ELEVATE Past Program Participants 

Kerry D. Brackett, an influential figure at Miles College in Birmingham, AL, serves as the Director of the Writing Center and an English instructor. Kerry holds an Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration from Liberty University and a master’s in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University. His research spans rhetoric, African American literature, creative writing, and more. He mentors students with dedication, reflecting his commitment to education and the arts. His open-door policy fosters a nurturing environment for student growth.

Guillermo Ortega is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Texas Tech University. His research uses qualitative and quantitative methods to examine opportunities, organizational structures, and outcomes for underrepresented college students. Specifically, he examines how colleges and universities, including Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), reproduce systemic inequalities that shape academic and athletic opportunities for Latina/o/e/x students. Guillermo has been awarded the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Early Career Award in Sports and Education and was named a Faculty Fellow for the American Association of Hispanics of Higher Education (AAHHE).

Cynthia Estrada is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI). As a first-generation college graduate and Latina, Cynthia brings a unique and critical perspective to her work, centering race and racism in her research to address higher education access and equity issues for minoritized student populations. She is also a faculty affiliate for the CCHALES research collective, where she conducts work on racial and gender equity for Communities of Color within the community college system.

Cynthia earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Race and Ethnic Studies within the Social Science and Comparative Education program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She holds a B.A. in English with a minor in Applied Psychology and Education from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

Keith Rivero is an Assistant Professor in the Secondary Education, Technology Education, and Foundations Department at Florida A&M University. He holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University and has a background in teaching U.S. History, World History, Civics, and Contemporary Global Issues at the secondary level. His research focuses on global citizenship education, multicultural education, and innovative Social Studies instructional methods. His work examines how teachers help students grapple with the interconnectedness of the contemporary world to foster their development into well-informed, empathetic global citizens. Additionally, Keith explores inquiry-based curricula and issues-centered teaching methods that emphasize the importance of authenticity in everyday classroom instruction. He has presented at several conferences, including the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), International Assembly (IA), Florida Council for the Social Studies (FCSS), and the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Since 2024, Keith has served as a co-principal investigator and project manager for Florida’s African American History Task Force, whose mission is to promote awareness, understanding, and support the infusion of African American history and the African American experience into Florida’s schools.

Olasunkanmi Kehinde is an Assistant Professor of Quantitative Psychology and Psychometrics in the Department of Health and Human Studies at Elizabeth City State University (ECSU). His research focuses on student motivation, resilience, and engagement, applying advanced quantitative methods, psychometrics, and machine learning to address educational and psychological challenges. Committed to evidence-based research, he works to improve student retention and graduation rates, close achievement gaps, and enhance faculty development at Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). 

As an early-career scholar, Olasunkanmi has contributed through his works in psychological, educational, and medical research. His expertise in data-driven methodologies informs institutional decision-making, and he actively fosters interdisciplinary collaboration to advance education, psychology, and medicine.

Kristine Jan Cruz Espinoza is an Assistant Professor of Counseling and College Student Personnel at the Graduate School of Education at California Lutheran University. Her current research interests revolve around Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), particularly dual- and multiple-designated Minority-Serving Institutions, including Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs) and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), and federal racial data classifications. Prior to her doctoral journey, she worked full-time as the Student Affairs Officer in the UCLA Asian American Studies Department, where she was part of the later advocacy effort for the Pilipino Studies minor (the first in the University of California system) and coordinated UCLA's inaugural Ethnic and Indigenous Studies Welcome. 

Kristine is a proud daughter of different two-year and four-year public MSIs. She earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education and a Graduate Certificate in Program Evaluation and Assessment at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Proudly from Carson, California, she was a community college transfer student from Long Beach City College to the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, where she earned her B.A. in Biology, B.A. in Anthropology, and M.Ed. in Educational Administration.

Yvanne Joseph is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Medgar Evers College, City University of New York. She earned her Ph.D. in Critical Social/Personality Psychology from the Graduate Center, CUNY. She also holds a Master of Arts in Psychology from Hunter College, CUNY, and a Bachelor of Arts in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Yvanne immigrated to the United States as a child, an experience that shaped her research focus on Black immigrant racial and cultural identity development, liberatory pedagogy, and ethnic minority health and healing practices. She is passionate about teaching online and in person and is deeply committed to mentoring students. Yvanne has taught various courses in human development, including Theories of Personality, Adulthood and Aging, Adolescent Development, Psychology of the African Diaspora, and Psychology of Oppression. Her dedication to Medgar Evers College and her commitment to mentoring students from diverse backgrounds have been recognized with multiple honors, including the 15-Year Dedication and Service Award, several Student Mentorship Awards, and accolades for excellence in teaching.

Linda Lara Jacobo is an Assistant Professor in the Public Health Department at San Diego State University Imperial Valley with expertise in Toxicology, Environmental Health, and Sustainability. She has experience in research, mentoring/teaching, and scientific advisory. She is developing liaisons between health, environment, gender equality, diversity, Indigenous engagement, art, and science diplomacy toward a sustainable world. She is part of the Women in STEMM Leadership program, taking action against climate change on a global scale, including participation in an expedition to Antarctica to advance scientific collaboration and environmental advocacy.

Mui Vuong is an assistant professor at California State University, Fresno. She teaches graduate courses focused on counseling and student affairs in the Department of Counselor Education and Rehabilitation. Mui also served as the interim field placement director for the Department of Counselor Education and Rehabilitation, overseeing and coordinating the practicum and internship placements of students in the department.

Prior to teaching, Mui was the Executive Director for five equity programs in the Division of Student Affairs: Educational Opportunity Program (first-generation college students), Summer Bridge, Renaissance Scholars Program (foster youth students), Dream Success Center (undocumented students), and the Office of Black Student Success for more than 20 years. The position entailed a wide range of responsibilities, including leading a diverse team of 15 full-time counselors and 35+ paraprofessionals.

Mui is the primary author of an article that was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of College Student Development. In addition, she co-authored and managed several grants serving foster and homeless youth. Mui was also a manuscript reviewer for the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on the effects of self-efficacy on the academic success of first-generation, foster youth, student parents, and marginalized student populations. Mui is a proud mother of four, two girls and twin boys (and a dog). 

Rashana Vikara Lydner is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree in French and Francophone Studies with a designated emphasis in African Diaspora Studies from the University of California, Davis, and a Bachelor’s in French and Spanish with a minor in Psychology from The State University of New York Brockport. Bridging the fields of Caribbean Studies, French cultural studies, linguistic anthropology, and Creolistics, her research focuses on a transnational approach to the study of Black popular culture in the francophone and anglophone Caribbean at the intersections of language, identity, and power.

Her published works include “Decolonizing Creolistics Through Popular Culture” in Decolonizing Linguistics (Oxford University Press), “S’habiller Sexy en Body String: The French Guianese bad gyal and the Image of French Caribbean Women” in Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, and “‘Mwen Enmé’W’ [I Love You]: Black Queer Women’s Social Positioning in the French Caribbean” (forthcoming) in Gender and Language.

She is currently working on her first book manuscript, Dancehall ka joué: Gender and Sexual Politics at Play in French Guiana. Dancehall ka joué asserts that dancehall artists in French Guiana employ subversive performances of their gender and sexual identities to contest French Caribbean societal norms. In addition, by identifying with a trans-Caribbean culture, they challenge notions of non-belonging and Frenchness as they carve out their own space in the French nation-state. 

Yanira Madrigal-Garcia is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education at California State University, Sacramento. She earned her B.A. in Ethnic Studies and Chicana/o/x Studies at UC Berkeley, her M.A. in Mexican American Studies with a focus on Education at San José State University, and her Ph.D. in School Organization and Educational Policy and Language, Literacy, and Culture at the University of California, Davis.

As an interdisciplinary feminist scholar in education, her research centralizes the experiences of minoritized students along the PK-20 educational pipeline by exploring agency, organizational structures, and policies. Yanira’s experiences as an immigrant, first-generation, and grassroots organizer inform her teaching, research, and community efforts. She is passionate about engaging in transformative work in educational and community contexts.

Katherine Trevino is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at St. Edward's University. She is a licensed Counseling Psychologist in the State of Texas. She teaches courses in the Certificate of Evidence-Based Addictions Counseling and will take over as certificate coordinator in Fall 2025. Her research has focused on addressing substance use and mental health interventions for people of color and the supervision and training of future mental health clinicians.

Formerly, Katherine was the Substance Use Support Team Coordinator at the University of Texas at Austin’s Counseling and Mental Health Center, where she initially completed her APA-accredited internship in 2022. Katherine completed her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at Lehigh University in 2022 and received the 2021 Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy Diversity Research Grant for Predoctoral Candidates and the 2021 Pennsylvania Psychological Foundation's Samuel J. Knapp, Ed.D., ABPP Education Award. 

Vanessa Martin Jones is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Morgan State University. Vanessa has several years of experience in the non-profit sector, particularly in therapeutic engagement with adolescents and families from historically marginalized backgrounds. She places a central emphasis on weaving anti-racist and intersectional perspectives into her research. Moreover, she leads initiatives to decolonize developmental models, theories, and frameworks, ensuring the incorporation of culturally responsive strategies in exploring human behavior.

Yeng Yang is a tenure-track Professor of Ethnic Studies at Hartnell College. Over the course of his academic career, he has worked at various colleges and universities—including Duke University, UC Santa Cruz, CSU Monterey Bay, UT San Antonio, San Francisco State University, and the California Community Colleges. Yeng has dedicated his career to enhancing the understanding of diverse student populations, particularly first-generation, international, and underrepresented groups. He has presented at national and international conferences on topics related to equity and social justice and marginalized communities, specifically on the experiences of Hmong Americans in higher education, educational achievement, and social mobility.

His research has focused on amplifying the voices and experiences of historically marginalized groups while critiquing the systemic barriers that hinder their success. Yeng also strongly advocates prioritizing culturally relevant pedagogy in the classroom and advancing social justice through education, mentorship, and community involvement. Yang currently serves on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement, an online and freely accessible interdisciplinary journal that provides a forum for scholars and writers from diverse fields who share a common interest in Southeast Asian (SEA) Americans and their communities.

Jessica Burghart is a proud enrolled member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. She holds a Ph.D. in Management with a focus on Leadership and Management from Walden University, an M.Phil. from Walden, an MBA from Friends University, and a B.S. in Business Management from Haskell Indian Nations University. Jessica is passionate about Indigenous issues in business and developed business strategies specifically for Native American businesses in her dissertation.

Currently, Jessica teaches courses on International Business, Business Policy, Financial Management, and Production Operations Management at Haskell. She has held various business roles at companies such as Honeywell and GM and has served on the Ethics Committee for the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe.

She was selected as an Advisory Board Member for Missouri State University and has been recognized for her work with awards, such as the SCMC/NNSA Small Business Advocate Award and being named a 2023 American Indian College Fund Fellow. Additionally, Jessica is a sponsor for the American Indigenous Business Leaders and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society student organizations. Recently, she received a $250,000 grant from the Small Business Administration (SBA) for the Tribal College Small Business Achievement Grant Program and has presented her research at conferences. 

Leslie Ekpe is an Assistant Professor in the Higher Education and Learning Technologies department at Texas A&M University-Commerce. Her primary research focuses on anti-racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), and racial equity.

Leslie is also a proud alumna of Alabama A&M University, where she earned her Bachelor of Science in Management; The University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she earned her Master of Arts in Communication Management; and Sam Houston State University, where she earned her Master of Business Administration.

