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Lisette Nieves was the first Puerto Rican woman and the first Brooklyn College grad to be a Rhodes scholar when she graduated from the college in 1992.
Now she's the president of the Fund for the City of New York, which aims to support excellence in government and nonprofit organizations with a focus on underserved communities.
Nieves went on to earn advanced degrees from Oxford, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania, and now she's the founding executive director of a program for young adults called Year Up New York.
"I founded Year Up to create a path to social mobility and give talented young adults access to skill-based training without the financial burden," Nieves tells Gothamist.
"I have had the pleasure of identifying talented young people, first convincing them that they can succeed in whatever they choose to do, and then colleagues at Year Up, that they belong in the program."