Raised in a small town along the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, he’s the one who recommended the Baret Fellowship 73-mile trek on the Appalachian Trail! Early on, Chris enjoyed building things, organizing his childhood friends to construct forts and cabins in the woods they would play in. And build he did. In his 50-year career, Chris founded and led 5 education and media endeavors, collectively employing over 8,000 team members. Founded in his college apartment, Whittle Communications grew to be one of America’s top 100 media companies, publishing Esquire and broadcasting daily to 8,000,000 students through the Channel One network, with Anderson Cooper as its first anchor. In the mid-1990s, along with former Yale University President Benno Schmidt, Chris pioneered America’s charter school movement, founding over 100 campuses with 60,000 students. In 2012, Chris co-founded and led Avenues: The World School, now one of the largest private schools in New York City with important campuses in São Paulo, Shenzhen, and Silicon Valley as well. Chris led the creation of the two Whittle School & Studios campuses in Shenzhen and Suzhou. He is one of the few entrepreneurs to found not one but two “unicorns,” the Silicon Valley created moniker for entities realizing market valuations of over $1B. He is the author of “Crash Course: A Radical Plan for Improving Public Education.”Inspired by his own, year-long, post-college circuit of the globe and by the 180 full-ride, 5-year scholarships he funded to his alma mater which included a year abroad, Chris conceived and is full-time Executive Chairman of Baret Scholars. He regrets being one of only two monoglots on our team but argues his lingering southern accent qualifies him as bilingual.

As a Giriama and Mijikenda woman from Kilifi on the Coast of Kenya, Claudia is the first Rhodes Scholar from her community. She is the only Baret member to have both herded cattle and earned a law degree from Oxford. Following her early education in Kenya, Claudia went on to major in Politics, Philosophy & Economics (PPE) and minor in African Studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, USA, then to University of Oxford, finally completing an LL.M. at Columbia as an Appel Fellow. Claudia's diverse legal expertise encompasses international human rights, civil rights, and commercial law.

Claudia’s dedication to social impact is demonstrated through her role as the Founder and Project Manager of the KIU Project in Kilifi, Kenya, where she enhanced educational opportunities for local students. Additionally, as a Development Assistant at Legal Outreach in NYC, she secured substantial funding to support underprivileged high school students' access to prestigious American universities. Claudia recently established her risk advisory consultancy for investors interested in doing business in Africa. She intends to open her own law firm once she qualifies as a lawyer in Kenya.

Claudia’s domestic and global experiences have enriched her perspective. She enjoys travel, podcasts, hot yoga, philosophy, and politics. With her diverse background and commitment to social change, Claudia is eager to mentor the next generation of leaders within the Baret Scholars program. 

With her legal training, Claudia will lead Fellowships in domains of Innovation and Politics, starting with the New York City Legal Nexus fellowship.

Ronan has always had the soul of a world traveler: at the age of 9, he ran away from home to try and reach the Amazon rainforest. Thankfully, he was stopped before getting far. Today, Ronan is a creative filmmaker and avid reader who was born in Rome to an Irish-English family. He studied at Oxford, where a screening of “Amadeus” by Milos Forman, followed by a lecture by the director, sparked his passion for filmmaking. 

After graduating, he moved to Beijing to teach English and met his idol, filmmaker Zhang Yimou. He later earned an MFA in Film Production/Directing at UCLA, working with B-movie legend Roger Corman, which shaped his approach to storytelling. Ronan’s work has led to collaborations with 21st Century Fox, Google, and the United Nations, and he has also taught at UCLA, sharing his experiences with future filmmakers. A fun fact about Ronan: He’s also a skilled guitarist, with his rock album "The Difficult Ones" available on Spotify. 

Ronan will be one of our Fellows, specializing in Creativity. He looks forward to mentoring students in the Baret Scholars program, and will be teaching a Creative Writing workshop as one of our Afternoon Options. 

Wendy is a global citizen with roots in both the U.S. and China. Growing up in a household where Cantonese was spoken but Mandarin was taught, while transitioning between the suburbs of New York and the city of Beijing, she cultivated a diverse academic and cultural perspective from an early age. Her Chinese Zodiac sign is a pig, which also happens to be her favorite animal – her dream since childhood has been to keep a piglet as a pet.

Wendy's passion for biology was sparked by an independent high school research project in plant biology. Her enthusiasm for research only grew at UC Santa Cruz, and she recently completed a PhD at Weill Cornell Medicine, studying how gut bacteria impacts colorectal cancer development. She also became an adept programmer in her time at Cornell.

