Youth Fellowship Program - Pseads
Lambert Light Youth Fellowship
Transforming Potential Into Purpose
The Pseads Lambert Light Youth Fellowship is a transformative 12-month journey in creativity, leadership, and meaningful impact. Launched in 2024 with an inaugural cohort of 17 young women, the fellowship empowers participants to explore their passions, develop vital skills, and lead original projects that spark curiosity, learning, connection, and joy.
At its heart, the fellowship invites bold questions: What hasn’t yet been imagined? Which spaces are without a voice or a listener? How can creativity and deep listening help uplift whole communities? It honors the wisdom and ingenuity of young people and opens new pathways for their ideas to take root, resonate, and make a lasting impact.
Photo and © Steve Uzzell
Connection and Community
Through mentorship, hand-on experiences, and community-based collaborations, Fellows engage in work that advances women’s health and well-being, promotes social justice, and nurtures environmental stewardship. Along the way, they build confidence and deepen self-expression while navigating key transitions – from middle school to high school, high school to college or early career.
Through storytelling in a myriad of forms—whether original research, reflective writing, poetry, art, music, or movement—Fellows explore the power of narrative as a tool for renewal, connection, and hope. Their work creates meaningful impact in their communities while opening new pathways for leadership, imagination, and purpose.
What Makes a Fellowship Distinct
At Pseads, a fellowship is more than a position – it is an invitation explore passions, lead meaningful projects, and grow through mentorship and community engagement. While interns often support the day-to-day operations of an organization, Pseads Fellows are seen as creators, collaborators, and ambassadors. They pursue original research or creative work while contributing to the Pseads’ evolving programs, cross-sector partnerships, and collective impact. Through this journey, Fellows help shape a learning culture rooted in deep listening, storytelling, relationships, and transformation.
Mentorship and Partnership
Pseads Fellows benefit from our innovative approach to learning, developed over the past 20 years, and are supported by a dynamic network of mentors, advisors, and partners. As they pursue passion-driven projects, they also play a pivotal role in advancing Pseads’ mission to uplift the spark of brilliance in every individual and open new pathways to success and fulfillment—both personally and in schools, careers, and beyond.
What We're Looking For
The Lambert Light Youth Fellowship recognizes and supports young people who demonstrate creative initiative, deep curiosity, and a desire to contribute meaningfully to their communities. We believe talent and potential take many forms – and that some of the most remarkable young creators, writers, and innovators are those who may not yet see the full reach of their own gifts.
Designed to uplift youth at pivotal moments of growth and transition, the selection process aims to prepare Fellows to navigate middle school, high school, and college, and early adulthood with confidence, compassion, creativity, and resilience. Fellows are nominated by educators, mentors, and community members who have witnessed their initiative, creative drive, integrity, and potential for meaningful community contribution.
CREATIVE INITIATIVE
A spark of curiosity and imagination; a drive to explore or express ideas creatively.
COMMITMENT TO INQUIRY
An openness to new ideas and perspectives; a desire to approach learning with curiosity and care.
COMMUNITY SPIRIT
A collaborative mindset and integrity; a willingness to contribute to positive community change.
GROWTH & RESILIENCE
A readiness to grow in confidence, voice, and self-expression during key developmental moments.
STORYTELLING
An interest in sharing human stories that build empathy and connect communities.
