A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Desmond served from 2002 to 2009 as Executive Vice President of the Trefler Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to improving educational opportunities and success for Boston’s urban youth. Prior to Trefler, Dr. Desmond worked for more than 30 years at the University of Massachusetts Boston, with a focus on student affairs and community collaboration. He has also served as a guidance counselor at Northeastern University’s African/American Institute, and in the Boston Public Schools.

Dr. Desmond is active in civic and community organizations, including service as President of AARP Massachusetts and as a member of the Review Committee for the Broad Prize in Urban Education, Board of Governors for the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University, Brown University Design Group/Annenberg Institute for School Reform, and Cambridge College Board of Trustees. He was the co-chair and executive director of the Urban Educators Corps and is a past president of the Massachusetts Educational Opportunity Association, and he has been active with the American Council on Education, and the Council for Opportunity in Education, among other organizations.

Dr. Desmond earned his Ed.D. in Instructional Leadership from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a B.S. in sociology from Northeastern University. He is a decorated Vietnam veteran of the U.S. Army, receiving both Silver and Bronze star

has worked to advance education, culture and economic development in Boston through leadership roles in the nonprofit, private and public sectors. For 17 years, he was the Executive Director of The Hyde Square Task Force. Under his leadership, the organization received several awards including the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, the nation’s highest honor for out-of-school arts and humanities programs. As a neighborhood advocate, community organizer, and parent, Claudio has worked in Boston school reform efforts for the past 25 years, also serving as a member and Vice-Chair of the Boston School Committee. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Boston Foundation, the Youth Violence Prevention Funders Learning Collaborative, and Boston After School and Beyond. He is a member of the inaugural class of the Barr Foundation Fellows Program and a Mel King Community Fellow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is current Co-Director of Boston University’s BRIDGE Program.

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.