A lover of learning and adventure, Wendy enjoys trying new foods (she created an “exploratory foodie team” while attending Cornell), connecting with people, taking long walks, journaling, and jamming out to music in her free time. She also once completed a half marathon without training, an experience that, in her own words, she would not recommend. She looks forward to guiding and nurturing students’ independent thinking, self-confidence, and collaborative spirit. 

Wendy will be leading Fellowships in Nature and Innovation domains, starting with a visit to Silicon Valley. Her expertise in the scientific method will encourage an analytical approach.

Ever since his days in Beirut, Lebanon, Omar has been all about committing to a cause. He attended and graduated from the American University of Beirut (AUB) with a bachelor’s degree in Political Studies, and holds the esteemed position of perhaps being Baret’s toughest member: he was Vice President of the University of Chicago Rugby and represented Lebanon on the Lebanese National Rugby team. While in Lebanon, he supported a local NGO helping refugees living in poverty by providing food and other resources. He is also an avid Arsenal fan.

His journey ultimately led him to attain a master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. While there, he acquired tools to implement his passion for helping others achieve their potential. Having developed curriculum and managed civic engagement programs for low-income, immigrant youth in Kensington, MD, Omar believes in helping others catalyze their lives and achieve higher education. Ask him and he’ll tell you that he makes the best kefta you’ll ever have. He also has perhaps Baret’s biggest laugh. 

For Baret, he’ll be helping to lead Fellowships with a focus in Politics, beginning with a stay in Washington, D.C. in the leadup to the United States Presidential election.

Tom, Baret’s resident historian of art, grew up in a small town just outside the city of York in the UK, (Thirsk, North Yorkshire). Nurturing a love for art from a young age, he took a undergraduate degree in the History of Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies at University College London, followed by an MA and PhD in History of Art at UCL. He has lectured at UCL and Sotheby's Institute of Art, London (this last I am about to finish my contract) for seven years, and his writings have appeared in various prestigious magazines, journals, and books, including Art Monthly, Frieze Magazine, Third Text, Grey Room, and Afterall. He has even published his own book at MIT Press, Activism: Documents of Contemporary Art.

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Far from a stuffy intellectual locked up in the Ivory Tower, Tom has led an international life. He spent extended periods of time in Italy and India. During his first independent trip to Italy as a teenager, I attended the Palio di Siena, and feasted with the victorious contrade, and in his early twenties he travelled across India for two months with just one 35 litre backpack and no mobile phone. When confronted with challenges, he’s resourceful: once, in Istanbul and short of money, he took a job as an extra on a James Bond movie. So yes, he is in Skyfall. 

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He is excited to revisit several important artworks, museums, and cultural sites across the world as he journeys across the globe, and to experience others for the first time. He’l be teaching a course on "Art's Histories" discussing the way various objects and locations can help to reanimate aspects of the distance and recent past, and in doing so facilitate greater understanding of their relationships to the present.

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Having grown up in a family of mountaineers, explorers, and artists, Himraj’s childhood was surrounded by adventure—even at home, climbing ropes and rappelling devices hung from his crib, carabiners filled kitchen drawers, and maps were scattered in each room. Born and raised between New Delhi, India, and a small mountain town in the Himalayas, he later studied at Colorado College, where his love for the outdoors blossomed in the rarefied air.

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He went on to co-found an independent outdoor sports, adventure travel, and environmental news publication, The Outdoor Journal. As a writer and photographer, Himraj covered international destinations, conservation issues, extreme adventure sports, athletes, gear, maps, and more. His work has appeared in Vogue, Vice, Runner’s World, National Geographic Traveller India, Reader’s Digest UK, Condé Nast Traveller India, and The Outdoor Journal.

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Before Baret, Himraj was a Director at Ibex Expeditions, an award-winning adventure travel company based in India, where he planned and guided mountain, safari, and cultural journeys. His expeditions have taken him to Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Nepal, Borneo, Madagascar, Peru, Morocco, Namibia, Argentina, Chile, Siberia, New Zealand, Antarctica, Iceland, Croatia, Tanzania, Ecuador and the Galápagos, and Svalbard, among others. He was part of the International Antarctic Expedition led by explorer Robert Swan, studying climate change and sustainability. In remote locations, he has subjected people from all walks of life to his Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Christopher Walken impressions. As a Baret Fellow, he will be a mentor to our scholars, as well as a seasoned guide and wilderness expert.