Who you'll learn from.

Educator and innovator Carlos REC McBride has over 15 years of experience spanning higher education, multimedia storytelling, and community-focused initiatives. REC is an advocate for equitable education and inclusive learning environments, mentoring underserved students. He specializes in leveraging technology and creative arts — such as photography, video, and audio — to foster engagement, address social issues, and support diverse learners.

REC has taught at institutions such as Hampshire College, Smith College, Holyoke Community College, and The High School of Commerce, designing interdisciplinary curricula on topics like social justice, urban studies, Hip-Hop culture, and Art and Graffiti culture. He extends his commitment to social justice through his work with incarcerated individuals and those working through mental health and substance use challenges. He has traveled throughout the country offering workshops and lectures, mentoring young men who face systemic barriers and supporting self-empowerment and healing.

Executive Chef Sara Barnes began her culinary career in New Orleans, Louisiana, working for the Brennan family at their flagship restaurant, Brennan's, and their Italian eatery, Bacco's. After several years in the South, she returned to her native Chicago to work at RIVA on Navy Pier, a high-end seafood and steakhouse. During this time, she attended community college and eventually earned a scholarship to Mount Holyoke College, where she graduated with honors in Biochemistry. Following graduation, Sara worked as a researcher at Mount Holyoke, published her scientific findings, and taught Organic Chemistry labs. She also taught Biochemistry at UMass while briefly pursuing a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology. As a new mother, Sara found it challenging to spend long hours in the lab, leading her to leave the PhD program to pursue her lifelong passion for cooking.

Since then, she has managed the prepared foods department at River Valley Coop in Northampton, owned and operated her catering company, Ebony and Savory, The Tap Room in Hadley, and Avalon Lounge and Game Cafe in Holyoke. Additionally, Sara has collaborated with Tapestry Health to provide outreach meals to unhoused persons in Holyoke. Currently the Executive Chef for De La Luz, Sara is passionate about supporting young teens and believes the kitchen is a welcoming space for everyone.

Kamil Peters is a contemporary metal artist working out of Ludlow, MA, with roots in Texas and Western Massachusetts. His work spans a wide range of expression — from intricate mask work to large-scale commercial installations. Peters evokes glimpses of the past with a distinctly modern edge, drawing viewers into his interpretations of the natural world and allowing his environment to play a defining role in how the work takes shape.

“Through my career as an artist, an enduring goal has been to share my knowledge, fulfilling a sense of responsibility to pay homage to the tradition of passing down the secrets of metal craftsmanship and sculpture. Imbuing others, particularly young people, with the principles and skills involved in the creation of contemporary metal artwork is not only rewarding — it provides an opportunity to learn from the creative process and instincts of individuals beginning to work with the medium. There are prospects for interested people to truly experience the synergy of an artistic relationship with metal, and limited options for exposure to the creative economy.”

Carlos is a founding staff member and a key contributor to the success of the program. Carlos has a degree from UMass Amherst, and is an artist, screenprinter, and poet. He lives in Holyoke and is very involved in the community.

Steph joined the LightHouse in early 2021. She graduated from Northern Vermont University with a B.A. in Theatre and Drama. Since graduating, Steph has continued to work and teach in theaters locally and in the Metro West area. Some of her theatrical interests include costume design, playwriting, acting, and directing. Steph is passionate about personalized education and is excited to be a part of the LightHouse community.

Willow came up as a non-traditional learner who figured out early that the best way to understand something is to make it. That instinct took her all the way to a master's degree in landscape architecture — and continues to apply to most things in her life.

When she's not designing spaces, she's crocheting, knitting, quilting, sewing, collaging, or drawing. Preferably all in the same week. Preferably with her dog nearby and an audiobook.

Willow believes making things is for everyone — not just people who think of themselves as artists — and that the best creative spaces are the ones where you feel free to experiment, mess up, and start over. She brings that energy into every class.

Kyle Homstead has spent more than three decades living at the intersection of art and technology — a touring audio engineer and music producer who still travels the world with artists like Sweet Honey in the Rock, Solas, and Omar Sosa. As Director of the De La Luz Technical Arts Institute and Technical Director at the HOPE Center for the Arts, he builds hands-on learning pathways for young people in the production fields, grounded in a simple conviction: technical fluency and creative fluency are the same thing.

A parallel life in software in Silicon Valley led him into agent-based research at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition — a decade before AI agents became a mainstream conversation. That early-adopter lens is what he brings to the classroom today: not AI as a shortcut, but AI as a collaborator that only works when the student brings the judgment. His deepest goal is equipping the next generation to be the authors of their work — not its audience.

Julia Ro is a working photographer whose practice spans editorial and documentary work, with a particular affinity for processes that make the physics of light visible. She is an advisor at LightHouse Holyoke, where she helps young people develop visual literacy as a foundation for creative and academic confidence — working from the conviction that a student who learns to truly see can apply that skill anywhere.

Her photographic work moves fluidly between digital and analog: from precise digital technique to alternative processes like cyanotypes and anthotypes that turn chemistry into image with no computer involved. That range shows up in her teaching, where each class is designed around the idea that understanding why a technique works is as important as executing it.

David Lane has spent over thirty years in schools — for-profit, non-profit, parochial, private, and public — working with adolescents and adults across Los Angeles, New York City, Manchester NH, central Massachusetts, and northern New Jersey, where he's from. He has served as classroom teacher, department chair, assessment coordinator, grants administrator, director, and school principal. Through it all, his deepest question has been the same: how do we build environments that actually support student agency?

That question led him to self-directed learning, which changed how he understands education entirely. Being a staff member at LightHouse Holyoke, he says, is a dream come true. He is also a poet, a lover of the arts, a husband, and a father.

Kim Chin-Gibbons is a Cambodian-born, American-raised, folk-turned progressive-rock musician from Western Massachusetts. Her work combines the ethereal yet heavy elements of baritone guitar songwriting with heartfelt lyrics, born out of experiences grieving a tragically lost childhood friend, and Kim's experiences while she was in the six-piece progressive-rock band, Sunset Mission.

Kim is an alumna of June Millington & Ann Hackler's Institute for the Musical Arts in Goshen, MA, and she is also an apprentice at Healy Guitars, where she is building a seven string guitar from scratch and developing luthier skills.

Her debut release “Coming Out, Math-Rock & Mourning Murder” is out on all streaming platforms now, with vinyl available Summer 2026.

Zachary Leo is an experienced passionate multi-instrumentalist, performer, songwriter and producer.

Zach studied songwriting at Berklee College of Music and majored in Contemporary Music Composition/Performance at Columbia College. Although his main focus is guitar and drums/percussion, Zach also plays bass guitar, keyboard, banjo and many other instruments. Prior to college Zach attended The Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Academy.

Zach serves as Band Director at the HOPE Center for the Arts and has spent the better part of the last decade performing, producing and composing with several bands throughout the Pioneer Valley. He has toured throughout the United States. Zach is passionate about composing for small ensembles and assisting bands and artists with their songwriting and creative endeavors. He has experience in everything from Chiptune (electronic) to traditional folk (acoustic) musical genres.

Zach's goal with every student is to bring his “Create first – Study after” teaching approach to the HOPE Center for the Arts. This approach aims to simultaneously develop and encourage a student's “creative passion” while teaching the fundamental technical skills needed to express that passion through their instrument(s) of choice.

Nehemiah Caradwyn — "The Duke of Holyoke" — is the venue manager at De la Luz, a singer-songwriter and content creator, and a LightHouse Holyoke alum.