Felipe Mercado is a distinguished figure in the realms of education, social work, and mental wellness, known for his transformative approach to compassion and resilience. As a Professor at California State University, Fresno, and the visionary founder of Wise Soul LLC, Felipe integrates his diverse experiences from being an elementary principal and counselor to a social worker, shaping lives with empathy and insight. Emerging from personal challenges, including homelessness, Felipe's journey is a testament to the power of perseverance and compassion. His book, "A Journey to Compassion: Learning to Stand Firm in the Face of Pain," has touched many, earning a 6x Amazon best-seller accolade and an International Award for Most Inspirational Book. His work extends to the screen, contributing significantly to the EMMY Award-winning documentary by ABC30 "A Critical State of Mind," which highlights his impact on mental health advocacy. Felipe’s affiliations with prestigious bodies like the Compassion Institute and the World Happiness Academy, alongside his board roles at the California School Based Health Alliance and Kings View Behavioral Health, underscore his commitment to fostering mental wellness and educational excellence. His pioneering "Wise Compassionate Framework" has revolutionized K-12 communities, markedly reducing suspension rates by 60% and enhancing the educational environment. A certified trainer in the Surgeon General's Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being and a Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT™) instructor, Felipe is at the forefront of integrating mental health practices in educational and professional settings. His contributions, including a blog on Psychology Today named "The Authentic Self," advocate for a balanced, compassionate approach to personal and community well-being.

GoMee Park is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bilingual and Literacy Studies at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She specializes in language planning and policy, language assessments, and supporting K-12 multilingual learners in content areas. Through an interdisciplinary approach, her research explores the dynamic relationship between language policies and assessments, with a particular focus on multilingual learners in U.S. schools. Particularly, GoMee is interested in the impact of state-mandated assessments on the language ideologies of dual-language educators, highlighting the role of assessments as a powerful language policy tool. As a teacher educator, she is dedicated to supporting multilingual learners in content areas, striving to provide equitable educational opportunities while investigating how assessments can enhance their learning experiences. Her work on bilingual education earned her the 2022 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the National Association for Bilingual Education. She has also contributed to journals such as the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, the Journal of English for Academic Purposes, and the International Journal of Science Education.

Joyvina Evans is Chair of the online Master of Health Administration program and an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences at Howard University (Washington D.C.). She earned a Ph.D. in Public Health, a Master of Public Health, and a Master of Administration. Joyvina completed the Center for Health Equity Research (CHER) Summer Intensive sponsored by California State University Long Beach and is currently a CHER Scholar. Due to lived experiences and family history, she is passionate about health equity and women's reproductive health. Her research focus areas are uterine fibroid treatment disparities, health literacy, and implicit bias. She is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, American Public Health Association, and Association of University Programs in Healthcare Administration.

Robert P. Robinson is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at John Jay College and Doctoral Faculty in Urban Education and the Interactive Technology & Pedagogy Program at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Prior to higher education, he was a K-12 educator and mentor for 11 years. His broad research and teaching focus on the Black Freedom Movement, Black education history, Blackqueer studies, digital humanities, history of education, and curriculum studies. His current book project is a history of the Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School (OCS) as a site for understanding Black self-determination, the shift in mainstream curriculum and pedagogy, and the Black radical imagination in education.

marcus d. harvey is an award-winning performer, writer, director, educator & cultural strategist. A proud first-generation college and graduate school graduate, he holds his Master of Fine Arts in Acting from Brooklyn College, Master of Arts in Dramatic Writing for Social Change from New York University (NYU), and dual undergraduate degrees in Dramatic Arts and Performance Studies from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

As an actor & director, he has worked with such companies as Lean Ensemble Theater, National Black Theatre, Triad Stage, The Old Vic (London), Playmaker's Rep, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, WAM Theatre, and TADA! Theatre, Fordham University, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, The Working Theatre, Lean Ensemble, Bloomsburg University, Bernards High School, Passage Theatre Company, Marymount Manhattan College, LaGuardia Community College, Potomac Theatre Project, The National Black Theatre, Luna Stage and Harlem 9.

As a writer, he has written three solo shows, homegrown, Are We Not Men? and baba: a black boy’s cry. He is currently at work on a play, a bright light, centered around suicide/depression and mental health in Black & Latin communities in Trenton, NJ. commissioned by Passage Theatre in Trenton, N.J.

Marcus is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Montclair State University. His specializations are acting, directing, solo performance, and black theatre. His work currently explores the question, “what does the black body do in white artistic spaces when the white rage is too much”?

Outside of the classroom, Marcus is an Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging strategist, and consultant working to create spaces that have often excluded the marginalized.

Nitika Sharma is an Assistant Professor in the Sociology department at California State University, Sacramento. Her teaching and research interests include refugee studies, diaspora studies and Asian American studies. She draws on decolonial and feminist theoretical frameworks and uses qualitative methods to study the social and behavioral processes of marginalized groups of people and the identity making that emerges out of these processes.

Katina Lang-Lindsey is a respected Assistant Professor of Social Work at Alabama A&M University and the Principal Investigator for the notable Opioid Impacted Family Support and Apprenticeship Traineeship Program. The program, which secured over $1.1 million from Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in 2020, trains master's level social work students to assist opioid-impacted families. Her work in training students has made significant strides in substance use intervention. Additionally, her work with kidney patients has earned her prestigious recognitions such as the Jenny Kitsen Patient Safety Award and the President's Service Award for her COVID-19 response. Training behavioral health professionals and conducting impactful research, Katina is a strong advocate for integrating behavioral health with primary care to enhance treatment for chronic diseases in Alabama's and Mississippi’s varied populations. Her role as an Alabama State Ambassador for the Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP) and her dedication to patient engagement exemplify her commitment to improving health outcomes and patient safety. Katina's apprenticeship program is a pivotal addition to social work education, combining academic learning with practical application. Committed to enhancing patient safety and outcomes, especially in kidney patients, she's a leader in health advocacy. Her work bridges the gap between behavioral health and primary care, ensuring thorough, effective patient treatment. Equipped with extensive experience, she adeptly oversees complex research and collaborates on innovative patient care practices. Her influence extends beyond shaping social work professionals to improving community health, facing behavioral health and chronic disease challenges, but it is improving overall health outcomes.

Adrian Gale is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering at Benedict College. Adrian’s research focuses on vulnerabilities in earth and environmental systems connected to legacy and emerging impacts from natural and anthropogenic activities (contamination, climate change, and post-disaster waste management). His work also links sustainability to urban ecosystem restoration and environmental justice.

Victoria Kim is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELPS) at The University of Texas at San Antonio. She is the 2022-2024 Co-Program Chair for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) on the Education of Asian and Pacific Americans Special Interest Group, and the 2022-2025 Announcements Editor for the AERA Division J: Higher Education. Her research interests include understanding racially/ethnically minoritized student populations, particularly Asian American student experiences, and institutions that serve them, including Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs). Victoria earned her Doctorate in Social Sciences and Comparative Education with a specialization in Race/Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Sonya Naomi Diaz is a Hispanic woman teaching geology. She is deeply passionate about sharing her love for the Earth sciences with her students. With a background in STEM, she strives to inspire and empower those in her classroom, particularly those from low-income minority communities like the one she grew up and works in. Sonya’s journey underscores the importance of representation and access to education, and she’s committed to nurturing the next generation of scientists, regardless of their background.

Susana L. Gallardo is an Assistant Professor of Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies (WGSS) in the WGSS program within the Department of Sociology & Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at San Jose State University. She is still adjusting to the tenure-track after working as an Adjunct Lecturer for the last 20 years (SJSU’s 2022 College of Social Science Lecturer of the Year). Susana's interdisciplinary research and teaching engage questions around Chicana feminisms, women of color feminisms, cultural citizenship, and the way women of color shape and are shaped by their religious traditions. Susana has published articles in Chicana Movidas: New Narratives of Women’s Activism and Feminism in the Chicano Movement Era (eds. Blackwell, Cotera and Espinoza, UT Press 2019); Are All the Women Still White? Race, Shifts, and Critical Interventions in Feminist Studies (ed. Janell Hobson, SUNY Press, 2016) and Mothers' Lives in Academia (eds. Castaneda and Isgro, Columbia Univ Press, 2013). She is currently working on a book manuscript about the history of a unique Chicana/o Catholic feminist community in San Jose around Our Lady of Guadalupe Church during the Chicano movimiento of the 60s and 70s. She holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Stanford and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.

Jasmine Noelle Yarish (JNY) is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of the District of Columbia. JNY's expertise is in the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and democratic theory. Her research aims to extend the idea of abolition democracy theorized by W.E.B. Du Bois to include political and intellectual contributions made by black women during the era of Reconstruction in the mid to late nineteenth century. Her archival commitments to revisiting that early period of contemporary political thought, the primary democratization period in American political development, and the unique case of Philadelphia in rethinking the significance of Reconstruction for the discipline of political science place JNY's scholarship prominently in the growing literature on the “Third Reconstruction.”

Crystal R. Pérez is an Assistant Professor of Multiethnic Literature in the Department of English at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) where she specializes in Latinx and Chicanx literature. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English and Chicana/o Studies from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and deepened her interest in Latinx literature, art, and film as a student worker at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. She continued her graduate studies at the University of California, San Diego, and received a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Literature and Cultural Studies. Her research focuses on questions of the visibility and invisibility of Latinx and Chicanx communities in American culture, history, and the literary canon. Through an analysis of the novel and visual culture, she explores how Latinx and Chicanx authors and artists intervene in and shape literary and cultural forms of the U.S. in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her teaching and research interests also include Latinx detective and mystery fiction, women of color literature, comparative ethnic literature, and border narratives. At CSUEB, Crystal serves as a mentor and teacher for Gaining Access 'N Academic Success (GANAS), an access and retention program that supports transfer students through a culturally responsive model of advising and teaching.

Shannon Antoine-Hardy is an Assistant Professor of Public Health at the School of Population and Health Sciences at Dillard University. She also serves as the Chair of the Institutional Review Board at Dillard. In 2017, Shannon became a Certified Health Education Specialist through the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing. She has collaborated with several institutions on research projects such as the ByWater Institute at Tulane University, in which she laid the groundwork for the proposed research by employing community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches and econometric methodologies to prioritize fair housing actions. She also developed survey-based approaches to quantify the effects of housing and storm context on exposure to chemical and biological agents. For her research agenda, Shannon utilizes CBPR Frameworks to conduct research related to environmental and climate justice and the analysis of the impacts that social determinants of health have among disadvantaged and marginalized populations.

Veneice Guillory-Lacy is an Assistant Professor at the Emancipatory Educational Leadership Masters Program within the Educational Leadership Department at San José State University. She identifies as a Black and Indigenous (Nez Perce Tribal Descent) Mother-Scholar. Veneice brings a rich history in K-12 teaching, coaching and administration. Her research focuses on amplifying the voices of women of color in K-12 educational leadership and promoting social justice and emancipatory leadership that leads to transformative education that centers on race and gender. She uses critical qualitative methodologies in her research while drawing from Critical Race Theory (CRT), Critical Race Feminism (CRF), Intersectionality, Black Feminist Thought, and Indigenous epistemologies.

Joy D. Lewis is an Assistant Professor at Morgan State University, where she teaches Caribbean History and the African Diaspora. Born and raised in the Virgin Islands, her interest in history and the preservation of local histories began in high school when she participated in an oral history project. At Howard University, Joy studied English and History as an undergraduate before earning a Master’s in Public History and a Doctorate in Latin American and Caribbean History. Under her advisor, the late Dr. Selwyn H.H. Carrington, she completed her dissertation “The Virgin Islands: British and American Interests, 1917 - 1970” which highlighted aspects of the interdependent relationship that exists between the United States and British Virgin Islands. Her article “Golden Dreams: Folklore, Memory, and the History of Piracy in the Virgin Islands” was published in Synergy: Public History at Howard University. This article highlighted the importance of oral history in recording the histories of the smaller islands and communities.

