Meet the Leadership Team

Dr. Joyce Blackwell

Executive Director and Temporary Durham Collaborative Manager

Dr. Joyce Blackwell is owner of the Institute for Educational Research, Development and Training LLC,..

jbjohnson@built2lastinnovationslab.org

Jessica Nelson

Executive Administrative Assistant

Executive Administrative Assistant to the Executive Director for Built2Last Innovations Lab, Inc.

jnelson@built2lastinnovationslab.org

Precious Allen

Enterprise Training Center Manager

President and CEO of Precious Estates and a Real Estate Broker with Keller Williams Realty, Inc.

pallen@built2lastinnovationslab.org

Dr. Oriana Leach

Program Evaluator

Program Evaluator, Built2Last Innovations Lab, Inc.

ol@built2lastinnovationslab.org

Thehong Le

Program Coordinator

Program Coordinator, Built2Last Innovations Lab, Inc.

tle@built2lastinnovationslab.org

Dr. Joyce Blackwell

Executive Director and Temporary Durham Collaborative Manager

Dr. Joyce Blackwell is owner of the Institute for Educational Research, Development and Training LLC,..

jbjohnson@built2lastinnovationslab.org

Jessica Nelson

Executive Administrative Assistant

Executive Administrative Assistant to the Executive Director for Built2Last Innovations Lab, Inc.

jnelson@built2lastinnovationslab.org

Precious Allen

Enterprise Training Center Manage

President and CEO of Precious Estates and a Real Estate Broker with Keller Williams Realty, Inc.

pallen@built2lastinnovationslab.org

Dr. Oriana Leach

Program Evaluator

Program Evaluator, Built2Last Innovations Lab, Inc.

ol@built2lastinnovationslab.org

Thehong Le

Program Coordinator

Program Coordinator, Built2Last Innovations Lab, Inc.

tle@built2lastinnovationslab.org

411 West Chapel Hill Street
Suite 10
P. O. Box 12886
Durham, NC 27701

Office: (919) 998-9747
Info@Built2LastInnovationsLab.org

Our Overall Mission

Built2Last works to create a more inclusive entrepreneurial and business ecosystem in Durham, with an emphasis on women and underrepresented minorities, and assist individuals in marginalized communities to gain the skills and experience needed to fully participate in economic prosperity.

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Durham Built2Last Innovations Lab, Inc. values equity, diversity, and inclusion in all its dimensions. As part of our mission, we welcome all voices to add their perspectives on how we can ensure that our community remains diverse. Our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion strengthens our voice as a community while elevating our ability to eliminate economic disparities.

Dr. Joyce Blackwell is CEO/President of the Institute for Educational Research, Development and Training LLC, an agency that works with non-profit, government and private sector partners to conduct research, develop and guide strategy, and build capacity to promote evidence-based policies, programs and practices for women and girls of color. For the past 18 months, she has served as consultant/manager of the Durham Compact, which was created by the City of Durham’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) to secure strategic partners for Built2Last-related initiatives.

Blackwell is regarded by her peers as a nationally recognized scholar of African American women peace activists, and a thought leader dedicated to positive change and inclusive excellence. Her workshops on issues such as gender equality and inclusion related to African American women, student development and retention issues, and assessment in higher education have been featured at national conferences and colleges across the United States and internationally. She is recognized in the higher education community as an accreditation specialist and a student retention specialist.

Blackwell earned her B.A. and M.A. degrees in History from North Carolina Central University (Durham, NC) and her Ph.D. in U.S. Women’s History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC). She is also a graduate of the William R. Harvey Executive Leadership Institute, Leadership Person County, and the American Council on Education Leadership Program.

Prior to serving as CEO of her own company, Blackwell worked as a tenured professor of History at both North Carolina Central University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She spent the last fifteen (15) years before staring her own business as Provost and Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs at Bennett College for Women (Greensboro, NC) and Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at South Carolina State University (Orangeburg, SC). She has also served as an academic dean and department chair. Blackwell has also served as Director of a nonprofit in her hometown.

Blackwell is also an author and researcher. Her pioneer study, No Peace without Freedom: Race and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915-1975 (Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), is the first and only comprehensive study written to date on the national and international peace activism of African American women. She has widely published articles on African American peace activism in various scholarly journals and books. Moreover, she recently published Volume 1 of a two-volume work on the history of White Rock Baptist Church, entitled, Upon This Rock: White Rock Baptist Church’s Dynamic People and Their Influence in the Durham, North Carolina, Community, 1866-2016 (Cary International Press, 2018). Volume 2 is scheduled for publication in Winter 2022. She is also a reviewer for the Journal of American History and the Journal of Peace Studies..

Blackwell has also been a frequent presenter at various professional conferences on her research interests. In addition to serving as an invited Keynote Speaker for the Globalization and Public Policy International Cross-Cultural Research Exchange Conference in Auckland, New Zealand, as well as the 28^th Triennial Congress of the U.S. Section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Blackwell has served as a Content Consultant on the 2-hour documentary, North Carolina’s World War II Experience.

During her career in higher education, Dr. Blackwell garnered at least $22 million in grant funding to support academic initiatives. She is also the recipient of several awards and is a Mary McLeod Bethune Scholar and an Oxford Roundtable Scholar. Since leaving higher education, she has secured an additional $2.4 million in grant funding.

In addition to holding membership in several professional organizations, Blackwell is an American Council on Education Executive Leadership Fellow, North Carolina Council of Independent Colleges and Universities Executive Leadership Fellow, Ford Foundation Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and a University of North Carolina Board of Governors Fellow. Design

Blackwell has decided to continue her work with the nonprofit, which began in 2018, for the next year serving as its first Executive Director in an effort to ensure some continuity in leadership. She will also work with the Durham Compact until a new Manager is identified.

