10-23-2022 W2W - Flipbook - Page 30
Valenciá De’La Clay-Bell, 2019
Literacy consultant, El Education; educator,
Baltimore Design School; author
Valenciá De’La Clay-Bell worked during the
pandemic to secure a Verizon grant aimed at
putting electronic devices into student hands. The
grant moved her into a coaching role for Baltimore Design School — and ignited her interest in
working directly with educators. This summer,
she also began working as an independent literacy
consultant for EL Education, a nonprofit whose
curriculum is rooted in teamwork and equity. “I
have a lot of compassion for teachers, because I
was once there,” she said. “I like to tell them [the
curriculum] is everything you need in one place.”
She is also a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins
University and recently released a book “Grow
Beyond Creative Barriers.”
— Lillian Reed
Amy Elias, 2020
Founder and CEO, Profiles; vice president,
Baltimore Museum of Art Board of Trustees
Amy Elias’ work life has maintained its momentum since 2020, when she was named a Woman
to Watch, and the highlight, she said, has been
her work with the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Elias began advancing a “Guarding the Art” show
concept in February 2020. The exhibition, which
showcased works curated by the museum’s security guards, ran earlier this year to wide acclaim.
Not wanting it “to live and die at the museum,”
Elias has a forthcoming project to allow other
museums to adopt the idea. “Stay tuned [for]
‘Guarding the Art version 2.0,’” she said.
— Hannah Gaskill
Angel McCoughtry, 2019
WNBA player and entrepreneur
Since 2019, Angel McCoughtry has released
an album titled “New Hope,” opened a basketball court in Louisville, signed on as executive
producer of a horror film centered on Georgia’s
Lake Lanier and become part owner of a French
men’s basketball franchise. “I feel like I’m the
LeBron James of the WNBA,” she said. Despite
only two appearances for the Minnesota Lynx in
May, McCoughtry has plans to return from two
ACL tears, including by representing the U.S. in
the 2024 Olympics. “I’m going to finish on my own
terms,” she vowed.
— Edward Lee
30 | 2022 | WOMEN TO WATCH
Tiffany Majors, 2019
CEO and president, Greater Baltimore Urban
League
Getting impoverished people employed in jobs
with salaries that can take them to the middle
class has been a priority for Tiffany Majors since
taking command of the Urban League in 2018,
and more so since the pandemic. “Once COVID
happened,” she says, “there was a huge release of
individuals from jails and prisons. But they were
released without resources.” The league established a cybersecurity certification program, and,
so far, 46 men and women have gained the training
needed for careers that could lead to annual salaries as high as $140,000.
— Dan Rodricks
Kathleen Neuzil, 2020
Director, University of Maryland School of
Medicine’s Center for Vaccine Development
and Global Health
Kathy Neuzil spent the past two years overseeing trials of four different COVID-19 vaccines and
is readying the next generation of boosters. But
the vaccinologist serving on national and international scientific and policy panels knows work
on other infectious diseases must continue. “The
world is so interconnected and we’ve seen this
over and over,” she said. “Diseases don’t respect
borders.” That’s evident from monkeypox, which
Neuzil said is another example of the need to
fund public health infrastructure and stay ahead
of infections. “This shows, again, the need for
pandemic preparedness,” she said.
— Meredith Cohn