Black History Month Alumni Highlights: Human Services

In celebration of Black History Month, we wanted to highlight some of Binghamton University’s Black alumni who are doing exceptional work! Binghamton’s alumni are here for you to connect and network with, always eager to offer career advice because, at one point in time, they were in your shoes. Here are some highly accomplished Black alumni who can help you gain insight on your career! 

Cleonie Mainvielle

Cleonie Mainvielle graduated from Binghamton University in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She is the Owner and Founder of Inspired Outcome, a productivity and organizing business for busy professionals and entrepreneurs, as well as the Founder and co-president of a nonprofit called Diversity & Inclusion for Community Empowerment (DICE). After receiving her master’s in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania, Cleonie was nominated and appointed as a Presidential Management Fellow with the Federal Government. At the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), she worked with nonprofits and local governments to end and prevent homelessness throughout New England for 17 years, until she resigned in 2018 to become a full-time entrepreneur.  

In 2019, Cleonie served as foreperson on a trial for an innocent man who had spent 32 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder.  This experience solidified her commitment to advocating for systemic solutions that promote diversity, inclusion, equity, anti-racism, empathy, and compassion in institutional systems. As a result, she returned to the Federal Government as an Independent contractor. Cleonie works to support local and national communities in improving housing outcomes and the human experience for Black, Brown, Indigenous, and all people of color. More specifically, she provides consultation to these communities to support their commitment to confronting structural racism and racial inequities in their homeless response systems.

A piece of advice you would give to current Binghamton students:

“Liberate yourself from perfectionism and lean into failed attempts!”

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cleonie-mainvielle/

 

Louis Alerte

Louis R. Alerte, class of 2010, is the Global Intelligence Business Leader at Johnson & Johnson. He leads the opportunity identification framework to enable advanced intelligent automation. In his most recent role as Corporate Director of Community Health with RWJBarnabas Health System, he collaborated with multiple interdisciplinary teams to manage and direct numerous projects geared towards improving population health. Also, he directed the development and execution of analytical and research activities for strategic decision making to improve clinical outcomes.

Alerte is an academic appointee to St. George’s University School of Medicine and serves as an assistant professor of internal medicine. He holds a master’s degree in biomedical engineering and a Bachelor of Science degree in integrated neuroscience from Binghamton. He also has an MBA with a finance concentration from Ashford University, Forbes School of Business and Technology. Furthermore, Alerte is board certified in healthcare management as a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

A piece of advice you would give to current Binghamton students: The first is to connect with the career center to review your resume and connect you to an internship. Having an internship will give you a glimpse of what your potential career will be like and give you an advantage once you start looking for a role. The second piece of advice is to NETWORK! Connecting to alumni from Binghamton and others on LinkedIn has provided numerous opportunities for me that I could not have dreamed of.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lalerte/

 

Ashley Wells 

Ashley Wells, class of 2018, is a co-founder and the Chief Operations Officer of The Prosp(a)rity Project, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to improving the financial and economic mobility of college educated Black women. Founded in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, this organization is bringing financial literacy training and retroactive scholarships for student debt relief to award beneficiaries. 

Aside from her non-profit work, Wells is a graduate student at Columbia University, working towards earning her MA in American Studies. Passionate about the intersections of race and gender, she is researching how the intersectional identities of Black women make it more difficult for them to be both diagnosed with and properly treated for mental health conditions in the United States. 

Wells graduated from Binghamton University in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature. She then went on to earn her master’s degree in Creative Writing from Dartmouth College in 2020, where she served as President of the Dartmouth Writers’ Society. 

A piece of advice you would give to current Binghamton students: One piece of advice I would give to current students would be to make use of your professor’s office hours. Besides office hours being a good tool to get better insight on the course, they are also a great opportunity to easily network. Talking with your professor outside of class could be a great way to eventually get a letter of recommendation for a graduate program, learn about an internship opportunity, or to even just gain life experience for the future. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleywells11/

By Kyla Anderson
Kyla Anderson Senior Peer Consultant