Join This Growing Effort
We would love to explore ways Pseads Youth Fellows can support your work and learn from your organization’s mission (email elizabeth@pseads.org). Potential areas for collaboration include:
• Supporting mentorship or engagement initiatives
• Assisting with community events and programming
• Contributing to storytelling, writing, or creative projects
• Volunteering with social impact and environment projects
• Designing and leading interactive workshops
• Becoming a financial supporter
2025-26 Lambert Light Youth Fellows
(click Fellows’ names for project pages)
Amalya Rajparia (Lead Fellow)
12th Grade
Project Focus: Women’s Health, The Impact of Birth Stories
Amalya Rajparia has been part of Pseads since 4th grade, growing from volunteer to research fellow and peer mentor. As a Lambert Light Fellow, she designed and carried out an independent research project on the lasting impact of birth stories, collecting both structured data and intimate interviews from over 100 participants. Her work culminated in a peer reviewed journal publication (Curieux, Aug 2025), a keynote address on maternal narratives and generational shifts, and an audio documentary she researched, scripted, and produced. She supported the expansion of the fellowship to other high school and middle school students and now provides mentorship to new fellows. Amalya also launched a program to secure scholarships to bring students from across Marin to participate in a unique educational opportunity through the Bioneers Conference at UC Berkeley. Her commitments extend beyond research and advocacy: she is a dedicated tennis player and shares music weekly with elders in an assisted living community, where her piano playing brings comfort, joy, and companionship to residents each week.
Santa Rosa Junior College
Project Focus: Social Psychology – Reclaiming the Creative Self
Margot Agnew is a college student studying humanities with a lifelong love of learning and creative expression. She has been writing poems and stories since early elementary school and remains drawn to forms of inquiry that invite curiosity and authenticity. She is especially passionate about the conditions that allow people to express themselves freely and truthfully. Margot’s creative interests span writing, painting, photography, guitar, and songwriting. She loves seeing live music, reading, and movies of all kinds. She is fascinated by faces, expressions, dimensions of human experience, created worlds, and the challenge of capturing what feels unsayable. From the punk music scene to upcycled fashion and the graphic lines and storytelling of tattoo art, she gravitates toward forms that honor reinvention and individuality.
Lucy Bakowski
University of California, Chico
Project Focus: Social Psychology – Poetry and Transformation
Lucy Bakowski grew up in Fairfax, California. She’s been writing since she was old enough to pick up a pen, and has found in poetry a safe haven on her journey of self-discovery. She is currently working on her first collection of poems for publication, which already includes more than 350 original poems, and spends two-three hours a day on the practice and craft of writing. Lucy is a creative of all worlds, from the stage, to the blank page and the camera. She’s also a supporter, holding space for the creativity in all people, from hosting open mics to supporting feminist issues in Girl Talk Magazine. She has a vision for the power of art to awaken the human soul and differently open hearts and minds to a just and peaceful world. Lucy is committed to social and environmental justice, and to LGBTQ+ rights. She believes in the power of reading poetry in between the lines, and has been a part of Pseads since its first years. Lucy loves spending her time with the trees and wildflowers, and writing in the company of her cat, Lucky. She is a freshman California State University, Chico.
Leila Colbert
10th Grade
Project Focus: Social Psychology – Identity Politics and Civic Engagement
Leila Colbert
12th Grade
Project Focus: Environmental Care – Nature, Health, and Juvenile Arthritis
Maisie Ferner is a senior at Archie Williams high school, and a dedicated member of the Team Academy; an experiential outdoor education program that focuses on connecting students with the natural world around them. Maisie is passionate about poetry, the outdoors, and helping others, all elements she has combined into her project focused on social justice and environmental care. Since elementary school, Maisie has been an avid part of the Pseads community through volunteer work, filmmaking projects, and poetry programs. As an inaugural member of the 2025 Lambert Light Fellowship cohort, Maisie is continuing to work on combining her passion for the outdoors with her desire to help others.
