DEIA Alumni Career Panel

Brooke W. Hayes ‘08 is from Columbus, Ohio. At Denison, Brooke majored in Black Studies and minored in Dance and was awarded several scholarships and awards including the Black Alumni Association Scholarship and the University’s Distinguished Leadership Award. Brooke was active in several organizations such as America Reads and the Black Student Union and chaired the student-led performance arts showcase Black Rhythms for two years. After Denison, she earned a Masters of Counseling Ministries at Methodist Theological School in Ohio and is currently working at Syntero Inc. as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). As a counselor, Brooke’s mission is to help people ‘do the work’ of becoming their healthy, healed, and whole selves.

Bayurat Fashina Ikupoluyi M.S ‘08 is a health informatics consultant specializing in instructional design and training. Her current client is The University of Washington Medicine.The software she works with (EPIC) is used by over 60% of healthcare systems in America and also used internationally, including in the Emirate of Dubai where she recently consulted on a historic implementation of the software with the Dubai Health Authority and IBM Middle East Africa. Bayurat completed her Black Studies senior research project on “The Knowledge, Prevalence and Treatment of Childhood Water

Related Diseases in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania” and continues to have a passion regarding addressing health and socio-economic disparities in the Black diaspora. The intensive writing, research and communication skills she honed during her time as a Black Studies major and Anthropology and Sociology minor at Denison are definitely applied every day in her field. She is currently developing a social enterprise and a blog (@Tokunbology) with a focus on fostering partnerships, poverty alleviation, empowerment, and the lived experiences of people of Nigerian heritage born/living abroad.

Jeremy Torres (He/They) ‘18 majored in Political Science with a concentration in Queer Studies at Denison. Jeremy currently works as an Assistant Residence Director at the University of Vermont, where he is obtaining his master’s degree in Higher Education Administration in the School of Education and Social Services. Before this, Jeremy worked at Denison University as a Resident Assistant and Community Coordinator, leading Safe Zone Training workshops and other initiatives. Jeremy’s professional and volunteer work has centered around community activism, student engagement, policy, diversity and inclusion, and LGBTQ youth.

Courtney Baxter Bentley ‘11 majored in International Studies & Women’s Studies at Denison, where she was an Eloise A. Buker Fellow and won a Nan Nowik Memorial Award for Senior Research and the University’s Distinguished Leadership Award. She currently works as Executive Assistant to the Chief Business and Strategy Officer at Root Insurance Company in Columbus, OH. Prior to this position, Courtney worked as Chief of Staff and Director of Partnerships for The OpEd Project in New York City, which works to get more women and men of color putting their ideas and research into the world through media. She has also worked as a consultant for The Barack Obama Foundation (to select the 2019 class of Obama Fellows) Feministing, and The Matriots political action committee (to elect more women to public office in Ohio).

Paige Robnett ‘14 was a Communication & Women’s Studies double major and Eloise A. Buker Fellow at Denison. Her senior year, she helped found a chapter of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) on campus to advance women’s equity. After graduation, she moved to Washington, DC to pursue her passion for women’s advocacy. She started off as a Public Policy intern for AAUW National and left as their College/University Relations Manager, where she helped more than double the number of campus chapters.

Feeling disillusioned by the nonprofit world, Paige started working at Cook Ross, a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consulting firm in 2017. There she was relieved to finally work for an organization that leveraged and valued concepts she learned at Denison (e.g., intersectionality, critical race theory, etc.). As a Project Consultant for Cook Ross, Paige advised senior leaders around DEI best practices, created organization-wide DEI Strategic Plans, and designed/facilitated DEI learning curriculum.

Currently, Paige directs and implements large-scale DEI initiatives as a Diversity & Inclusion Partner for Rock Ventures in Detroit, MI. She also continues to advise additional clients through her own consulting practice. Paige has a Master of Public Administration degree with a concentration in Organizational Evaluation and Leadership from George Washington University and volunteers with an organization called Running Start to train college women to run for office. In her free time, she enjoys singing karaoke, playing pick-up basketball, and snuggling with her 6 month old puppy, Deni.