The Travelling Team

Raised in Montana, Jason studied at Harvard University (A.B., East Asian Studies), Stanford University (M.A. East Asian Studies), and University of California, Berkeley (M.A. and PhD in Linguistics).

Fluent in Mandarin, he has had an international career with a particular focus on China. Jason was the Inaugural Director of the Beijing Center of Stanford’s Bing Overseas Studies Program, and he served as American Co-Director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies, the prestigious joint program of John Hopkins University and Nanjing University. In his early days in China, he led study groups of American high school students throughout the country. Following his time in Asia, for many years Jason served as Director of the Robertson Center for Intercultural Leadership, a part of International House at UC Berkeley.

He has been a lecturer at Berkeley, Stanford, and Hopkins-Nanjing and his book, Humanly Possible: A New Model of Leadership for a More Inclusive World, was published in 2023 by New Degree Press.

“I’ve never been entirely comfortable advancing learning with the constraints of the traditional university and its fixed roles,” said Jason. “To me, Baret Scholars represents a different educational model, where academics and truly global learning come together as the center of the mission.”

Amah spent her childhood in Togo, Zimbabwe and the Washington DC area. Starting MIT at age 15, she holds degrees from MIT (SB, Political Science), Harvard (MSc, Population and International Health), and MIT (PhD, History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society). Following college, Amah spent 3 years in Zambia, where she conducted research as a Fulbright Scholar and led a team of eight clinical and community health workers at the Power of Love Foundation to fight pediatric HIV/AIDS in a low-income area of Lusaka.

After her time in Zambia, Amah returned to the US to pursue graduate studies. As a PhD student at MIT, she served as a Head Teaching Fellow at Harvard and as a Lecturer at Sciences Po, Paris. Joining the MIT faculty in 2016, first as a Postdoctoral Associate and ultimately as the Homer Burnell Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African Studies, Amah was recognized with multiple teaching and mentoring awards, including the Everett Moore Baker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at MIT.

In 2021, Amah co-founded the Brussels-based African Futures Lab which focuses on policy and research to bolster activists and policy makers pursuing racial justice across Europe and Africa.

Amah is fluent in Mina, French, and English and can converse in Brazilian Portuguese and German. During her career she has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and Fulbright and was a Presidential Scholar at both MIT and Harvard.

“Serving at Baret would be a full-circle moment for me, an opportunity to support young people in gaining the exposure and tools for self-knowledge to which I wish I had had access when I was at their stage of life,” said Amah.

Ronan, a voracious reader and creative filmmaker, was born in Rome to an Irish-English family. Inspired by a lecture and film by Milos Forman, he pursued filmmaking, following a First at Oxford University.
After teaching English in Beijing and meeting his idol, Zhang Yimou, he studied Film Production/Directing at UCLA, where he collaborated with B-movie legend Roger Corman. His work caught the attention of 21st Century Fox, leading to projects with notable companies and even the UN.
Having also taught at UCLA, he is excited to mentor within the Baret Scholars program.

Ronan's passion for creating rock music spurred him to release an album on Spotify. Fluent in English and Italian, he has lived in four countries and loves The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist.

Wendy, a global citizen with roots in both the U.S. and China, has cultivated a diverse academic and cultural perspective from an early age. Transitioning between the suburbs of New York and the city of Beijing, she readily immersed herself into Chinese culture and embraced its rigorous education system.

This experience not only maintained her fluency in Chinese but also laid a solid foundation for her scientific career. 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 is now completing a PhD in Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine in NYC.

A lover of learning and adventure, Wendy enjoys trying new foods, connecting with people, taking long walks, journaling, and jamming out to music in her free time. She looks forward to guiding and nurturing students’ independent thinking, self-confidence, and collaborative spirit. Her current favourite book is Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind.

Residing in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Daniel describes himself as a ‘hippie in a suit’. With a degree in environmental economics from Cornell University and a mountain man lifestyle, the term fits.
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His love for the outdoors, cultivated in the wilds of North Texas, where he grew up, fuels his passion for STEM, activism, conservation, and sustainability science. After high school, Daniel headed straight to university. However, upon graduating, he took the gap year he always wished he had. Arriving in Athens with just one night booked at a local hostel and deliberately lacking a plan, Daniel spent the ensuing months busing and hitchhiking across the Balkans on $17/day. This experience profoundly transformed his life. A staunch advocate for the immense value of the gap year, he is eager to mentor the next generation of students as they embark on their own transformative journeys.
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Now with a goal of visiting every country in the world, Daniel enjoys learning all there is about geography, international relations, and global trade. He considers Green Rider by Kristen Britain a very special book.

Caren is a German native with a diverse international background. Having lived in six countries over the past ten years, Caren has a deep appreciation for different cultures and perspectives. Her interest in international business and organisational leadership began during her undergraduate studies at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany and continued during her time at Durham University, where she obtained an MSc in International Business and French.

While studying, she was recruited by Google to join their marketing solutions team in Dublin. During her three-year tenure at Google, Caren's fascination with leadership deepened and her desire to gain further understanding of different industries led her to join the team at Russell Reynolds Associates in London — her last stop before joining Baret.

Beyond work, Caren pursues an active lifestyle and with her global mindset, warm nature, love for adventure and tennis, and passion for understanding cultures and people, she is well-equipped to mentor and lead Baret scholars. Caren’s favourite book is The Physicists by Friedrich Duerrenmatt.

