Serving the Underserved

Serving the Underserved

Maya Bhattacharjee-Marcantonio ’12 cofounded a school that offers low income students training for careers in software engineering

Maya Bhattacharjee-Marcantonio ’12

Maya Bhattacharjee-Marcantonio ’12 is passionate about social justice and educational equity. She recently cofounded The Marcy Lab School in Brooklyn, which offers an alternative approach to post-secondary education.

The school, which is funded by corporate grants, donations, and support from private foundations, offers low-income students a yearlong software engineering coding boot camp experience. It also provides technical training, leadership development, career coaching, and apprenticeship opportunities at technology companies.

The Marcy Lab School is currently in its pilot year and Bhattacharjee-Marcantonio and her cofounder, Reuben Ogbonna, are excited by its potential and the commitment of all those she has recruited to get involved.

“We have leaders from business, finance, and education on our board of directors who are committed to diversifying the technology industry,” she says. “Our shared goal is to help underserved black and brown students gain software engineering career opportunities and break out of generations of poverty.”

Bhattacharjee-Marcantonio can relate to her students. She grew up in Harlem, the child of Indian immigrant parents. They taught her and her sister, Shikha, about their rich Indian and Iraqi Jewish heritage. Many of her childhood friends and neighbors were immigrants and refugees from all over the world. For her, that upbringing instilled pride in, and curiosity about, her cultural background and the community that raised her.

At Rochester, Bhattacharjee-Marcantonio, a dual major in English and political science, delved into that curiosity and pursued a growing wish to help others. In her junior year, she joined the Rochester Refugee Alliance.

“We went into urban schools where many of the young people we worked with were either immigrants or the children of immigrants,” she says. “That experience helped me realize how much I loved working with young black and brown people. I told them what they didn’t hear often enough—that they were brilliant and beautiful, and that they deserved the same opportunities as everyone else.”

After college, Bhattacharjee-Marcantonio pursued her purpose. She went back to New York City and worked as an English teacher and instructional coach. She then worked as a director for Teach for America where she provided leadership coaching for teachers and school administrators in her old Harlem neighborhood—the same one that helped raise her. And, in 2018, she was selected for a Hands-on Education, Law, and Media (HELM) Social Design Studio Fellowship, which provided three immersive weeks in Ethiopia to conduct advocacy work for youth and women.

At The Marcy Lab School, all of Bhattacharjee-Marcantonio’s life experiences come together. “It’s a community here—of dedicated students, gifted teachers, and committed industry partners,” she says. “Together, we can lift our students out of poverty and help them build a pathway to the middle class. And, we can give them hope for a better future for themselves and their families.”

— Kristine Thompson, December 2019