Dominican University of CA
Project Focus: Social Psychology – Dance, Identity, and Liberation
Amanda Harris is an artist, dancer, choreographer, movement educator from Los Angeles, CA. and an alumna of the Alonzo King LINES Ballet BFA Program at Dominican University. She began her training under the tutelage of Debbie Allen, and has since immersed herself in a wide range of various styles of dance and movement traditions, including contemporary and classical ballet, multiple modern techniques (Limon, Horton, Graham), flamenco, tap, hip hop, jazz, West African dance, and Dunham. During her time in the LINES BFA program, Amanda had the opportunity to work with choreographers such as Gregory Dawson, Carmen Rozestraten, Maurya Kerr, Laura O’Malley, and Anne-Rene Petrarca, gaining valuable knowledge and meaningful experience with diverse creative processes and artistic lineages. Following graduation, she’s had the honor of working with Charlotte Smith, Santiago Rivera and Valkyrie Yao through Deborah Brockus’ Match Residency. Soon after the residency she joined Maura Townsend Dance Project. In addition to her work as a performer and educator, Amanda is exploring expression through poetry and writing. Guided by a deep hunger for knowledge and understanding, her creative work often delves into questions of the human experience and the state of the world.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Lamorte
12th Grade
Project Focus: Social Psychology – The Power and Necessity of Wonder
Lizzie Lamorte is an artist who loves to collaborate on creative projects and inspire ideas in everyone around her. She began making art and stories before she could write, and teaching has always come naturally to her. Lizzie writes and produces her own songs and loves jamming with friends and her brother, Toby. She sees a canvas everywhere – visualizing movies in her mind, hearing stories in melodies, composing songs in her dreams, sensing patterns in poems, and finding rhythm even in a smile. Last year, she began volunteering in elementary classrooms, leading lessons in writing, spoken word, and filmmaking in collaboration with Pseads’ Hope on the Rize program. She loves to write, hike, and spend time at the California Academy of Sciences and Bay Area trails, sights, and hidden gems. She believes that creativity is essential to growth, not only art. Inspired by this belief, she founded two clubs: a film club at her high school and the Awe + Wonder Club, a creative collective for all ages. An invited speaker at Pseads events and a participant in Pseads’ programs from the beginning, Lizzie feels most alive when she’s creating or helping others find their voice. She believes creativity reminds us what it means to be human – and gives us the power to shape the future.
Dominican University of CA
Project Focus: Social Psychology – The Adultification of Black Girls
SenSaSheri Maasera is a professional dancer in her debut season with Saint Louis Dance Theatre. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the Alonzo King LINES Ballet Program at Dominican University of California, with a minor in Philosophy and Religion. As was one of the inaugural Pseads Fellows, SenSaSheri helped inspire the first Lambert Light Fellowship cohort and currently serves on the Pseads’ Mother Tree Council, uplifting youth voices through the Hope on the Rize program. SenSaSheri was born in Saint Louis and also spent a lot of her childhood in Bermuda. She grew up in a family active in The Organization for Black Struggle (OBS), dedicated to serving oppressed communities within St. Louis. Her early experiences with Freedom School, gardening, and school district reconciliation fostered a lifelong passion for social and environmental justice, ethics, and a deep connection to nature. Guided in part by her family’s deep rooted spiritual practice, she has developed a love for introspection, mindfulness, and the exploration of spirituality, including through movement.
11th Grade
Project Focus: Social Psychology – Fashion, Identity, and Sustainability
Abbie Morehouse is a junior at Archie Williams High School in Marin, CA, with a deep love for writing and storytelling. She studies journalism as a staff member of the Archie Williams student newspaper, The Pitch, where she brings curiosity and care to her reporting. A varsity volleyball player, Abbie carries that same passion and commitment to teamwork into her creative and academic work. Beyond school, she is a longtime advocate for environmental stewardship in her community, including leading a campaign to reduce local reliance on single-use plastics. She also spent a summer learning with The New York Times fashion team, exploring the intersections of culture, fashion, and media. As a Pseads Fellow, Abbie is currently working on a series of essays that examine fashion through multiple lenses, from self-expression to environmental impact. When she’s not writing or playing volleyball, she loves to bake. Fun facts: she’s adopted an elephant and has been bucked off a horse.