Joy’s current research agenda centers on imperialism and transnational relationships in the Eastern Caribbean, Leeward and Virgin Islands history, migration studies, and folklore and oral history. It is her goal as a public historian to help our communities understand the value of our collective memories and shared histories.

Joy lives with her husband and two daughters and enjoys reading and attending the theater in her spare time.

Mesi Bakari Walton’s research intersects with Africana, Latin American, and Cultural Studies. Her work explores how Afro-diasporic cultures are employed as symbols of identity and tools of survival through cultural texts of music, dance, language, and other practices. Mesi recently completed research as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Colombia titled, “Ancestral Identity - Afro-Colombian Cultural Traditions of the Atlantic Coast.” She has a book chapter titled, “Dance, Rhythm, and Ritual: Afro-Venezuelans in Resistance” and an article titled, “Afro-Venezuelan Cultural Survival: Invoking Ancestral Memory. ”She also organizes cultural exchange tours throughout Latin America for the youth and adults. Walton holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Human Development from Howard University and a Master’s in Spanish Language and Early Childhood Education. Currently, Mesi is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Afro-Diaspora Cultures at Howard University.

Sonya Shuler Okoli is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education Leadership at Clark Atlanta University. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Fisk University and completed her Postdoctoral studies in Multicultural and Diversity Studies in Educational Contexts at the University of Georgia.

Sonya’s research is focused on the intersectionality of policy, politics, and social justice to uncover, elevate, and address societal inequities influencing the economic trajectory of children and families of color. Additionally, her research explores the systemic barriers families experience in accessing top-performing P12 schools and the community resources needed to support their children’s pursuit to graduate college with employable skills.

As a scholar-practitioner and mother of three beautiful children ages 4, 9, and 12 bewildered by the disparities of access, Sonya commits her summers to mentoring youth from disadvantaged backgrounds on college and career planning. In addition, she has authored an affordable self-help book for working-class families titled Parenting for College: The Secret to Raising Children Who Graduate from Kindergarten and College. This book propelled her as a highly sought-after Education Correspondent, which led to her appearances on Cheddar TV, LBC (Leading Britain Conversations), and the Black News Channel. She also has Op-Ed article publications in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Atlanta Voice.

Sonya’s mantra is “Education is the Greatest Equalizer for All Families,” and she believes every child's future is our prerogative.

Prashanth BusiReddyGari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP). He obtained his degree from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. At UNCP, he directs the Cyber Defense Education Center, which promotes the National Security Agency's (NSA) National Center of Academic Excellence-Cyber Defense Education initiative, coordinates the B.S. in cybersecurity degree program, and advises the ACM student chapter leadership. His research focuses on the information security of state-of-the-art computing systems and future generation wireless technology (FutureG). He has published research papers on applied cryptography, authentication schemes in distributed systems, cybersecurity for the Internet of Things, security analysis of cyber-physical systems (CPS), and blockchain technology. Pedagogically, Prashanth has a penchant for integrating a wide array of instructional technology to enhance the learning experience of students and transforming the learning environment to enhance accessibility and inclusivity for all students.

Magana Kabugi is an Assistant Professor of English and the Director of the Writing Center at Fisk University. His research and teaching interests include 20th and 21st century African American literature and culture, Black intellectual history, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). He is currently working on a book titled Turning Darkness Into Day: Historically Black Colleges and the Challenge of Higher Education in the Post-Civil Rights Era, which examines how HBCUs navigated America’s changing social, political, and educational landscape in the first two decades following desegregation. Magana's work has been featured in national publications such as HBCU Digest and Diverse Issues in Higher Education. In 2022, Magana was selected as an inaugural 2023 Research Fellow at Howard University’s Center for HBCU Research, Leadership, and Policy.

Jorge N. Leal is a cultural and urban historian whose research examines how transnational youth cultures have reshaped Southern California Latinx communities. He is an assistant Mexican American/Chicanx history professor at UC Riverside. Jorge first wrote about Southern California as a journalist assigned to cover Los Angeles politics and Latinx cultural topics for publications in Southern California, Mexico, and Spain. Prior to earning his Ph.D., Jorge actively participated as a rock critic and concert producer in the L.A. Latinx music scene. He is the curator of The Rock Archivo LÁ, an online collective repository that collects, shares, and examines L.A. Latinx youth cultures ephemera.

Jorge's writings have been published in the European Journal of American Culture, Journal of American Ethnic History, Printing History Journal, and The Journal of California History, among other academic publications. Jorge is a 2022-2024 recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant for the project “Spanglish and Bilingualism in Latinx Studies,” with which he is co-developing new bilingual pedagogical approaches into Latinx studies and humanities courses. He is also a 2023 Career Enhancement Fellow, awarded by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Currently, Jorge is revising his book manuscript tentatively titled More than Ruido: Young Latina/o Ingenuity, Sound, and Solidarity in Late Twentieth-Century Los Ángeles.

Eve Humphrey is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Lincoln University. She received her B.S. in 2012 in Zoology from the University of Florida and her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences in 2019 from Florida State University. As an evolutionary behaviorist, Eve’s research focuses on how the expression of melanin (black and brown coloration) influences the behavior and physiology of vertebrate animals. As an educator, Eve has a desire to increase students of color’s presence in biology, particularly the fields of ecology and evolution. She hopes that she can help people of color appreciate the beauty of the natural world and teach them ways to participate in environmental justice.

Kim V. Scott is an Assistant Professor of Management & Entrepreneurship at Elizabeth City State University (ECSU). Her areas of teaching include project management, entrepreneurship, and leadership and teamwork. Prior to joining ECSU, Scott spent 20 years working for various government and corporate agencies as an engineer & project manager. Additionally, she is the Executive Director of MAP Community Development Corporation.

Kim studied engineering at Hampton University before completing a Master's in Tourism Administration from George Washington University. In 2019, Kim finished her Ph.D. in Business Administration from Hampton University. Her current research interests are the use of gaming in innovation and creativity, the entrepreneurial mindset of underserved populations, and rural entrepreneurship ecosystems.

Jonathan D. Gomez is an Assistant Professor of Chicanx Studies and Faculty-in-Residence for Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Initiatives at San José State University (SJSU). Jonathan's scholarship and teaching center on the connections between Chicanx cultural expression and race, space, and urban social movements. Jonathan directs and facilitates the Culture Counts Reading Series at SJSU, a transformative pedagogy project that utilizes poetry to engage students and community members in democratic dialogue about societal issues and respectfully incorporate social justice traditions of subjugated communities into the intellectual life of the university campus. Jonathan arrived to SJSU by way of the City Terrace barrio in East LA, East Los Angeles College, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Santa Barbara, where he earned his Doctorate in Sociology with an emphasis in Black Studies.

Manpreet Kaur is an Assistant Professor of Management in the Department of Business Administration at Whittier College, which is a private liberal arts college in the county of Los Angeles, California. Before joining Whittier, she completed her M.B.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (UWM). She has also taught at UWM and California State University – Fullerton.

Manpreet's dissertation research focused on the issue of cross-cultural team diversity. In particular, it integrated diversity literature with a positive psychology perspective and examined how intrinsic psychological assets may influence the effects of relational demography and diversity in cross-cultural teams. She is broadly interested in workplace diversity, faultlines, culture, and interdisciplinary research. She has ten years of international industry experience as a Management and International Process Transitioning Area team leader. She is a certified Cultural Intelligence Facilitator.

Manpreet enjoys learning new skills, both professional and personal. She enjoys hiking, cooking, and painting with her daughters in her free time.

Yangyang Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counselor Education and Rehabilitation at California State University, Fresno. She received her B.S. in Psychology from UC San Diego, and both her M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Counselor Education from The Pennsylvania State University. Yangyang’s research agenda centers on career development and wellness issues of underserved student populations in higher education, such as international students, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities.

Nadxieli Toledo Bustamante is an Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Development in the College of Education at California State University, Sacramento. Nadxieli holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Human Development from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in Hispanic Linguistics from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). As an interdisciplinary scholar, Nadxieli seeks to integrate questions and methodologies from anthropology, developmental psychology, and linguistics to explore the relationship between language, culture and and the intergenerational creation, reproduction and transformation of knowledge in her research. Her current work focuses on the daily linguistic and cultural practices between bilingual or multilingual families and their children in contexts of language displacement.

Lily Tsoi is an Assistant Professor in the School of Psychology and Counseling at Caldwell University, New Jersey. She was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in New York City. She was the first in her family to go to college, earning a B.A. in Neuroscience from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Boston College. She completed her postdoctoral training at Princeton University prior to joining Caldwell University. Lily's research investigates the extent to which people consider the mental states of others across different social interactions. She also examines neural and behavioral dynamics between people during conversations. Currently, her primarily role is teaching, and she loves introducing undergraduate students to psychological research via demonstrations in class, semester-long class projects, and laboratory research experiences. Her mission is to increase interest in undergraduate research at her university. Outside of work, Lily enjoys exploring local neighborhoods, making different ice cream flavors, and playing board games with family and friends.

Linda Lemus is an Assistant Professor of Teaching and Director & Coordinator of the Spanish Language Instruction Program at the University of California, Riverside. She received her Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition & Teaching at the University of Arizona with a focus on pedagogy, language use and program administration. Besides teaching and research, Linda also worked as a Senior Instructional Designer at Georgetown University. Linda's research is focused on inclusive design and development of language and linguistic instruction, and she also mentors Spanish native speakers in the U.S. to validate and inform their academic and personal experiences. Additionally, her research explores language identity, sociocultural linguistics, language program development and the hidden curriculum.

Brittany M. Griffin is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Psychology at, and proud two-time graduate of, the illustrious Florida A&M University (FAMU), who bleeds orange and green. She earned her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from The University of Akron in 2021. Brittany earned her M.S. in Community Psychology in 2016 and her B.S in Psychology in 2007, both from FAMU. As a military child, “home” is relative to her. However, Waldorf, Maryland is the place she resided the longest and refers to as home.  

Brittany’s professional interests include: Afrikan-centered pedagogy, racial and social justice advocacy, issues surrounding equity, humanizing marginalized identities via culturally specific and sociopolitical understandings of mental health, providing jegnaship, and all things Black/Afrikan-centered Psychology. She is a strong advocate of work-life balance and believes in questioning and challenging antiquated and oppressive systems that cause harm, especially, to individuals of Afrikan ancestry. Brittany is a Lifetime Member of The Association of Black Psychologists, Inc. (ABPsi) and has served in various local and national leadership roles within the organization. She also works part-time as a therapist providing a safe space for the mental health of Black folk.

Brittany is a daughter, sister, and friend. She enjoys traveling, hiking, walking in parks, playing soccer, binge-watching shows, and eating at highly Yelp-rated restaurants (at least 4-stars). Brittany also enjoys game nights, reading fiction, and spending time with loved ones.

Jude Paul Matias Dizon is a proud first-generation college student and son of Filipino postal service workers. Currently, Jude Paul is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University. His research agenda examines the carceral university, or the relationship between the carceral state and higher education with a focus on race, class, and gender inequities. Some additional areas of research that he is interested in include leadership and organization for equity and inclusion in higher education, cultural engagement and validation, and student activism. Jude Paul holds a Ph.D. in Urban Education Policy from the University of Southern California, a Master's of Education degree in Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration from the University of Vermont. He became critically conscious as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley.

L. Trenton S. Marsh, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Urban Education in the Learning Sciences and Educational Research Apartment and a Program Liaison for the Public Affairs Ph.D. program in the College of Community Innovation and Education at the University of Central Florida. His research interests have intersecting commitments: (1) confronting disproportionality and understanding the lived experiences of historically minoritized students within educative settings; (2) engaging youth/student learners and their families to inform practices and micro-level policies; and (3) exploring how institutional practices and policies may influence marginalized individuals’ lives.

