Here at SoulGen, we like to highlight progressive, creative, highly-intelligent, impactful change makers who embody the SoulGen mission… “making conscious cool.” SoulGenesis is proud to feature one of our earliest members and supporters, Brian Peterson.

Brian is an author and educator. He holds a Bachelors of Science and Engineering (Computer Science) and a Masters in Education from the University of Pennsylvania (www.upenn.edu).

Currently, you’ll see Brian’s blog, Obamantary, featured on our home page.

On his blog, Brian says “I am a writer caught up in a whirlwind of activity, forced to pick and choose moments for reflection. This slice of time - two years ago, an improbable dream for most, is one to tell the grandchildren about. I’m trying my best to capture the stories and my underlying thoughts, and praying the world is really ready for change.”

As the former Executive Director of The Ase Academy (www.aseacademy.org), Peterson has displayed a tremendous passion and commitment to the education of youth. He also has extensive experience in supporting college students. He served as the Education Fellow in W.E.B. Du Bois College House (dubois.house.upenn.edu) on Penn’s campus for five years, developing outreach and academic support programs for House residents and the entire African American community on campus. He also designed and co-teaches an African American studies course at Penn, and was an active leader of several student groups while in college.

Peterson has written two novels, Move Over Girl (2000) and Spoken Words (2004) (www.chance22.com), both receiving critical acclaim and wide appreciation. He is also a former staff writer at Okayplayer.com (www.okayplayer.com), the online music community for the Grammy-award winning group The Roots, Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, Common, Talib Kweli, and others. There he founded and edited a literature appreciation section called “Okay Books,” in addition to providing news content for the site and interviewing artists.

In 2003, Peterson co-founded and launched Lion’s Story (www.lionsstory.org), a non-profit educational research and development collaborative to develop and assess life-long learning strategies for people of color, specifically incorporating technology and innovative content. The African American Student’s Guide to Excellence is one of Lion’s Story’s first projects.

Peterson currently resides in Philadelphia with his wife and three children.