University of California, Berkeley
Project Focus: Documentary Film – Storytelling for Change
Isabella is a student, artist and activist, and enjoys spending her time writing, drawing, painting, and making short films on environmental topics in hope of bringing awareness and a deeper appreciation for our home. In 2021, her short film, Nature, was awarded distinction in the Redford Center Stories Challenge, and that summer she won a Planet 911 Youth Film Fellowship, where she made her film We the Trees to help others realize what we can learn from trees. Isabella also loves screen printing, drawing, painting, and photography. Her painting, Absent Smiles, received a national silver medal in the 2020 Scholastic Art and Writing awards, and her painting, Out the Sliding Door, in 2022 received a Gold Key, the same award as Amanda Gorman and Andy Warhol. Isabella has been participating in Pseads poetry and writing programs since her early elementary years, and is now designing curriculum and film projects with Pseads. She is a first-year students at the University of California, Berkeley.
Claire Palmer
12th Grade
Project Focus: Social Psychology – Passion, Purpose, and Vitality
Claire Palmer
12th Grade
Project Focus: Environmental Care – Photovoice and Stewardship
Zara Prime is an avid lover of the arts and the outdoors. A senior at Archie Williams High School, Zara is a dedicated member of Team Academy, an outdoor education program seeking to redefine learning. She loves hiking, time at the beach, and outdoor adventures. A creative from a young age, Zara is passionate about painting, photography, music, and countless artistic mediums. Since moving from the East Coast in elementary school, Zara has been an active member of the Pseads community and has spent time as a volunteer, leader, and innovator. She has participated in Psead’s poetry and filmmaking programs, volunteer work, as well as attended the Bioneers Conference with Pseads. In 2025, Zara wrote and performed original poetry for Pseads’ first annual Harvest of the Heart celebration. As an inaugural member of the 2025 Lambert Lights Fellowship cohort, Zara’s project is designed to balance her passion for art with community need for environmental advocacy.
Nadia Rajparia
9th Grade
Project Focus: Social Psychology – The Healing Power of Music
Nadia Rajparia
Dominican University of CA
Project Focus: Social Psychology – Identity and Embodiment
Edie Stubblefield is originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has recently returned to the Twin Cities, where she is dancing in a professional training program in Minneapolis-St. Paul. She is a graduate of Dominican University of California, where she earned her BFA in Dance through the Alonso King LINES Ballet Program. Edie was one of the inaugural Pseads Fellows and helped inspire the first Lambert Light Fellowship cohort. She also helped create the first Pseads poetry anthology, published in 2025. Edie is pursuing a professional career in contemporary dance and hopes to continue her academic journey through graduate study and research in neuropsychology. She is particularly interested in how dancers learn, process emotion, and perceive their bodies, especially in relation to the mirrors. She finds joy at the intersection of writing, movement, and science. Outside the studio, Edie loves to dance, swim, attend concerts, spend time at the beach, and paint.
Emma Ulvestad
8th Grade
Project Focus: Social Psychology – Creative Confidence and Connection (BLOOM)
Emma Ulvestad is a passionate innovator and one of the inaugural Fellows of Pseads, which she also helped inspire. A middle school student with a strong sense of purpose, she created and leads the BLOOM workshop series for elementary school students centered on creativity, reflective writing, and community-building. She has served as a featured speaker at Harvest of the Heart, where her clarity, kindness, and creative vision deeply moved the audience. A strong poet, imaginative filmmaker, natural leader, and thoughtful builder of ideas, Emma is always thinking about ways projects can create cross-benefit and meaningful ripples of impact. She chose to donate the proceeds of her Bloom workshops to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and has been an active volunteer with the Marin Postpartum Center. Outside of her creative work, Emma finds joy playing sports (especially soccer), spending time with her family and friends, and hanging out with her dog, Buddy. She loves making things that help people feel seen, inspired, and more connected to who they are and what they care about.
Amara Watson
12th Grade
Project Focus: Social Psychology – Storytelling Across Generations
Amara Watson
Lily Wild
8th Grade
Project Focus: Social Psychology – Poetry of Identity and Self-Worth
Lily Wild
Lambert Light Youth Fellowship, Junior Fellow
Gracyn Gellert
3rd Grade
Project Focus: Environmental Care – Food as Story and Connection
Gracyn
How This Fellowship Got Its Name