Jessica Nelson is the Executive Administrative Assistant to the Executive Director for Built2Last Innovations Labs, Inc..

In this position, she provides organizational and logistical support on special projects, helps with the coordination of corporate and community events, and serves as point of contact for internal and external contacts.

Jessica is the newest member of the Built2Last Innovations Inc. team, joining in January of 2024. She recently graduated from Durham Tech with honors within her degree in Business Administration. Her certifications include Business Administration through both the Human Resources Management depart and Business Core program. Over the last 5 years, Jessica has served in various Customer Service roles, including serving in roles in Client Support at LabCorp.

Jessica is passionate about problem solving and providing services for the roles she takes on. Her positive attitude and persistence fuel her desire to assist in any capacity. She finds inspiration from her husband and their 4 children. They are truly the driving force behind her passion. She hopes to assist in making a major impact in the community by partnering with non-profit organizations.

Precious Allen is President and CEO of Precious Estates and a Real Estate Broker with Keller Williams Realty, Inc. She previously served as a New Homes Sales Consultant/Realtor with D.R. Horton. Ms. Allen is also a Real Estate Instructor. Furthermore, she currently leads the City of Durham’s Built2Last Small Business Team.

Ms. Allen is not only a real estate entrepreneur but also a community advocate serving on several City of Durham committees for entrepreneurship leadership and community development. She believes that while education is important, training and development are necessary. As a dedicated real estate instructor, she promotes out-of-the-box curricula that challenge new and seasoned agents to not only sell real estate but establish their position of value in the industry so that they are built to last.

Ms. Allen’s clients range from first-time home buyers, real estate investors, to builders and non-profit organizations. Her clients not only see her as their buying and listing expert but as a relational strategist. She is also a tech ambassador to her real estate constituents. She helps agents implement technological systems in business that engage and streamline workflow processes with a higher rate of productivity.

Ms. Allen attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

Ms. Allen serves as a member of the Durham Compact Board of Advisors and is chair of its Small Business Grassroots Engagement Committee.

Dr. Oriana Leach is an accomplished research scholar, filmmaker, and educator who has devoted the last fifteen years to creating equitable spaces in P-20 education through research and practice. Dr. Leach attended New York University where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Film and Television Production from Tisch School of the Arts, and she went on to pursue a Master of Science degree in Education at St. John’s University where she graduated with highest honors. After several years in the advertising and education sectors, she decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in Educational Psychology from North Carolina State University where she graduated in 2018 after producing a ground-breaking dissertation study and related documentary film that centered the academic experiences of gifted Black girls attending predominantly White schools, and used a Critical Race Theory lens to understand how those experiences were shaped by the girls’ racial identity development, parental socialization messages, and sense of belonging.

Dr. Leach has served as both the Program Director of Academic Year Programs and the Assistant Director of Assessment, Evaluation and Advancement at Duke University; Data Scientist and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Consultant at The Diversity Movement; and Senior Researcher at Learn. While in the EdTech industry, Dr. Leach also co-led a major mixed-methods research project on K-12 schools around the nation whose students of color and economically disadvantaged students exceeded expectations in reading and mathematics during the pandemic school year (i.e., 2020-2021) and “beat the odds”. Her research received national recognition and was even featured in EdWeek.

During her stint at North Carolina State University, Dr. Leach served as a program evaluator at The William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation on a 5-year multi-million-dollar National Science Foundation grant where she led qualitative data collection and analysis efforts and disseminated research findings across stakeholders. While at North Carolina State’s center for Educational Informatics, Dr. Leach managed large-scale research projects with research teams across the country, led grant writing and recruitment efforts of districts, schools and universities.

Not only has Dr. Leach taught at the K-1 and university level with appointments at both North Carolina State University and Carolina University, but she has also served as a regular reviewer for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Journal of International Studies. It has also been important for her to remain active in her community and in the workplace to advance equity through concrete, on-the-ground action. Hence, she has served on several local and national committees throughout the years that are centered on equity initiatives in education, including the Equity and Innovation Committee with the Durham Public Schools Foundation and Gifted Racial Accountability Committee on Equity (G.R.A.C.E.) Committee with the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC).

Dr. Leach regularly conducts independent qualitative and mixed-methods research on the P-20 schooling experiences of BIPOC students and the gendered racial experiences of faculty of color in higher education. She was the lad author on a heavily cited student that documented the experiences of Black faculty and staff in higher education and the impact of racial microaggressions on their mental health using Critical Race Theory. She has also used intersectionality and identity development frameworks to examine the gendered racial experiences of women of color. She has published several book chapters, journal articles and white papers, and presented her research at several national conferences, such as the annual conferences for the American Education Research Association (AERA), American Psychological association (APA), the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI).

Additionally, Dr. Leach is the founder and Board President of The Obsidian Institute, a 501(c )(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing out-of-school enrichment programming to gifted and talented youth from traditionally marginalized communities. She is also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Research, Equity, and Training in Education, LLC (C.R.E.A.T.E.), where she focuses on achieving equity in K-12 and higher education. She also hopes to use documentary filmmaking as a narrative change strategy to shift narratives and influence policy change.

When she is not working or advocating for social justice in social systems, Dr. Leach is an active and involved parent. She is also a foodie who enjoys raveling to new places around the country and world. She enjoys spending time with her husband and three children.