Trenton uses participatory research methods and qualitative approaches to support the co-construction of knowledge that could cultivate interest, understanding, and partnerships with participants and their communities. He has been published in journals such as Teachers College Record, Urban Review, Boyhood Studies, Urban Education, GSE Perspectives on Urban Education, Teachers and Teaching Theory and Practice, Florida Journal of Educational Research, and Education Week.

Trenton earned his Ph.D. at New York University's (NYU) Steinhardt School in the Teaching and Learning Department concentrating in Urban Education. Previously, Marsh served as a facilitator for the Youth Leadership Academy, a partnership between CORO Leadership Center NY and the NYC Department of Education. Marsh also served as an Associate Research Scientist at the Metro Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, where he evaluated longitudinal disciplinary data for various New York districts. Prior to academia, Marsh was a Managing Business Consultant at IBM Corporation, leading international, cross-sectional teams implementing user-informed data and technology.

Jerraco Johnson is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Texas in the Department of Kinesiology, Health Promotion, and Recreation, where he is an affiliate of the pediatric movement and physical activity lab. He received his Ph.D. from Auburn University and completed his post-doctoral training at The Ohio State University. Jerraco's research focus is on developing health and movement behaviors in young children from under-represented backgrounds to help address various health disparities in this population. His overall goal is to develop and implement family-based health and movement interventions. He was also an National Institute of Health (NIH) fellow in the Obesity and Health Disparities PRIDE program.

Sampson Akwafuo is an Assistant Professor of Computational Epidemiology at the California State University, Fullerton. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of North Texas; M.S. from Glasgow Caledonian University, UK; and a B.Tech from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria.

His research interests include Health Informatics, Computational Epidemiology, Algorithm development and optimization. He is currently working on developing computational models for predicting outbreaks of specific disease in a location of interest, evaluating public health strategies and interventions for HIV/TB, and optimization of emergency response logistics for disasters.

Gabriel Camacho is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He received his B.A. (2012) in Psychology from the University of Virginia and his M.S. (2016) and Ph.D. (2020) from the University of Connecticut. He joined John Jay in 2020.

His research examines novel ways in which the risk of being stigmatized can adversely affect the stereotype-relevant performance of ethnic minorities and the health and well-being of people with concealable stigmatized identities (i.e., devalued identities not immediately knowable to others). He also studies lay perceptions of both. For example, do people believe that identity-based threats can adversely affect the well-being and academic performance of ethnic minority students? And what are the consequences of these beliefs? His research contributes toward understanding the situationally-induced causes of social inequality and people’s motivation to address these causes.

Eric Claravall is a scholar-practitioner in the field of literacy, educational psychology, and special education. His main research interest falls within the intersection of cognition, instruction, literacy development, and social justice pedagogy. His overall research agenda is to understand the teaching and learning of text-based literacies within the social justice framework for students with learning differences in both paper-based and digital environments. Eric uses the term learning differences (ld) to refer to the mainstream construct of learning disabilities and struggling readers and to highlight the asset/strength-based approach in my research. The disabilities label precludes many teachers from thinking that students with “disabilities” have the capacity to access meaning when reading complex and sophisticated texts. This is even more pronounced when teachers work with “disabled” students who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC). Eric aims to challenge this notion around “disabilities” and acknowledge its social construction. Finally, he believes that special education is a social justice and equity issue. He is especially interested in how compassionate pedagogy can be a tool to dismantle the deficit-thinking model in special education and train teachers, through critical contemplative practices, to be socially just and equitable teachers.

Jelisa Clark is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Studies at Fayetteville State University. Her areas of expertise include Applied Sociology, Black Feminism, Education, and Race. Jelisa prioritizes community-engaged scholarship. Her current projects revolve around anti-Blackness in education and the experiences of Black youth throughout the K-20 pipeline and the discourses informing our understandings of them. She has published this line of research in journals such as City & Community, DuBois Review, and Journal of Negro Education.

Guadalupe Díaz Lara is an assistant professor in the Department of Child & Adolescent Studies at California State University, Fullerton. She received her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Sciences from Oregon State University with an emphasis on early childhood development. Previously, Guadalupe worked as a Research Associate at the Sobrato Early Academic Language (SEAL) and as Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Irvine.

Guadalupe’s research is focused on connecting research, policy, and practice to understand, elevate, and address factors that influence the educational experiences of children and families from diverse backgrounds, especially, Latinx families and Dual Language Learners/English Learners. Additionally, her research explores the systemic barriers families experience accessing social services and community resources to support their children and empower their families.  

Latoya Johnson is currently an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Langston University in Langston, OK. She was born and raised in Muskogee, OK and currently resides in Edmond, OK. Growing up, math was one of her favorite subjects, so she was inspired to pursue math as a career. When she started college, being a teacher was not her first choice, but she is glad that it was her final choice.

She received a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics, as well as a Masters in Mathematics Education from Northeastern State University. After teaching high school math for 4 years, she decided to pursue her Ph.D. Latoya received her Ph.D in Mathematics Education in the Summer of 2020. Being a first generational college graduate in her family, this was one of her major accomplishments in life. Teaching has brought so much joy to her life and she loves the fact that she gets to help students see the joy in math on a daily basis. When she is not teaching, she spends time with her family. Latoya has a 13-year-old daughter and she’s been married to her wonderful husband for 3 years. Her daughter is in drama and loves to perform in school musicals, plays basketball, and does competitive power tumbling, so being her biggest supporter is Latoya’s other full-time job.

Jenny Link is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Whittier College, which is a private liberal arts college in the county of Los Angeles, California. Prior to joining Whittier, she completed her Ph.D. and her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her dissertation research focused on genetic causes of sex differences in obesity and metabolic disorders, while her postdoctoral research centered on genetic regulation of bile acids and gallbladder disease. Her postdoctoral fellowship was funded by the NIH’s Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA), which aims to train postdocs in research and teaching careers and aims to address equity gaps in biomedical research. Jenny’s fellowship experiences have launched her on a path to make biology accessible to underrepresented groups by changing how biology is taught in the college classroom.

Jenny enjoys learning new skills, both professional and personal. She recently learned to crochet and just like teaching, she finds there is always room for improvement. When she am not transforming college education, she spends time transforming yarn into toys for her daughter.

Laricca London-Thomas is an Assistant Professor of Biology in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at Alabama A&M University. She joined the department in 2016 as a tenure-track faculty member after a brief Post-Doctoral training experience at Howard University. She is a trained Microbiologist, currently leading a research program in the area of Food Safety and the prevention of food-borne illness. Her sentiments are that of Faye Wattleton, “my satisfaction comes from my commitment to advancing a better world”.  Laricca is truly honored to be in a position where she can train a new wave of scientists who are committed to producing outstanding research and contribute to a broader body of knowledge. In addition to being a Microbiologist, she is a very passionate 21st century STEM educator. It is her heart’s desire to impart knowledge, inspire and motivate every student that she encounters. Although Laricca’s years in the classroom have just begun, she is committed to excellence in teaching, scholarship and research.

Kerri J. Malloy (Yurok/Karuk) is an Assistant Professor of Global Humanities in the Department of Humanities at San José State University. His research focuses on Indigenous genocide, healing, and reconciliation in North America and the necessity of systemic change within social structures to advance transitional justice. He received his doctorate in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from Gratz College. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

David Martínez-Prieto is an assistant professor at the Department of Bilingual Studies and Literacy at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He lives in Brownsville, right across the border with Mexico. David holds a Ph.D. in Culture, Literacy and Language from the University of Texas in San Antonio. His academic interests relate to the ideological intersections of neoliberalism, imperialism, and racial superiority in the language learning process. He has worked and studied in the United States and Mexico. David teaches classes to undergraduate and postgraduate students in both, Spanish and English. He enjoys swimming, traveling, tacos, and taking naps.  

Janice Phung is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) in San Diego County, CA. She received her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Applied Developmental Psychology from UCLA, and her Ph.D. in Psychology & Social Behavior from UC Irvine. As a developmental psychologist, Janice’s research investigates the challenges experienced by children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder as they relate to individual and family outcomes. As a teacher, she was drawn to CSUSM because it is primarily a teaching institution. As a first generation college student, it was important to her to work at an institution where she can connect with students from similar backgrounds. She believes that CSUSM was a good fit because she would be able to pursue both her research and teaching interests while also mentoring underrepresented students. Janice is presently in her third year as an Assistant Professor and it has been exceptionally challenging to balance teaching, research, and service with her personal life and well-being. Janice is looking forward to attending ELEVATE to help her better manage this balance and make progress to not only earning tenure and promotion, but also to better balance her work life with her personal life.

Matin Pirouz is a faculty member with the Department of Computer Science in the College of Science and Math. She is also the director of the Algorithms and Big Data lab at Fresno State. Her research expertise spans data analytics, complex network analysis, and Computer Science education. Her ongoing projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, Google, and Amazon. She has over 50 publications in top-tier peer-reviewed journals and conferences and her research findings have been highlighted in international and national venues. She has also been the recipient of a congressional commendation for STEM mentorship.

Rachael Reed is a versatile, results-driven, public health professional and researcher with over 10 years of health promotion and research experience. She is currently the Chair of the School of Health and Wellness and an Assistant Professor of Public Health at Dillard University, a historically Black university in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is also the Coordinator for the Public Health and Health Science programs. Rachel has a broad background in public health, with specific training and expertise in health equity, medical nutrition therapy, chronic disease prevention/management, and the social determinants of health. Her research focuses on the impact of racism on health, health disparities, and the prevention of noncommunicable chronic diseases in underserved, at-risk populations. She has worked on several funded projects including the development and implementation of a community-partnered stroke prevention program in South Los Angeles which garnered astronomical community buy-in and participation. Rachel has a long history of service to her field. She is a former Executive Board member for the American Public Health Association and Private Sector Advisor to the US Delegation to the 67th World Health Assembly. She currently serves as a member of the Editorial Board of the AJPM Focus and the Immediate Past Chair and Secretary of the Intersectional Council of the American Public Health Association.

Salvador Salazar is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York. He earned his Ph.D. in Latin American Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (2019) and two master’s degrees: Communication at the University of Havana (2006-2009); and Asian Studies at the University of Salamanca (2008-2009). In 2006, Salazar finished a BA in Journalism at the School of Communication at the University of Havana and continued working there for nearly ten years. Salvador researches the history of the press and communication and the Latin American audiovisual discourse. He edited three volumes related to the History of Cuban Media and is the author of the book La política cultural del Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC) hacia América Latina [The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) towards Latin America.] This book resulted from five years of researching the relationship between Cuban cinema and Latin America in the context of the Cuban Revolution. His short-stories fiction book, titled “La pausa. Relatos de la Cuba inmóvil” [The pause. Tales of Immobile Cuba] is currently under publication. Salvador Salazar is Cuban; his primary language is Spanish, and he has been living the last five years in Elizabeth, New Jersey, with his wife and two daughters.

Ana K. Soltero López is an Assistant Professor and the coordinator for the Bilingual Authorization Program (BAP) in the Department of Literacy, Early, Bilingual, and Special Education (LEBSE) in the Kremen School of Education and Human Development at the California State University, Fresno. She teaches in the Multiple Subject credential program and her courses centralize culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies, critical teacher inquiry and reflexivity, and service-learning.

Her primary research focus is K-20 Latinx educational access, retention, and persistence. Her research agenda is informed by her teaching and work with youth, educators, and communities of color and lies at the intersection of disciplines such as Education, Ethnic Studies, Sociology, and Immigration Studies.

