Founder & Principal Researcher
IIT Institute of Design · L.E.T. Design Innovate
I study how technology shapes career identity for marginalized youth — and I build the platforms, frameworks, and communities to act on what I find.
My story
I grew up watching young people — people who looked like me — be systematically excluded from the futures they deserved. Not because of capability, but because of access: to technology, to mentors, to the belief that a career in tech was even possible for them.
That experience became the question that drove my research: how does the way we design technology either open or close doors for marginalized youth? And more importantly — what can we do about it?
My PhD work at IIT Institute of Design focused on adaptive technology as a lever for expanding career possibility for young Black students. North Star is the platform that came from that research — a living prototype that puts the theory to work.
L.E.T. Design Innovate is the ecosystem I built to sustain this work beyond academia. It brings together research (L.E.T. Design), technology development (JIL Software Solutions), and direct community impact (Jerome Burke Foundation) into one integrated cycle.
The goal isn't research for its own sake. It's research that becomes tools. Tools that become opportunity. Opportunity that becomes identity. And identity that feeds back into reimagining what's possible.
I'm always looking for universities, educators, funders, and community organizations who want to build that cycle together.
Start a conversation →The ecosystem
Research generates knowledge. Technology operationalizes it. The foundation delivers it to the community.
The intellectual engine — independent research on technology, career identity, and equity, including the CIDR Framework™.
Visit letdi.org →The technology engine — builds North Star™ and the equity-centered EdTech products that put the research to work.
Visit jilss.com →The community engine — delivers mentorship, workshops, and North Star™ access directly into schools.
Visit jeromebf.org →Research
My PhD dissertation and the CIDR Framework™ anchor an active research program on adaptive technology, career identity, and equity for marginalized youth.
Explore the research →Community
From the Jerome Burke Foundation to North Star in Schools, the research is tested with — not just on — the young people it's meant to serve.
See the community work →