New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Meet Connecticut’s Class of 2023
They’re giving voice to the voiceless. They’re creating opportunities for others. They’re making it big on the world’s grandest stages. They’re forging new paths in industry.
They’re winning at the highest levels of athletic competition. They’re working to find cures for deadly diseases. They’re devising innovative solutions to the world’s problems.
Selected from nominations of readers and Connecticut Magazine staff, this year’s 40 Under 40 collection of influential young people is changing the game in Connecticut and beyond. They feature a kaleidoscope of backgrounds and pursuits, but what they all have in common is their power to inspire others to do great things of their own.
Here are 10 members of the 40 Under 40 list. Check in next week for the next list of 10 names.
Jamal Robinson
In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, Robinson was inspired to promote more diversity in the brewing industry, of which he’s been a part for 18 years.
He founded the New England Brewing Co. Equality Committee and has led his team to create two African American brewers scholarships, raising over $100,000 in the last two years.
Linked to this work, he serves as the president of the Change in the Air Foundation, a nonprofit that fundraises for the brewing scholarships. He is also the lead organizer for the Change in the Air Festival, a beer, music, art and food festival centered around diversifying craft-beer drinkers. If that
weren’t enough, he’s also a liaison for Newhallville Community Action Network with their Star Street Garden. An avid gardener, he is in the middle of building a half-acre urban homestead in New Haven.
“What I’m most proud of in my career is the work I’ve been able to do in the last two years in helping to diversify and evolve this industry for the long term,” he says. “It has given me so many great things and it’s rewarding to now be a leader doing my part in helping to make it not only more diverse but a better industry overall.”
@nebcojammy on Instagram
Zakiya Dalila Harris
When she was 26, Harris made the risky decision to quit her editorial job at Knopf/
Doubleday so she could focus on writing her debut novel,
“The Other Black Girl.”
“I had no clue what the outcome would be — I hadn’t completed a full draft of the book yet, and I didn’t know if anyone would actually want to read it,” says Harris, who grew up in Hamden.
“I just knew that I enjoyed writing it, and that I needed to see it through.”
See it through she did, and the 2021 book became an instant New York Times bestseller. A Hulu series is scheduled to debut later this year.
In addition, Harris’ writing has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Guernica and The Rumpus, and she earned an MFA in creative writing from The New School.
The Brooklyn, N.Y., resident’s advice to aspiring writers: “Write the story that feels the most true to you. Don’t get too caught up in who’s going to read it or whether or not people are going to enjoy it.”
zakiyadalilaharris.com , @zakiyadalilaharris on Instagram, @zakiya_harris on Twitter
Amanda Mammana
NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” is known for feel-good stories. There might not have been a better story in the show’s latest season than the one Mammana delivered.
Before performing during the show’s auditions, the Trumbull resident tentatively introduced herself: “As you can probably tell, I have a bit of a speech impediment and it was definitely something that caused me to shy away — to hide — but I found that I don’t stutter when I sing.” Mammana proceeded to sing an original composition, “Back to Life” and accompanied herself on guitar, wowing all four judges and earning a spot in the competition.
Though she didn’t make the show’s final, her story of struggling with a stutter since age 10 inspired countless viewers. Mammana returned to the national stage by singing during halftime of the Oct. 16 NFL game between the Miami Dolphins and the Minnesota Vikings in Florida.
You’ll be hearing more of Mammana soon; she signed a deal with Next Music to record her debut album.
amandamammana.com , @amanda_mammana on Instagram
Sarah Taylor
When Taylor moved back to Connecticut from New York City, where she was a clinical social worker in a traumafocused clinic for young children and families, she needed a bit of therapy herself.
Falling in love with candle making and beekeeping, she soon realized it might just be the key for helping others find healing. She saw “beekeeping’s potential to be an innovative, complementary health practice to promote healing, systemic change in the human services field, and environmental education and stewardship for pollinators,” says Taylor, who set out to bring the bees’ magic to youth and young adults in the New Haven area.
While working at the Yale Child Study Center in 2018, she created the Huneebee Project to teach area young people to install and maintain honey bee hives, a therapeutic, job-skills training program that promotes environmental conser
vation in the process. Today, there are hives across seven garden sites in New Haven, North Haven, Clinton and Bridgeport, and the project has graduated 25 youth from its program.
Taylor aims to provide opportunities for many more in the years to come. “I hope that it can prove to youth who are used to being on the receiving end of service, that they can, in fact, drive good and drive change.”
huneebeeproject.com
Michael Andreini
After a couple of years as the chief operating officer of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF), Southport’s Andreini was named president and CEO in 2021, leading the prominent cancer research organization in its mission of accelerating the quest to find a cure for all patients with the rare blood cancer.
Known for his hard work, commitment to innovation and focus on advancing precision treatments for patients, Andreini empowered MMRF to stay the course with its critical work throughout the pandemic.
Under his leadership, the MMRF launched, and is now driving enrollment to, the CureCloud direct-to-patient research initiative, the goal of which is to inform data-driven, precision-based treatment decisions by patients.
Through the MMRF’s Myeloma Investment Fund, Andreini supports the organization in advancing next-generation therapies, while catalyzing biotech and venture capital to fund the most innovative research in myeloma.
