Phillips Academy Alumnus To Run School's Minority STEM Summer Program

ANDOVER, MA — Phillips Academy announced earlier this month that alumnus Eliot B. Sykes has been chosen as the next director of the school's (MS)2 program, also known as Mathematics and Science for Minority Students.

Sykes, a 1997 Phillips Academy graduate, was chosen after a thorough community-based process and nationwide search, the school said.

(MS)2 is an educational outreach program that features outstanding high school students of color spending three summers on campus studying STEM — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — while being exposed to peers and educators with diverse backgrounds, life experiences and aspirations, according to the school. Students in the program pay no tuition or fees.

Sykes, who will officially take charge of (MS)2 in January 2023, returns to a campus on which he spent many years. Even before attending Phillips Academy as a high school student, Sykes was part of the community because his parents Rebecca and Elwin were educators and administrators at the school.

Eliot Sykes even attended the 1992 Summer Session as a student and was a Summer Session faculty member from 2004-07.

Even more significantly, Sykes brings professional experience in curriculum development, school-community partnerships, mentorship, supporting students of color and program evaluation and research.

"Eliot is uniquely equipped to lead this program and to advance the (MS)2 mission," said Beth Friedman, director of Outreach and Summer Session at Phillips Academy.

Sykes has a bachelor's degree in marketing from Johnson & Wales University and a master's in social work from the University of Utah. He earned a Ph.D. in the University of Utah's Department of Education and worked as an instructor in the university’s Ethnic Studies program.

Sykes also has worked as a therapist with the Ute Indian Tribe and served as a research analyst at the Utah Criminal Justice Center at the University of Utah.

In 2019, Sykes founded 635 Community Health Collective, which supports BIPOC and LGBTQ+ clients utilizing a trauma-sensitive approach, as well as conducting program evaluations and leading community-based research teams.

The (MS)2 program is one of four programs at Phillips Academy that supports its mission of being "a private school with a public purpose," the school said.

The other programs are: The Institute for Recruitment of Teachers (IRT), Andover Bread Loaf (ABL) and PALS (Phillips Academy, Andover and Lawrence Schools).