Join GS alumni working in the field of education as they discuss their career paths, their time at Columbia, and their best advice for those pursuing jobs in education.
Dinner will be provided.
About The Panelist
Lucas Capra '17GS
Lucas Capra is an educator and education consultant based in Brooklyn. He majored in Political Science at Columbia with a focus on American politics and received an MA in social studies education from Columbia’s Teachers College. Over the past five years, Lucas has taught in a diverse range of high schools in New York and Los Angeles. While teaching at Santa Monica High School, he worked with a team to redesign the Social Studies curriculum across all of the district’s secondary schools to ensure alignment with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Social Justice Standards. He is currently a consultant working with Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District on development multimedia classrooms for advanced film and digital media production.
Jacqueline Holland '08GS
Jacqueline Holland is an Assistant Director of Children's Education at Lantern Community Services. Jacqueline graduated from The School of General Studies at Columbia in '08 with a major in Literature and Writing. Prior to Columbia, she became a Co-Founder of the site www.Insideschools.org, that help parents navigate the NYC school system. She has visited over 400 public schools, and has co-authored the NYC Best Public Schools book series. Her current children's book, Ambrose: The Day the World Changed Forever, was workshopped at Columbia. She started her own consultancy, where she worked for nonprofits, such as Children’s Aid Society, City College, and The Eagle Academy Foundation. She continues to advocate for youth through her global Board work.
Darlene O'Connell '12GS
Darlene O’Connell is a member of the 2017 New York City Teaching Fellows cohort. While completing their rigorous pre-service training program she attended Brooklyn College, where in 2019, she graduated summa cum laude with an M.A in Adolescent English Education. After serving three years with the New York City Department of Education, as a public middle school teacher in Brooklyn and the Bronx, she transitioned into the Westchester County School Districts system. Currently, she teaches tenth and eleventh grade English Literature at New Rochelle High School, where she is also a member of the New Rochelle District Curriculum Planning Committee. Darlene has six years of teaching and curriculum writing experience and is passionate about teaching in Title I schools and underserved communities. Darlene graduated cum laude from Columbia University School of General Studies with a B.A. in English and Comparative Literature in 2012.
Jeffrey Omar Patrick '13GS
Jeffrey Omar Patrick joined the faculty at the New York Medical College (NYMC), School of Medicine (SOM) as an instructor of medicine, teaching the multiculturalism in medicine course while still an MPH student and taught the other 4th year medical students how to go beyond prognosis and diagnosis to treat the entirety of the patient—no matter who their patients were or where they came from. He served as the co-chair for the faculty development subcommittee for the NYMC Anti-Racism and Anti-Bias Task Force Steering Committee. Currently, he is an assistant professor at the SOM, developing the BE-ME Behavior Change Program and the Reverse Mirror Seminar, two revolutionary academic courses centering on dismantling racism in healthcare and beyond while pursuing his EdD degree at Columbia University, Teachers College in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies.
