections from the University of Texas at Austin. She has managed field operations for ballot initiatives, independent expenditure campaigns and voter registration drives in low-income minority precincts across the country. She currently resides in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Christopher Hunter, serves as the Director of the STEM101 initiative within the Guided Pathway Support Program (GPS). Chris received a BA in Literature from Harvard and a MA and PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. He previously served as an Assistant Professor of English at the California Institute of Technology. His research focused on the History of the Book in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America.
He lives with his family in Pasadena, CA.
Ray spent 5 years of his childhood in Chicago, IL, 5 years in Madison, WI, and 8 years in Denver, CO. He grew up in Park Hill and graduated from East High School in 2015. While at East, he was a member of Project Greer Street, an academic enrichment and college access program for black boys. Through the support of Project Greer Street, Ray participated in summer enrichment and leadership development programs such as the Telluride Association Sophomore Seminar (TASS) at the University of Michigan @ Ann Arbor and the Bezos Scholars Program @ the Aspen Institute. The program also supported him in applying to college and for scholarships, including the Ron Brown Scholar Program and the Robertson Scholars Leadership Program, a full merit scholarship to Duke University.
Ray earned his Bachelor’s Degree from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke in 2019. He also took courses in Education, African & African American Studies, Urban Studies, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Business, and Computer Science. He studied for a semester at the University of North Carolina @ Chapel Hill and studied abroad for a semester in New York, Brazil, South Africa, and India.
Outside of class, he taught 9th grade English at the Sunflower County Freedom Project in Sunflower, MS, returned as a Data Analyst and Teacher Coach, and was an 8th grade After School Instructor at StudentU in Durham, NC. He was also a Hilliard P. Jenkins Fellow at Frontline Solutions and an Accelerate Fellow at Teach for America.
His passion for education, particularly for boys and young men of color, rooted in his own experiences in Project Greet Street and his work with students in college, drove him to pursue his career as an educator. Ray currently teaches middle school math at Grizzlies Prep, an all-boys charter school in Memphis, TN.
Candace is a lifelong learner with a passion for storytelling, advocacy and community service. She holds a BA in Communications from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she worked on several award-winning documentaries and volunteered with First Look, a program that focused on creating a pipeline between middle school students and higher education institutions. Her advocacy and published work often focus on social justice and equitable representation in media. Prior to UNC, Candace was named a Ron Brown Captain, National Achievement Finalist and Scholastic Gold Key Winner. As a formerly home-educated student, she believes one-on-one advising has a tremendous impact on the success of every student.
Timothy Kimble serves as a College Access Advisor for the Guided Pathways Support (GPS) Program and is a member of the Ron Brown Scholar support team. He joined the Ron Brown Scholar Program team after serving as an admission counselor at the University of Virginia’s Office of Undergraduate Admission. While at UVA, he was part of the Outreach team, working to recruit and support underrepresented students, first-generation students, and students from low-income backgrounds. Tim believes that the college advising process should empower each student, through information, to make decisions that are right for them.
He is a graduate of the University of Virginia where he was an Echols Scholar, Ridley Scholar, and University Achievement Award recipient. Timothy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology and a Bachelor of Arts degree as a distinguished major in Political Philosophy, Policy and Law (PPL).