Amya Diggs (she/her) is a junior student from Frederick, Maryland, studying journalism and publishing at Emerson College. Her passion for writing and her love of activism started early in her life, and both have led her to work as a student employee at the Social Justice Collaborative, working out of HIVE. Through illuminate, Amya hopes to continuously grow this platform for the Emerson community and strengthen the connection between the institution and the greater Boston area. You can find Amya napping or listening to her eclectic playlists in her free time.

Rebecca Sherman (she/her) is a senior IDIP student studying Communications & Popular Cultural Studies. She is passionate about the intersection between pop culture and social values, which led to her to work with HIVE as a celebratory space for identities across Emerson and Boston. With HIVE, Rebecca organizes events that embrace identity and community, which she is excited to extend into her work with illuminate.

Adora Brown (she/her) is a junior Journalism student with a minor in Nonprofit Communication. She grew up in a small town called Ellicott City, Maryland surrounded by forests and the Chesapeake Bay. Adora consistently found issues of social injustice in a predominately white town, and sought out ways to better create space for herself in Boston. She is fascinated by the ways that the nonprofit sector can advance the voices of marginalized communities and people. Adora works at the Elma Lewis Center doing storywork and learning more about the Greater Boston area. Adora has always loved to write in various forms — articles, fiction, poetry, and more. illuminate provides the platform to combine her interest in social justice with multimedia forms of expression. In her free time, Adora is watching New Girl, That 70’s Show, Community and listening to music from the early 2000s.

Zaryah Qareeb (she/her) is a sophomore student studying Media Arts Production with a minor in Philosophy. This aspiring filmmaker and occasional writer enjoys discussing Pan-Africanism, Intersectional Feminism, Marxist theory, and everything else in between. Her work centers around representation in media and reimagining what liberation could look like through storytelling. She’s also a SURGE staff member at the Elma Lewis Center, collaborating on the Growing up Roxbury project. In her spare time, she enjoys reading afro-futurism, fangirling over Solange, and watching rom-coms!

Abbie Langmead (she/they) is a senior creative writing major with minors in Postcolonial and Global Studies, along with Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Born and raised in the Greater Boston Area, Abbie has taken up an interest in writing about place, community, and how identity interacts with both of those things. She also works as a Student Ambassador for the EmersonWRITES program with HIVE, a creative writing program for Boston public school youth that they once attended. Through their work with illuminate, she hopes to foster an environment for the Emerson community to engage with the city around them.

Jack Loney (he/him) is a senior Visual and Media Arts major with a focus on Screenwriting and Film Criticism. He is deeply interested in collaborative storytelling and collective cultural analysis, and hopes to make space for both in his art and academic research. He worked previously for the Elma Lewis Center’s Social Justice Solidarity Circles, curating reading lists helping foster discussions on restorative justice. In his contributions to illuminate, he hopes to foster that same environment with his writing. In his free time, Jack writes short stories, embroiders, and plays entirely too much Dungeons & Dragons.