Yara M. Asi, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida in the School of Global Health and Informatics. Born in the West Bank, Yara’s personal experiences set the foundation for her research agenda, which focuses on global health, human rights, and development in fragile populations. She is a Non-resident Fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC and a 2020-2021 Fulbright US Scholar to the West Bank. Along with working at one of the first accountable care organizations in the United States, she has also worked with Amnesty International USA, the Palestinian American Research Center, and the Al-Shabaka Policy Network on policy and outreach issues. She has presented at multiple national and international conferences on topics related to global health, food security, health informatics, and women in healthcare, and has published extensively on health and well-being in fragile and conflict-affected populations in journal articles, book chapters, and other outlets. Her work has also been featured in The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Nation. Her forthcoming book with Johns Hopkins University Press will examine the role of war as a public health crisis.

Sonia Mae Brown was born in the United Kingdom and was raised in Brooklyn, New York.  Sonia Brown’s research areas are eroticism, sexuality, gender, and queer theory. Her interests include black women’s subjectivity, black female sexuality, sex as a discursive act, language, power, and popular culture. As a self-proclaimed “eroticist” or sexual anthropologist, Dr. Brown is dedicated to enriching the current scholarship on “The Erotic” and exploring the potential for eroticism to be seen as a critical lens of textual inquiry. She is currently working on an essay titled “The Sadomasochistic Impulse in James Baldwin’s Literature.” She holds a Masters in English with a focus in Creative and Professional Writing from Long Island University and a PhD in English Literature with a focus in African American Literature from Howard University.  She is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Langston University.

Chyna N. Crawford is an assistant professor of Criminal Justice and Chairperson of the Department of Social Sciences at Elizabeth City State University. Chyna was born and raised in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Chyna’s academic research interests lie in the areas of Media and Crime, Juvenile Justice, Victimology, Women and Minorities. Chyna teaches in the areas of Research Methods in criminal Justice, Homeland Security, and Sociology of Race, Crime, and Deviance.  Outside of academia, Chyna can be found engaging in genealogical research and enjoying the hobby of photography. Chyna is also an avid football fan -- How ‘Bout Them Cowboys!

She received her B.S. as a double major in Criminology and Psychology from Longwood University and an MA in Forensic Psychology from Marymount University. In 2016 she was the first in her family to earn a doctoral degree. She holds a Ph.D. in Juvenile Justice from Prairie View A & M University.  

Maraliz is an adjunct faculty at Southwestern College since 2015. She is from Tijuana, Mexico and is the only scientist in her family and she finds it a privilege that her passion has turned into a career. She teaches introductory Biology courses to mainly non–science major students. For her graduate work at California State University at Los Angeles (CSULA) she focused on the pathways dictating muscle development and the molecular switches for making the transition of myoblast (muscle stem cell) to a fully differentiated, multinucleated striated muscle. Prior to her work in muscle development, she was a laboratory manager for Dr. Francisco Villarreal at UCSD, focusing on understanding the cardio protective effects of a component of dark chocolate on adult male mice after an ischemic event.

She is currently focused on assuring that all of her students are exposed to the logic of the scientific method and get to experience the joy of discovery. Her goal is that all of her students, whether STEM majors or not, leave her class with a greater appreciation of the living world around them. She strives to incorporate news of recent scientific discoveries into the class lecture and discussion. She stresses the importance of understanding the basics of biological systems, and how that knowledge can be applied in fields such as medicine, the environment, and politics.

Alma Itzé Flores is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Undergraduate Studies in Education at California State University, Sacramento.  As a Chicana feminist teacher-scholar, Alma’s research examines the educational pathways of Chicana/Latina first-generation college students, Chicana/Latina mothers, and the development and analysis of Chicana/Latina feminist pedagogies and research methodologies.

Michael Hackett is an assistant professor of computer science at the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP). Prior to joining CCP’s Computer Technologies faculty in 2017, Michael was employed in a number of aerospace software engineering capacities in support of the Federal Aviation Administration’s NextGen Air Transportation System, an ongoing effort to modernize the nation’s air traffic control infrastructure and technologies. This included air traffic control software development, air traffic simulation and analysis, software assessment, laboratory automation, and test automation. In addition to teaching duties, Michael serves as the program coordinator for computer science at CCP. Michael holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Richard Stockton College of NJ (now Stockton University), a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Springfield, and is pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership from Rowan University.

Leta Hooper is a native of Prince George’s County, Maryland. For 13 years, Leta served as an elementary school teacher for public and private schools in the United States as well as abroad in international American accredited schools. She is currently an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Early Childhood Education Program for the Teaching and Learning department at Coppin State University. She also serves as a higher education accreditation peer reviewer for National Association of Education for Young Children (NAEYC). Leta teaches undergraduate courses that focus on progressive and critical theories in teacher education, methods of science and social studies, and student teaching seminar for pre-service teachers enrolled in early childhood and elementary education. As a Black feminist educator, Leta’s pedagogy involves centering the voices and experiences of marginalized communities and highlighting how the intersecting power relations of race, gender, class, and sexuality impact learning communities. Leta’s research examines how institutional policies and practices impact Black pre-service, novice, and experienced educators’ pedagogical practice and trajectories for entering and sustaining in the teacher force. Leta obtained a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from Tuskegee University. She also holds a master’s degree in Early Childhood Special Education from Johns Hopkins University, and doctorate in Teacher Education and School Improvement from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her hobbies are traveling, listening to spoken word poetry, engaging in do it yourself projects, exercising, reading, and cooking.

Omari Jackson is Associate Professor of Urban Educational Leadership at Morgan State University. During high school, Omari noticed the privilege possessed by students who hailed from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. For college, he attended The University of Michigan (UM). Though UM is a public school, it attracts a large proportion of wealthy students. Accordingly, Omari’s understanding of middle class changed; as he was not wealthy and lacked many of the “middle class” social and cultural experiences of his collegiate peers whose parents attended college. With the aforementioned life experiences, he started reflecting on social class. Even more, he started to reflect on the difference between a person who makes $90,000 as a blue collar laborer and $90,000 as a college-educated white collar laborer. Why did he attend college, yet many of his neighborhood peers whose parents were employed in the automotive industry did not attend college? Through scholarly inquiry, he found the emphasis his parents placed on college and his attendance at a magnet school provided social and cultural capitals. His neighborhood peers lacked such. Omari has a wealth of experience working with minorities in higher education, in terms of recruitment, retention, and post-secondary success.

Olivia Johnson is an Assistant Professor in Retailing and Consumer Science in the College of Technology at the University of Houston. Through her work as a teacher and researcher, she aims to prepare students for success through long term mentorship and guidance. Olivia is a consumer behaviorist who focuses on socially responsible consumption behavior mainly as it relates to how consumers make purchasing decisions based on social, moral, and ethical issues. Her research, primarily quantitative, uses a variety of methodologies geared towards analyzing large quantities of data such as social network analysis and topic modeling. Olivia Johnson has presented her research at a variety of conferences and is published in a diverse assortment of journals such as Computers in Human Behavior, Social Media and Society and the International Journal of Retailing and Distribution Management. Dr. Johnson is committed to diversifying the professoriate and invoking sustainable change for students at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). She was recently awarded a grant by the Social Science Research Council to explore the effects of COVID-19 on first generation college students at MSIs.

Tremon Kizer serves as the Associate Director of Bands, Director of Athletic Bands, and Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Central Florida. In addition to serving as the lead administrator for the UCF athletic band program, he conducts the Symphonic Band, teaches courses in music education, conducting, and observe music education student interns. Concurrently, he serves as the principal conductor of the Youth Band of Orlando, a high school honor wind ensemble based in Central Florida. Under his direction, the UCF Marching Knights has the largest membership in university history with over 375 students. Recently, they have performed twice at the American Athletic Conference Championship, at the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl, the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, and the Auto Nation Cure Bowl. Furthermore, the Marching Knights have been invited, and have performed at Bands of America Regional Competitions, the Florida Marching Band Championships, and at the Magic Kingdom Walt Disney World. The Marching Knights has also been recognized and featured at the CBDNA Southern Division Conference. In addition to his work at UCF, Tremon serves on several national, regional, and state committees and boards. He is an active guest conductor, adjudicator, and leadership consultant.

Laricca London-Thomas is an Assistant Professor of Biology in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at Alabama A&M University. She joined the department in 2016 as a tenure-track faculty member after a brief Post-Doctoral training experience at Howard University. She is a trained Microbiologist, currently leading a research program in the area of Food Safety and the prevention of food-borne illness. Her sentiments are that of Faye Wattleton, “my satisfaction comes from my commitment to advancing a better world”.  Laricca is truly honored to be in a position where she can train a new wave of scientists who are committed to producing outstanding research and contribute to a broader body of knowledge. In addition to being a Microbiologist, she is a very passionate 21st century STEM educator. It is her heart’s desire to impart knowledge, inspire and motivate every student that she encounters. Although Laricca’s years in the classroom have just begun, she is committed to excellence in teaching, scholarship and research.

Jennifer McCarthy has been an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at Lincoln University since 2018. Jennifer’s research focuses on wild cat species in both Panama and Indonesia. She completed her dissertation in Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her dissertation research focused on elucidating the ecology and conservation of clouded leopards and other sympatric wild cat species in Sumatra, Indonesia. She has continued conducting research in Indonesia, and now also studies the ecology of wild cats in Central Panama. Jennifer is particularly interested in elucidating the ecology of little known species, and in working with governments and local communities to develop community-based conservation strategies. Jennifer is also passionate about increasing opportunities for undergraduate students to engage in field-based ecological research. She is a Research Affiliate with the Panthera Foundation, a commission member of the IUCN Cat specialist group, and a commission member of the IUCN Lagomorph Specialist Group.

Kimberley D. McKinson is a native of Kingston, Jamaica. She joined the faculty of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a senior college of The City University of New York (CUNY), in Fall 2019 where she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology. Currently, Kimberley teaches courses on urban anthropology as well as anthropological approaches to the study of race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Her current book project is based on her ethnographic research on security and insecurity, postcoloniality, and the spatialization of black historiography in Kingston. This work has been supported by John Jay College, the National Science Foundation, the UC Center for New Racial Studies and the UC Collaboratory for Ethnographic Design. Kimberley’s intellectual interests in material culture, embodiment, space, and critical Black historiography are shaped by her background in dance, in particular, her training in classical ballet and afro-modern styles. Currently, Kimberley serves as chair of her department’s Racial Justice Initiative Working Group and is a member of John Jay’s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion.

Kimberly F. Monroe is a native of Southern Louisiana. She is currently an Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies in the Global Affairs Department at Trinity Washington University. She developed the Africana Studies Minor at Trinity in 2020 and a concentration Africana Studies within the Global Affairs Department to begin Fall 2021. She is a professor of the African Diaspora, Modern Africa, African American History, Black Women's History and Women's Studies. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Grambling State University and Ph.D. in African Diaspora History and Women's Studies from Howard University. Before joining the faculty at Trinity, Monroe was a part-time lecturer at the University of the District of Columbia where she taught courses in the Humanities Division. Kimberly has made presentations and conducted research in Haiti, Ghana, Tanzania and most recently Senegal where she was hosted by the West African Research Center in Dakar. Her research interests include Africana Women Activism, Black Internationalism, Global Black Power, Pan-Africanism, The Black Arts Movement, and Hip-Hop in Africa. She currently serves on the advisory board for the forthcoming book, Black Freedom Struggles: An Africana Reader contracted by Kendall Hunt Publishing.