Sophie is an interdisciplinary educator and artist with nearly a decade of experience teaching in unconventional classrooms around the world. Sophie’s greatest joy is to facilitate learning, exploration and creativity (preferably all at once) for students of all ages and backgrounds. She has built classrooms off the decks of kayaks, underwater, harnessed to rock climbing walls, across traditional systems and splattered about art studios.

Originally from Chicago, Sophie moved south to pursue Marine Biology, Chemistry and Studio Art at the College of Charleston. After graduating, she was awarded back-to-back Fulbright grants to teach in Mexico, and has since continued her global adventures studying, teaching and solo traveling around the world.

She is excited to support students as they take on this mighty gap year, and help build a connected community of learning and growth for all who participate in this inaugural Baret program. Her forever favourite book— an ode to transiency, travel and ‘finding home’— is Flights by Olga Tokarczuk.

As an avid Arsenal fan, Omar knows all about committing to a cause. He has done so since his days back in Beirut, Lebanon, where he attended and graduated from the American University of Beirut (AUB) with a bachelor’s degree in Political Studies. While there, he represented Lebanon on the Lebanese National Rugby team and supported those who needed it most in times of need.

Being part of a community that prioritized collaboration and communication allowed Omar to express his passion for leaving a situation better than how he found it, which 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.

Formally an advocate for youth immigrants in Maryland via a local NGO, Omar believes in using his platform to help others catalyze their careers and achieve higher education. He looks forward to utilizing his skills and experiences to give the existing 2024-25 Baret cohort a wonderful and unforgettable journey.

Born and raised in Kenya, Claudia Kahindi was inspired by her background to pursue law for social change. Following her early education in Kenya, Claudia majored in Politics, Philosophy & Economics (PPE) and minored in African Studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, USA. She earned her law degree from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and subsequently completed an LL.M. at Columbia Law School 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.

Fluent in Swahili, Giriama, English, and Kamba, 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. Her favorite book is "The Genealogy of Morals" by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Coming from the vibrant city of Rio de Janeiro, Revelyn grew up in a family with a diverse cultural Brazilian background and lived in the US for a period of her teenage years. She returned to Rio where she graduated in Psychology in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and later specialized in College and Career Counseling.

Revelyn engaged in several counseling courses throughout the years with institutions such as Columbia University, Harvard University, The State University of Rio de Janeiro and IE University. She has worked in International and Brazilian Schools supporting high school students who wanted to study in universities all over the world, working as a talent developer for 10 years Rio and São Paulo, Brazil.

Her passion for global settings, led her to work as the Global Citizen Diploma Coordinator during two years, connecting her to amazing educators across the globe and traveling to over 7 countries. Revelyn is passionate about cultures, and is always looking for new ways to connect with them by culinary, music, literature and media. In her free time, Revelyn enjoys to cook, discover new music, travel and have meaningful conversations about Philosophy, History, and Psychology.

Born in Paris and raised in the Tramuntana Mountains of Mallorca, at 16, she left for a UK boarding school to pursue art. During her gap-year, she spent three transformative months in rural Nepal, on a project supporting girls access to education. Olivia graduated with a First in Fine Art from Oxford University, where she secured funding & support to create a film about dyslexia, which was picked up in unexpected places, all the way to the New Zealand Tertiary Education Comission.

Her love of starting with a blank page in a studio transitioned into a love of the zero-to-one stage of startups, leading her to join Prewarp, a fashion-tech startup. She was also part of the founding team of open-ended, curating art & tech conversations, launching 30+ podcast episodes, and producing two art-tech summits. From set design to ceramics, Olivia enjoys thinking on different scales, and her next project, CIRCOL, a semi-circular sketchbook, launches this summer. Fluent in Spanish & French, Olivia is looking forward to guiding Baret Scholars on their adventure. One of her favorite books is Federico Campagna’s Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality.

Sammi is a social-environmental researcher and creative writer from the Arizona desert, passionate about restoring connections between humans and the living world through collaborative research and community-engaged stories. She thrives best when she is working and researching in community, cultivating meaningful connections across cultural differences.

Sammi graduated from Santa Clara University with a double major in Environmental Studies and Psychology and a minor in Musical Theatre. She has researched sustainable behaviors and greenspaces in Bolivia, sustainable development and transportation infrastructure in Copenhagen, and kayaked and written nature poetry along the Sea of Cortez. She developed a passion for gender-focused research in Uganda and Rwanda, where she conducted action-research with a social enterprise and became inspired by the power of women’s collective economic power. On a Fulbright research grant to India, she studied women's agency in small-scale solar entrepreneurship in South India, clarifying her love for qualitative, creative, and community-based methodologies in social research. Sammi recently completed a Master of Philosophy in International Development at the University of Oxford, delving into human and ecological flourishing and alternative development perspectives. She collaborated with an Indigenous-led NGO in the Peruvian Andes, studying the concept of “Buen Vivir” or “harmonious living.” Her time in Peru inspired her to be a bridge for centering diverse ecological knowledge traditions. She has continued this work through a collaborative research project with a botanical garden in Cornwall, studying how sensory engagement and art can reconnect humans to the living Earth.

Sammi is also a dancer, singer, yoga teacher, outdoor adventurer, and book-binder. She is deeply passionate about movement and mindfulness in all forms. She also cares about living a compassionate, non-violent lifestyle, ask her about vegan recipes or non-violent communication. Sammi is so excited to live in community with the first cohort of Baret Scholars, learning together! Her favorite books are “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer and “The Overstory” by Richard Powers.