Andreini, who grew up in West Hartford, also has a deep commitment to community service, currently serving as a volunteer board member for Harc Inc., the Hartford-based nonprofit providing programs, services and care for people with intellectual and related disabilities.
themmrf.org
Julie Benko
Barbra Streisand did it in 1964, and little-known actress, singer and Fairfield native Julie Benko did it in 2022. By “it” we mean achieving breakout success by playing Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl.” When Benko ascended from stand-in to lead after Beanie Feldstein left the show, critics and audiences raved about the NYU Tisch School of the Arts-trained actress. “CBS Mornings” called her “Broadway’s breakout star” and said she was “killing it.” Lea Michele was brought in to play Fanny in September 2022,
but Benko has continued performing the lead every Thursday and whenever Michele is out.
Her talents extend beyond performing on Broadway and include writing, directing and starring in the short film “The Newlywed’s Guide to Physical Intimacy,” which won an honorable mention at the 2020 New Faces New Voices Film Festival.
She recently released an album with her husband, jazz pianist and composer Jason Yeager, “Hand in Hand,” and her first full-length play, “The District,” was a semifinalist at the 2022 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.
Benko is set to play the role of Ruth in the new musical “Harmony” from Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman, bound for Broadway in 2023, and if all that weren’t enough, she spent the pandemic raising money for charities through her “Quarantunes” musical series with Yeager.
juliebenko.com, @jujujuliebee on Instagram and TikTok
Ayah Galal
In December 2021, Galal became the first woman in a hijab to anchor a newscast in Connecticut. The reporter for WFSB-TV joined the “Eyewitness News” team in 2018 and currently serves as Hartford bureau chief.
A board member of the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists, the Prospect native graduated from Quinnipiac University, where she doublemajored in journalism and political science. She is passionate about diverse representation.
“Muslims have historically been misrepresented and underrepresented in the media, and I hope I can help change the narrative by showing you can stay true to who you are while also doing what you love,” Galal says.
“My advice is that it’s OK to look different, and if there isn’t a path for you, don’t be afraid to blaze your own trail.”
ayahgalal.com , @ayahgalaltv on Instagram, @ayahgalal on Twitter
Mike Keo
In the early days of the COVID pandemic, Asians and Asian Americans in the U.S. faced suspicion, harassment and, sometimes, worse. Keo, who is the child of Khmer refugees, feared for the safety of his family and friends. “I was worried for my parents, who survived the Killing Fields [of Cambodia] that they could be attacked,” he says. Amid this fearful climate, Keo decided to take action to show that people who look like him are just that — people. The West Hartford photographer started a portrait project of Asian Americans he knew called #iamnotavirus, an effort that soon spread nationally. “I wanted to humanize our joy and fears so our neighbors would understand that these attacks were against their neighbors,” he says. Keo next sought to combat the longstanding problem of lack of visibility of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S.
In 2021, he co-founded Make Us Visible with the mission of helping communities incorporate
AAPI contributions in K-12 education. “We were worried our children were not being seen and were still the target of racism,” Keo says.
The group’s efforts resulted in a new state law requiring public schools to implement localized AAPI curricula. “We wanted to make sure all students had the opportunity to learn about local Asian American history as a preventive measure to hate.”
iamnotavirus.info , makeusvisible.org , @mikekeo on Instagram
Carlos Sosa-Lombardo
Sosa-Lombardo leads a cross-functional team to enhance the safety net for populations at the highest risk of poor outcomes in New Haven. He has led the transformation of the emergency response system in New Haven by creating a community civilian crisis response team that responds to 911 calls, employing mental health professionals.
The work is inspired and informed by his personal history as a Latino immigrant. He was born in Paraguay and grew up in Mount Vernon, N.Y.
Prior to his current role, he was the special projects director at the New Haven Community Services Administration, where he established the Reentry Welcome Center to assist people recently released from incarceration, and supported the development of the first municipal offices of violence prevention and community mental health initiatives in the state.
Charlie Negaro Jr.
As the head of New Haven’s Chabaso Bakery and Atticus, Negaro’s job entails getting more flour on his clothes than your typical CEO. Chabaso is a wholesale manufacturer of frozen artisan breads and distributes to retailers on the East Coast.
Atticus has two retail locations in New Haven — a bookstore cafe opened in 1975 by Negaro’s father, and a market opened in 2021. Most recently he co-founded Connecticut Food Launchpad and leverages his food-manufacturing experience to help bring retail-ready products from emerging local food brands to market.
He has also been a leader in the movement of Northeast bakers and brewers to shift their sourcing to regionally produced grains, shifting the high-end bread at Atticus to exclusively New Englandgrown specialty flours.
He’s also worked with Sanctuary Kitchen and Cityseed in New Haven to develop the process and a customer base for baked goods produced by their community of immigrants and refugees. These collaborations paved the way for Chabaso Bakery to rethink its hiring process. In collaboration with IRIS in New Haven, the bakery began hiring Afghan refugees, who now make up 15 percent of the company’s hourly workforce. “I love building things,” Negaro says. “I am most proud of building a collaborative environment where a diverse group of people can work together on a shared mission to use busi