Leonard Newby  is currently an Assistant Professor of Special Education in the School of Education and Behavior Sciences at Langston University. Prior to Langston University.  Leonard served as a part-time instructor of psychology at the University of West Georgia in Oconee, Georgia and Tuskegee University located in Tuskegee, Alabama. Leonard is a certified educator with over 10 years of K-12 experience and over five years of experience as a licensed program evaluator. Leonard is a member of the Council for Exceptional Children, the National Education Association, the American Psychological Association’s Educational Psychology Division (Division 15), and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Newby also serves on the Board of the Down Syndrome Association of Central Oklahoma.

Newby’s research interests are in teacher recruitment and retention, educational and behavioral assessment, learning behaviors, gender and cultural differences, and social-emotional learning.

Leonard D.T. Newby is a native of Atlanta, Georgia and currently resides in Edmond, Oklahoma. Newby earned a B.A. in Psychology from Morehouse College and a M.A. in Special Education from Clark Atlanta University before earning a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at Auburn University.

Matin Pirouz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science (CS) at Fresno State. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of data science, data mining, big data analytics, complex networks, and CS education. Her current projects include applying prescriptive and descriptive analyses to medical and transportation applications. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federal, state, and private funding agencies. She has authored 45+ refereed research papers and her research findings have been highlighted by the NSF. She has also been the recipient of several scholarships and national awards including a Congressional Commendation for STEM mentorship.

Pablo E. Requena is Assistant Professor of Hispanic Linguistics at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Pablo is a linguist who specializes in language acquisition. In particular, he is interested in how Spanish-speaking children acquire systematic patterns of sociolinguistic variation in grammar. He is also interested in the effect of input quantity and quality as well as internal cognitive mechanisms in the acquisition of Spanish morphosyntax. Therefore, he not only studies children acquiring Spanish in monolingual contexts, but also as a heritage language. Pablo holds degrees from the National University of Cordoba (Argentina), and Penn State University.

Anpetu waste. Lakotiya Wahcasawin emaciyapi, eyas wasicu iya Margaret Ross emaciyapi. Oglala oyate, Sicangu oyate, Isante oyate hematanhan eyas Pahin Sinte el wati. Iyokpiya wacinyankapi eyas iyuha cante wasteya nape ciyuzapi. (Good day. My Lakota name is Prairie Rose (Red Flower) and my American name is Margaret Ross. I am a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, but also have lineage to Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and the Santee Tribes in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota. I live in Porcupine, SD. I am glad to meet you and shake your hand with a good heart.)

Margaret has spent her whole life learning and views herself as a lifelong learner. She has earned her Bachelor of Science degree in History, with a minor in American Indian Studies from Black Hills State University. She went on to receive her Master's degree in Lakota Leadership from Oglala Lakota College and is currently working on her doctorate in Psychology from Grand Canyon University. She has spent 20 years in education and is currently an Assistant Professor at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Margaret expresses that she is very thankful for the opportunity to be a 2020 Elevate Fellow.

Salvador Salazar is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York. Salvador researches the history of the press and communication and the Latin American audiovisual discourse. Professor Salazar edited three volumes related to the History of Cuban Media. His most recent book Cinema, Revolution, and Resistance. The Cultural Policy of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) towards Latin America was published by Latin America Research Commons, a subsidiary of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). This book is the result of five years researching the relation between Cuban cinema and Latin America in the context of the Cuban Revolution. Salvador Salazar is Cuban; his primary language is Spanish, and he has been living the last five years in the United States with his two daughters and wife. He earned his Ph.D. in Latin American Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (2019), and two masters degrees: Communication, at the University of Havana (2006-2009); and Asian Studies, at the University of Salamanca (2008-2009). In 2006, he finished a BA in Journalism at the School of Communication at the University of Havana, and he continued working there for nearly ten years, and finished as an Associate Professor.

Ana K. Soltero López is an Assistant Professor and the coordinator for the Bilingual Authorization Program (BAP) in the Department of Literacy, Early, Bilingual, and Special Education (LEBSE) in the Kremen School of Education and Human Development at the California State University, Fresno. She teaches primarily in the Multiple Subject credential program and her courses centralize culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies, critical teacher inquiry and reflexivity, and service-learning. Her primary research focus is K-20 Latinx educational access, retention, and persistence. Her research agenda is informed by her teaching and work with youth, educators, and communities of color and lies at the intersection of disciplines such as Education, Ethnic Studies, Sociology, and Immigration Studies. Presently, she is working on two major projects. The first is the Enseñamos en el Valle Central Initiative, a five-year, Title V Developing HSIs (DHSI) funded effort focused on growing our own bilingual Latinx teachers in the Central Valley of California. This initiative is structured around a purposeful system of pipeline support beginning in high school and continuing throughout the teacher candidate’s journey through post-secondary education, and into the teaching profession. The second project is a California state-wide collaborative effort within the University of California and the California State University systems dedicated to conducting rigorous empirical research to advance educational equity for undocumented students in higher education.

Marina Sorochinski is a Soviet Union born three-time immigrant and an interdisciplinary scholar. She has been working in minority serving institutions since the start of her academic career and is currently an Assistant Professor at the College for Professional Studies at St. John’s University, New York. Her research broadly focuses on behavioral analysis of victimization patterns in violent and sexual crimes for the purpose of improving the investigation of these types of crime. She is currently working on a major undertaking in an emerging area of the Social and Criminal Justice’s as well as the Legal System’s agendas, notably, technology-facilitated gender/sexual violence. Some of her research and especially her community service agenda also includes work on raising awareness about and advocating for the wrongfully convicted. She has been the recipient of multiple scholarships and awards, including a research fellowship from the National Institute of Justice and publishes and presents her research widely.

Elena M. Venegas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bilingual and Literacy Studies in the College of Education and P-16 Integration at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). For the 2019-2020 academic year, Elena also served as the Faculty Fellow for Educational Technology at UTRGV.

Elena’s research agenda centers on social issues in education. Presently, she is a Co-Principal Investigator researching the language and literacy practices of students enrolled in Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). Elena is the Principal Investigator on a study exploring the experiences of women faculty of color at HSIs. Through her work, Elena aims to contribute to scholarship advocating for an asset-based approach to teaching students of color as well as enacting equity in higher education for not only students but also faculty.  

Elena earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teaching with an emphasis in literacy from Baylor University. Prior to higher education, Elena worked as an elementary teacher and director of a private preschool after obtaining a B.A. in Child and Family Studies and MSEd. in Curriculum and Instruction. Outside of academia, Elena enjoys spending time with her husband, son, and the family dog.

Born and raised in West Oakland, CA, Ebony M. Williams has worked extensively with LGBTQIA+ communities, various communities of color, individuals of low socioeconomic status, at-risk youth, and high-risk sexual offenders. She has a wide range of experiences including working for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation providing services to incarcerated male youth offenders, and has also worked internationally in New Zealand as the sole psychologist of a 21-bed inpatient unit where she incorporated NZ Maori practices and culture into the individual behavioral treatment plans of clients who were dually-diagnosed. Ebony is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at California State University, Sacramento.

Ebony has worked with many social justice/cultural competence-focused agencies in the past, but currently, she is Founder and CEO of Advanced Integrative Services, Inc., where their mission is to provide a comprehensive range of high-quality services via cultural competency training, technical assistance, and strategic planning to better prepare and equip AOD, mental and behavioral health service providers with culturally proficient and relevant interventions in California. She earned a B.A. in Exercise Science from UC Davis; two M.A. degrees in Sport Psychology and Clinical Psychology, respectively, as well as a Psy.D.; all three graduate degrees earned at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, CA.

Soua Xiong is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Student Affairs and College Counseling Program at California State University, Fresno. His research interests include Hmong American student success, engagement of Southeast Asian male collegians, and support services for underserved students in community colleges.

Tianou Zhang is Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology within the College of Health, Community and Policy (HCaP) at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Tianou’s research interest is sports and exercise nutrition and currently he is the director of the Laboratory of Exercise and Sports Nutrition at UTSA. His primary research focus is to explore the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of phytochemicals (plant extracted compounds) supplementation in sports-related inflammation and inflammatory conditions under chronic diseases, such as atherosclerosis and obesity. Tianou was awarded the 2016-2017 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship at the University of Minnesota for his novel research on dietary antioxidants and exercise. He has published several original research and review articles on nutritional supplementation and exercise, and currently he serves on the editorial board of the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (JISSN). He is also an Associate Editor of IFT (Institute of Food Technologists) Food Science & Nutrition-Online Reference work. As the principal investigator of three internal grants, he is driven to explore the benefits of dietary bioactive compounds and skeletal muscle health. He was a representative of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee in the College of HCaP, working with his colleagues to develop initiatives and prepare students for a diverse and global world. Now he serves on the Academic Policy & Curriculum Committee in the Department of Kinesiology and Graduate Studies Committee in the College of HCaP, to review and develop curriculum for student success at UTSA.

Jo Nell Aarons Gillings was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and regards her hometown as a significant contributing factor to her passion for education. In Jamaica, education is one of the country’s main priorities and Jo Nell seeks to have her students believe in the power of education. She received her A.A. in Chemistry from Palm Beach State College, B.S. in Biology from Florida Atlantic University, and M.S. in Forensic Chemistry from Florida International University. Jo Nell has taught both chemistry and biology at the middle and high school level. She has been a full-time chemistry instructor at Miami Dade College, West Campus since January 2017. She is interested in exploring learning strategies and teaching techniques.

Janet Antwi is an assistant professor in the Human Nutrition and Food Area of the College of Agriculture and Human Sciences at Prairie View A&M University. She is a Registered Dietitian professional. She has worked nationally and internationally for the past 9 years in practice and research with hard-to-reach populations and underprivileged communities and involves her students in community engagement activities. Janet also has expertise as a public health professional, pharmacist, and HIV/AIDS medicines adherence counselor. She has a passion for teaching and undertaking research in both community and clinical settings.

As a professor, Janet currently teaches undergraduate dietetics courses in Research Methods and Food Systems Management. She has previously taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in Advanced Nutrition, Nutrition Across the Lifespan, Nutrition Assessment, Nutrition II (Metabolism), Advanced Nutrition Therapy, Current Issues in Dietetics, and Service Learning Project at the State University of New York at Oneonta. Her research areas are nutrition for intervention in chronic diseases prevention and management – nutrition and physical activity in obesity, type 2 diabetes, the impact of bioactive compounds (dietary supplements and antioxidants) on HIV/AIDS disease progression, and nutrition education. Janet holds a bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Kumasi, Ghana), master’s degree in International Healthcare Management Economics and Policy from SDA Bocconi School of Management (Milan, Italy) and Ph.D. in Nutrition and Dietetics from Florida International University (Miami, FL). Her hobbies are reading, writing, listening to music and singing, sightseeing and cooking.

Terrell Brown is an assistant professor in the College of Social Sciences, Arts & Humanities—Department of Social Work at Florida A&M University. He teaches human behavior, social policy, social work practice and HIV/AIDS courses in both the BSW and MSW programs. He was previously on the faculty at Barry University School of Social Work. Prior to entering academia, he worked as a gerontological social worker for both the Prince George’s County Department of Social Services—Adult Resources Bureau and the Health Department in the division of Adult and Geriatric Health.  Brown was a Frederick Douglass Doctoral Fellow in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Howard University, a former intern for the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, and AARP. His interests broadly include aging and diversity issues; ethno-gerontology, health and well-being, HIV/AIDS, social work education, and social welfare policy. In his doctoral work, he explored how the intersections of age, race, spirituality, and sexual orientation impact psychological well-being among Black middle-aged and older HIV positive men. Brown’s current focus is assessing racial and ethnic disparities related to cancer information needs online. He earned his MA in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education from Michigan State University and both an MSW in Community, Administration, and Policy and a Ph.D. from Howard University in Washington, DC.

