Judges

Morell Jones

History Educator, Geffen Academy at UCLA. Morell Jones is a history educator at the Geffen Academy at UCLA. He is an alumnus of UCLA, where he received an undergraduate degree in history and received his master’s in education from Cal State San Marcos. Morell has served as an educator in the Greater Los Angeles area for over 20 years and has taught at both the elementary and secondary levels. Most recently, Morell stepped out of the classroom to become a student support/intervention specialist. The Geffen Academy is a university-affiliated, tuition-based school with a public mission to support and improve secondary education. The Academy is uniquely positioned between public and private school traditions, with the freedom to develop a fully research-based curriculum aimed at participating in the national conversation about modern education.

Ian Kumamoto

Writer, New York Ian was born in Mexico City to a Chinese mother and a Mexican father before immigrating to Dallas, Texas. His words have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, VICE News and others. He is currently a lifestyle writer at Mic. Ian graduated from New York University and is currently pursuing a non-fiction MFA at Columbia. Ian’s writing covers everything that has to do with the lives and wellbeing of queer people and people of color, across themes of identity, mental health, representation, and community.

We wanted to highlight the invaluable efforts of the Make Noise Today team who sorted through all 900+ essays, and our judging panel who took the time to read the 200 finalists and score according to the rubric.

Eleanor Wikstrom

Poet Laureate, Editor of The Harvard Crimson Beginning at a young age, Eleanor’s efforts to harness the intersection of writing and activism have been repeatedly recognized by local, national, and international entities. As a National Young Arts Winner in Writing (Spoken Word) and the 2019 Oakland Youth Vice Poet Laureate, Eleanor has performed her spoken word at events around the country, from the YWCA Inspire Awards to the United Nations 75th Anniversary Commemoration. In 2020, she used her platform to lead in-class workshops on creative expression as a counter to forces of colonization, which culminated in the publication of a student poetry anthology. Most recently, she published a long-form op-ed on Harvard’s role in U.S. colonialism in the Philippines which topped the most-read list and was shared hundreds of times online. She is currently a sophomore at Harvard College, where she is an editor and executive on the Editorial Board of The Harvard Crimson undergraduate newspaper and a policy director at the Harvard Undergraduate Foreign Policy Initiative.