Emerald Award Honorees 2021

Jacqueline L. Mims is a former NASA Aerospace Technologist and Rocket Scientist. She is the Founder and CEO of My Global STEM Academy, a mobile technology training initiative that utilizes a holistic approach to teaching our youth. Ms. Mims believes that success begins with a positive attitude and begins each program with a course on Mindset Mastery and Self Awareness. In her approach to education, she also stresses Financial Fortitude and Entrepreneurship.

Another major emphasis in her Academy is technology. Students are taught coding, building and designing robots and drones, and the latest technology concepts. Ms. Mims is active in her community. She serves as a mentor and coach for a local Robotics team. She has functioned as a co-host of a summer camp for minorities on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill. The camp courses included financial fortitude, physical fitness, leadership, team building, designing drones and a Shark Tank competition. As a US Black Engineer honoree, she volunteers to chaperone and speak to inner city youth during conferences.

Ms. Mims left corporate America to devote time to the education of the underserved and transitional students. She is a Program/Project Manager and Adjunct Instructor at North Carolina’s largest junior college – Wake Tech. She is currently leading efforts to create a partnership between Wake Tech and an International university in Uganda. On one of her trips to Uganda, she witnessed the coronation of the world’s youngest king and had the occasion to speak with the King and the Queen Mother about her STEM Academy.

Nnenna Freelon is an American jazz singer, composer, producer and artist.  She has dedicated herself to educating young people of all ages, musicians and non-musicians. Her master classes and workshops and “Babysong”, teach adults and children that they can change the world, one person at a time. Ms. Freelon is a six-time Grammy Award nominee. She is the winner of the Academia du Jazz and the Eubie Blake Awards, among others.

Ms. Freelon is a cast member and collaborator of The Clothesline Muse (a theatrical project). The Clothesline Muse celebrates African American culture, women’s history, the Civil Rights struggle and the labor movement through original live music, expressive dance and brilliant visual art. While touring this show, Ms. Freelon conducts community outreach events and ensures that the community participants engaged understand the messages portrayed in the show. She has also toured the United States as National Spokesperson for Partners in Education, a collaborative agreement between businesses and schools.

Yvonne Lewis Holley is a public servant and has a long history of community service to the African American community. She most recently served as a State Representative of NC House District 38 in the North Carolina General Assembly. For over 25 years, she worked closely with small and minority businesses, helping them gain an understanding of how to leverage the complex competitive bidding process for government contracts.

Ms. Holley is heavily engaged in many organizations and enterprises that impact the well-being of minority populations. She is an active participant in the Raleigh Wake Citizen Association, a community based nonpartisan advocacy organization to protect, encourage, educate and help residents in their economic, social, and political advancement. She is a founding member of Wake County Commission for Women that focuses on the elimination of racism and empowerment of women. As a Representative, she introduced the NC Corner Stone Bill that was an intiiative to encourage convenience store owners to offer nutrient enriched foods.

Continuing her commitment to be impactful, she was on the 2020 ballot for Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina. Over the span of her career, after graduation from Howard University, Ms. Holley has been active in numerous groups, organizations, and Boards. Some of her activities include YWCA Board, Passage Homes Board, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Steering Committee, and the African American Family Documentation Initiative with UNC Chapel Hill that is nationally recognized.

Felicia Browne-Lherisson, ScD, MPH, is a senior social epidemiologist at RTI International and serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Health Behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dr. Browne-Lherisson has more than a decade of experience adapting and implementing HIV behavioral interventions locally and globally to empower adolescent girls and young women at risk for HIV. She is a Multiple Principal Investigator of an National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded R01 study in North Carolina health departments to reach young African American women for HIV prevention. She is also a Principal Investigator of a UNC CFAR-funded pilot project in collaboration with Mecklenburg County Public Health to reduce disparities in HIV. Dr. Browne-Lherisson serves in key project roles on three additional NIH-funded R01 projects reaching women for HIV prevention and/or treatment in South Africa, where she has worked for the past 12 years. In 2019, Dr. Browne-Lherisson received the Triangle Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” Award and was selected as the Triangle Global Health Consortium’s Dr. Ward Cates Emerging Leader for her commitment to global health.

Dr. Browne-Lherisson received a Doctor of Science in Social Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a Master of Public Health in Health Behavior and Health Education from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Davidson College.

Dr. Browne-Lherisson is a member of the Durham Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated and volunteers for several local organizations, including the Durham Symphony Orchestra and WomenNC.