Tissyana C. Camacho is an Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Development in the College of Health and Human Development at California State University, Northridge. She received a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in Psychology from California State University, Northridge. Her program of research is broadly centered on the promotion of ethnic identity for students of color in educational contexts and the implications of such identities for psychosocial outcomes. In particular, her research examines the developmental nature of ethnic identity (i.e., how ethnic identity changes over time), how ethnic identity develops (i.e., the experiences that contribute to changes in ethnic identity), and how ethnic identity is related to psychological and academic outcomes. She studies these topics using multiple research methods and with ethnically and racially diverse adolescent and young adult populations.

Tissyana’s honors include the Robert Kahn Fellowship for the Scientific Study of Social Issues from the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan and the Dalmas A. Taylor Memorial Summer Minority Policy Fellowship from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. In her spare time, she enjoys being outdoors with her Plott Hound and watching Michigan basketball and football.

Marlene Camacho-Rivera is an Assistant Medical Professor in the Department of Community Health and Social Medicine at the City University of New York School of Medicine. She received her B.S. in Biology and Society from Cornell University, her MPH in Health Policy and Management from Tufts University School of Medicine, and her M.S. and Sc.D. in social epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as a Harvard presidential scholar.

Marlene’ s research focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of mobile health technologies and wearable devices to improve chronic disease prevention and self-management. As a medical educator, Marlene teaches minority health and health equity topics through an assets-based framework, incorporating interactive case-based activities and flipped classroom learning activities, to empower medical students to identify solutions to society’s most pressing health issues. She serves as an investigator and faculty mentor within the CCNY/MSK Partnerships to Advance Cancer Health Equity (PACHE) program. Marlene currently serves as the NYC chapter representative within the Social Medicine Consortium’s Campaign against Racism.

Marlene’s research has been published in several health disparities and clinical journals; she currently serves as a Review Editor for Frontiers in Public Health and PLOS One. As a junior faculty member, she has received numerous training fellowships and awards through NHLBI, the National Hispanic Health Foundation and PCORI, the Hispanic Coalition of New York 2018 40 under 40 Rising Star of the Year, and most recently the AAMC Herbert W. Nickens Faculty Fellowship.

Julius Carlson is Assistant Professor of Music at Mount Saint Mary’s University (MSMU). Julius is a musicologist with specialties in protest music in 20th-century Argentina and Chile and the relationship of art music, religious practice, and nationalism in Biedermeier-era Prussia. In addition to his academic work, he is the co-founder of the Santa Monica Youth Orchestra, a nonprofit organization for low-income and underrepresented youth, and the founder of MSMU’s biennial Women in Music Festival, a celebration of music as a vehicle for positive social change. Julius holds degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, the Universidad de Chile, and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He has received Fulbright-Hays and DAAD grants for his research.

Jeseth Delgado Vela has been an Assistant Professor at Howard University since 2018. Her research interests apply tools in molecular biology to develop sustainable and cost-efficient urban water treatment. She completed her Ph.D. in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Michigan in 2018. Her dissertation research combined laboratory and modeling methods to evaluate the impact of sulfur on nitrogen cycling during wastewater treatment. She received her master’s degree from the University of Michigan in 2014 in Environmental Engineering and a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 2012. She has earned numerous awards, most notably the Ford Foundation Dissertation Award (2016) and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2012).

Frank Fernandez researches educational policy and equity issues. One of his current projects is a multi-state, qualitative study of how administrators at HBCUs and HSIs experience the institutional accreditation process. Frank co-edited Affirmative Action and Racial Equity: Considering the Fisher Case to Forge the Path Ahead (Routledge, 2015) and The Century of Science: The Global Triumph of the Research University (Emerald, 2017). The Century of Science received the 2017 award for significant research in international higher education by the Association for the Study of Higher Education's Council on International Higher Education. The American Association of Publishers selected The Century of Science for a 2018 Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) award in the Education Theory category. Frank’s dissertation, Doctoral Education of Latinas and Latinos in the United States, received the first-place award in the 2018 Outstanding Dissertation Competition, sponsored by the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education.

Morewell Gaseller is originally from Zimbabwe. He obtained his Ph.D. in Physics at Michigan State University. Before enrolling at Michigan State University, Morewell earned an M.S. in Applied Physics and a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Zimbabwe. His research is in experimental condensed matter physics and atmospheric aerosols research. He uses scanning probe techniques (scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy) to study nanoscale systems and structures including atmospheric aerosols. His hobbies include playing tennis and reading science and fiction books. Morewell teaches general physics, integrated physical science, and advanced earth science classes.

Tim Grigsby is currently Assistant Professor of Community Health at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He received his Ph.D. in Preventive Medicine with an emphasis in Health Behavior Research from the University of Southern California. He completed his B.A. in Psychology and Social Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. His primary research interest is in the conceptualization, measurement, and prevention of substance misuse (the proximal and deleterious outcomes of escalating substance use behavior). He is also interested in identifying underlying factors that promote concurrent substance misuse and other negative health behaviors (such as violent behavior, risky sexual practices, and behavioral addictions), the unique role of sociocultural factors (such as discrimination) for minority populations, and adapting novel research methodology and analytical techniques to address public health issues. At present, his projects are focusing on the role of childhood trauma and substance use outcomes among Hispanic/Latinx young adults, development of a community level screening measure for smokers at risk or diagnosed with tobacco use disorder, and developing methods to more accurately capture polysubstance use behaviors. In addition, he has also worked on developing health education materials (known as fotonovelas) for low-literacy, minority populations on a variety of topics including, but not limited to, asthma, depression, dementia, diabetes, and obesity. As a first-generation college graduate, Tim participates as a Faculty Coach for first-generation students at UTSA and mentors undergraduate and graduate students pursuing their own research in his lab.

Roshunda Harris-Allen is a native of Detroit, Michigan and currently resides in Byram, Mississippi with her husband, Dorian Allen, and three children. She earned a B.S. in Elementary Education, an M.S. in Early Childhood Education, and Specialist Certification in Infant and Toddler Development. In May 2015, Roshunda earned her Ed.D. in Early Childhood Education at Jackson State University.

Currently, Roshunda is Assistant Professor of Education and Coordinator of Child Development and Master Degree Programs in the Division of Education, Supervision, and Instruction at Tougaloo College located in Tougaloo, Mississippi. Roshunda has worked in the field of education since 1999 and has an extensive educational background in PreK-16 education. Currently, she serves on the Board for Autism Mississippi and Lifestyle, Education, and Resource Services; is a member of Junior Auxiliary Byram-Terry, the Mississippi Association of Educators, the National Association for Educating Young Children, and the Higher Education Literacy Council; and a Mellon Faculty Grantee.

Roshunda’s research interest focuses on how to provide effective professional development to early childhood educators or those enrolled in a PreK-16 academic setting, families, and the community in efforts to improve the quality of life for young children and help to demolish the “cradle-school-to-prison pipeline.” Focusing on social-emotional development/restorative justice practices and early literacy, her goal is to develop a comprehensive curriculum for educators of young children to improve social competence and to enable children to become active learners and productive citizens.

Edwin Hernandez is an Assistant Professor in the Counseling and Guidance Program in the College of Education at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB). He is also a research associate for the Institute for Immigration, Globalization, & Education at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research and teaching interest are focused on issues of equity and access in education, with a focus on institutional culture and how it shapes students’ opportunities and educational pathways. His most recent work focuses on the role of alternative high schools to reveal how these educational spaces support and/or restrict students’ educational opportunities. Edwin has been published in The High School Journal, Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, Teachers College Record, and in Qualitative Psychology.

Edwin is the son of immigrant parents from Durango, Mexico and is originally from South Los Angeles. Before joining the faculty at CSUSB, Edwin was an adjunct professor at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles in the Department of Psychology. He is a former bilingual school counselor in alternative high schools, where his passion for teaching, mentoring and working with young people grew. He received his B.A. in Sociology from California State University, Northridge, M.A. in Bilingual School Counseling from New York University, and his Ph.D. in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Luz Herrera is an assistant professor in the Department of Literacy, Early Bilingual, and Special Education at the Kremen School of Education and Human Development at California State University, Fresno. She received her Ph.D. from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Luz’s teaching and research are in linguistically and culturally sustaining approaches to teaching emergent bilingual learners, engaging in translanguaging and critical pedagogy in the classroom, and bilingual education policy. She is a proud mamá de Remi and daughter of immigrants from Nayarit, Mexico. Follow her on Twitter @Dra_LuzYadira.

Na’Taki Osborne Jelks is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental and Health Sciences Program at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA. As an environmental health scientist, Na’Taki develops, implements, and evaluates community-based initiatives that empower low-income and communities of color to reduce exposure to environmental health hazards and improve health and quality of life. Currently, she investigates urban environmental health disparities, cumulative risk assessment, and the connection between urban watersheds, pollution, the built environment, green space, and health.  She also explores how vulnerable communities can engage in citizen science activities to monitor local environmental conditions, reduce the existence of and exposure to environmental hazards, and develop effective community-based interventions that revitalize toxic, degraded spaces into healthy places.

Na’Taki studied Chemistry and Civil and Environmental Engineering at Spelman College and the Georgia Institute of Technology respectively before earning a Master of Environmental and Occupational Health degree at Emory University and a Ph.D. in Environmental Public Health at Georgia State University.

Na’Taki was recently appointed to the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), a federal advisory committee that works to integrate environmental justice into the Environmental Protection Agency’s programs, policies and activities as well as to improve the environment or public health in communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms and risks.  She spent the last two years as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Health in the Department of Public Health at Agnes Scott College and served as Founding Director of Agnes Scott’s new graduate certificate program in Evaluation and Assessment Methods.

Veronica Johnson joined the faculty of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2017. Before joining the faculty at John Jay, Veronica completed a pre-doctoral clinical internship at the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, NY and several externships at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Veronica’s research focuses on developing strengths-based approaches to mental health service delivery for client populations of color. She is interested in enhancing mental health treatment for racial/ethnic minority clients by isolating cultural values that promote psychosocial being, rather than focusing on the perceived deficits of client populations of color, as is customary in Psychology.

Veronica is also interested in racial trauma, workplace racial discrimination, racism-related coping, and racial socialization. Outside of her role at John Jay, Veronica runs a private practice in New York City and facilitates discussions on enhancing multicultural competence in workspaces.

 Vivian Lim is Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Guttman Community College, CUNY. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education and an M.A. from CUNY Brooklyn College in secondary mathematics education. Vivian was formerly a mathematics teacher in a Brooklyn public high school and has also taught courses for mathematics teacher preparation programs in Philadelphia and in Brooklyn. The focus of Vivian’s research is on the role of mathematics education, specifically mathematics for social justice, in fostering the development of youth as citizens.

Lap Nguyen is an assistant professor at Central State University. Lap’s family immigrated to America in the early 80s from Vietnam. Lap attended public school in Los Angeles, received an undergraduate degree from InterAmericana University in San Juan, Puerto Rico, then obtained his master's and doctoral degree in Early Childhood Development from the University of Central Florida. His research interests include children with low socioeconomic statuses and innovatively integrating technology into education. During his time as a graduate student, he studied in both Italy and Finland. In Italy, Lap learned about the Reggio Amalia and Montessori approach. In Finland, he studied the country’s public education system. In addition to being an assistant professor, Lap also prepares students for the Ohio teacher licensure exams. During the summer, Lap works with the extensions and Seed to Bloom programs. In those programs, he works with middle school and high school students from diverse backgrounds teaching them STEM and preparing them to matriculate into a college or university.

Joanna Perez earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Illinois of Urbana-Champaign. She earned her undergraduate degree in Sociology with a double minor in Labor Workplace Studies and Civic Engagement from the University of California, Los Angeles. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH). Her research lies at the intersection of immigration, law, education, social movements, and family. In particular, she examines how systems of power and inequality, as well as the intersectionality of race, class, gender, sexuality, and immigration status, impact Latino undocumented immigrant young adult activists (undocuactivists). Drawing from the experiences Latino undocuactivists, her research reveals key pathways by which historically castigated and stigmatized social groups are capable of using activism to rectify and potentially reverse their prescribed positions in society. Joanna has received grants and awards that recognize her scholarship, teaching, and service. This includes receiving the ASA Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline, UndocuScholars Grant, and AAHHE Faculty Fellowship. At CSUDH, she has taught, mentored, and learned from first-generation, low-income, undocumented, LGBTQ, and students of color. This includes being a Faculty Advisor for the McNair Scholars Program, ENF: Immigrant Student Alliance, AKD: Sociology Honors Society, and initiatives geared towards advocating for underserved students. At the national level, she has served as the AAHHE Alumni Coordinator and elected Council Member for the ASA Latino Section. Overall, Joanna is a scholar-activist who is passionate about social justice and working towards changing the social conditions of marginalized communities.

Tomekia Simeon is a passionate Assistant Professor of Chemistry, as well as a K-12 and higher education STEM advocate. Tomekia received her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at Tougaloo College before earning her a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Jackson State University (JSU) Master’s-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program. During her doctoral studies, she interned at NASA, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and with the 1985 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Jerome Karle, at the Office of Naval Research. After receiving her doctorate she aspired to continue her studies in computational chemistry by working with the pioneers in quantum chemistry at Northwestern University.

Before her current role, she served as the STEM Specialist for Student Center for Science Engagement (SCSE) at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) whereas her duties included advising and mentoring students in STEM concerning their resumes, personal statements, interviewing preparation and internships. Building on her experiences from NEIU, now at Dillard University located in New Orleans, LA, Tomekia has initiated Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) in the Department of Chemistry and building her research program for undergraduates in additive manufacturing for spacecraft exploration.

 Henry Smart, III is a military veteran with over 15 years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps and the National Guard; this work involved the review of the line of duty and death investigations and claims against the government. Throughout his professional career, he has acquired additional knowledge and experience in contract management, nonprofit management, public policy, and social and public administration. He holds his M.S. in Social Administration from Columbia University and a B.S. in Social Work from Morgan State University. After completing his studies at Columbia, he provided program management at various non-profit organizations in the New York City metropolitan area. This work involved case management for senior citizens and preventive foster care for juveniles and adolescents. In May 2018, he completed his Ph.D. in Public Administration and Public Affairs at Virginia Tech. He currently holds a tenure-track position at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the Department of Public Management. At John Jay College, Henry teaches undergraduate courses in the Criminal Justice Management program and graduate courses in the MPA program. His teaching portfolio covers topics related to the policy process, policy analysis, the evaluation of criminal justice programs and the foundations of public administration. His current research examines colorism’s influence on administrative decisions, narratives related to state and local policy agreement and the intersection of presidential pork and disaster preparedness.  

Oscar Jerome Stewart is an Assistant Professor of Management and a member of the Sustainable Business Group at San Francisco State University in the College of Business. Jerome is primarily interested in interrogating power and understanding ways to build more communal, equitable power structures. Jerome teaches the undergraduate seminar course on Business and Society and the MBA-level Business Ethics course. Jerome’s research focuses on interrogating power at the intersection of organizational theory, strategy, and business ethics. This work includes such projects as an account of corporate strategic irresponsibility as well as an exploration of the determinants and outcomes of corporate misconduct in the pharmaceutical industry. Additionally, this research agenda includes critical scholarship on organizational diversity and discrimination.

Shahab Tayeb is currently Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at California State University, Fresno. As a proud first-generation college graduate, he believes in changing lives through his teaching and he strives to make an impact in the community. He obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Shahab’s research expertise and interests include Embedded Networking and Cybersecurity, particularly in the contexts of the Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems. He specializes in investigating attack mitigation techniques to safeguard connected devices and networks. He is currently working on applying data science techniques, particularly deep learning, to tackle the detection of zero-day attacks. He has also been part of multiple research projects on workforce development and professional development of K-12 teachers. He has authored/co-authored 20+ refereed research papers over the past three years and his research findings have been highlighted by the National Science Foundation. He has also been the recipient of several scholarships and awards including a U.S. Congressional Commendation for STEM mentorship and a Graduate College medallion. He is currently designing a new course on Cloud and Cybersecurity to train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

 Daniel Theriault is the coordinator of the Recreation and Leisure Services major at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina. His work is focused on promoting social justice in and through youth recreation services. Within the social justice domain, he investigates culturally sensitive programming strategies and history as a means to both challenge oppression and enriches leisure discourse. His research has been published in journals within the leisure studies (e.g., Leisure Sciences, Journal of Leisure Research), youth development (e.g., Journal of Youth Development) and health promotion (e.g., The Journal of Rural Health) fields. He married the love of his life, Alexandra, in June 2017. In his free time, Daniel can be found either hiking or getting ready to hike. Daniel obtained his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University.

Paloma E. Villegas is a Mexicana/Chicana migrant whose migrations have led her from Guadalajara, Mexico, to the San Francisco Bay Area, to Toronto, Canada, and back to California. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, San Bernardino and a multi-disciplinary artist whose work focuses on the intersections of migrant illegalization, borders, race, and gender. She completed her Ph.D. in Sociology of Education at the University of Toronto and also has a master’s degree in Women Studies from California State University, San Francisco. Along with her brother and co-author, Francisco Villegas, she has written an autoethnography of her experiences navigating transnational borders as well as co-edited a volume of migrant students’ narratives navigating barriers to accessing post-secondary education in Canada, titled Seeds of Hope: Creating a Future in the Shadows. She has also conducted research on the experience of precariously documented Mexican migrants in Toronto. Her poetry and artwork can be found in edited volumes and community publications. Paloma’s current research focuses on access to postsecondary education in Southern California.

Tyler Argüello is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento. Tyler’s research and clinical work is a transdisciplinary project that concerns communicative practices, Queer Theory, and the production of identities, sex/ualities, and health disparities, namely HIV. Currently, Tyler studies intergenerational stress and divides within queer populations, and is the Principal Investigator on multiple critical theory driven and multi-media studies on "HIV Stress Exchange”, AIDS Survivor Syndrome, and long-term survivorship of queer men, inclusive of all HIV statuses. Tyler has been a practicing social worker for over twenty years, primarily around community mental health and HIV. He teaches courses in difference and social justice, advanced mental health practice, psychodiagnostics, practice with LGBTQ+ communities, and qualitative research. He maintains a small private practice, provides clinical supervision, is a licensed independent clinical social worker (LCSW), and he is a Diplomate in Clinical Social Work (DCSW). He holds a B.A. (Spanish), BASW., MSW, and Ph.D. (Social Welfare), all from the University of Washington, Seattle.

Derek Blackwell, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Languages and Communication at Prairie View A&M University. Drawn to academia by a passion for teaching and mentoring, he currently teaches courses on media literacy, communication technology, and media industries. His research focuses on the impact of new digital tools on romantic relationships. He has written on a number of topics in this area ranging from the design of online dating websites to the role of social networking sites in romantic relationships to the ways new technologies impact understandings of infidelity. His most recent work looks at depictions of digital romance in the television series, Black Mirror.

Christian Bracho is an assistant professor in the LaFetra College of Education at the University of La Verne (ULV), a Hispanic Serving Institution. At ULV, he works with pre-service teachers in the single-subject program, and serves on the executive committee of the newly launched Center for Educational Equity and Intercultural Research (CEEIR). His research focuses on the relationships between teacher identity, educational reform, and social movements, topics raised in his case study of a radical teachers' union in Oaxaca, Mexico, as well as his work on nonviolence education at the Ahimsa Center for Nonviolence at Cal Poly Pomona. Christian also explores intersectional lived experiences in his work, as in a co-authored study about undocumented LGBT immigrants, and in a study of teacher candidates navigating diversity courses.

Christian is the son of Mexican immigrants and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, where he was educated and later worked as a high school English teacher and professional development facilitator. With the Los Angeles County Office of Education and the La Puente Valley Regional Occupational Program, he collaborated with school districts to develop training for K-12 teachers related to the Common Core, English Language Development standards, Career Technical Education, and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Outside of the USA, he led pedagogy workshops for the Council of International Educational Exchange (CIEE), facilitating professional development for professors in Prague, Barcelona, and Seville. Christian is proud to have been recently selected as a Transformative Teacher Educator Fellow at Arcadia University.

Vincent D. Carales received his B.A. in Mass Communications and M.S. in Counseling and Guidance with an emphasis in Student Affairs from Texas State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research interests include understanding the experiences and educational outcomes of first generation, Latino, low-income and community college students. He is also interested in examining federal, state, and institutional policies and trends related to diversity, equity, and college affordability. His most recent research focuses on examining the individual factors associated with the educational attainment outcomes of Latino community college students.

Vincent currently serves as an assistant professor at the University of Houston. Prior to joining the University of Houston, he served as a graduate research associate at the American Council on Education in Washington, DC. He has over 20 years of higher education experience which includes working as an orientation assistant in admissions at Colorado State University and Texas State University. He has also worked professionally as an outreach financial aid counselor at The University of Texas at Austin and as a school consultant and account executive at Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation (TG). He is currently a member of the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education (TACHE), American Educational Research Association (AERA), Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), and the Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC).

Amber R. Crowell is Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Fresno. Her research interests include racial residential segregation and social inequalities, racial/ethnic relations, social demography, and quantitative methodology. She has previously published research on the macro and micro dynamics of Latina/o locational attainments and residential segregation and is currently studying the social consequences of residential segregation and unstable integration with a focus on educational opportunity gaps. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Texas A&M University in 2014, her M.S. in Sociology from Texas A&M University in 2010, and her B.A. in Sociology with a minor in Mathematics from Texas A&M University – Commerce in 2008. She previously held a postdoctoral research position at the Texas Federal Statistical Research Data Center located at Texas A&M University. She began her faculty position at Fresno State in 2016 and teaches courses in quantitative methods, social inequality, race and ethnicity, and demography. She is involved in undergraduate research, having mentored undergraduate research projects through her college honors program and in collaboration with the REU program at her alma mater, Texas A&M University. She is originally from the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex and identifies as Latina multiracial.

Yen Dang is Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Administration at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. She earned her Pharm.D. from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and completed a specialized residency in ambulatory care at Temple University School of Pharmacy. Her practice site is located at Chesapeake Healthcare in Princess Anne and Pocomoke, MD. Yen is a member of the Maryland Pharmacists Association and Maryland Public Health Association. She is also certified as an immunization provider and sits on the Statewide Advisory Commission on Immunization. She serves as the Director of Global Health at the School of Pharmacy and organizes medical missions to Haiti and Nicaragua.

Dale Dawes earned his Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Mathematics Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and is an Assistant Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY): Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). To fulfill his desire to teach and alleviate students’ apprehension towards mathematics, he joined CUNY as an Adjunct Lecturer in fall 2008, was promoted to full-time Lecturer in spring 2010, Instructor in fall 2016 and Assistant Professor in spring 2017.

As a former Developmental Mathematics Coordinator at BMCC, he was essential to the integration and management of online educational technology by the Mathematics Department. Dale developed and teaches several E-Learning courses. His technique and research interest are using the real-time analytics of an online preparation and rigorous enhancement platforms (OPREP) to transform a classroom into an innovative teaching environment where an instructor's pedagogical approach is tailored to the needs of each class and each student. Dale shares his implementation and best practices expertise via presentations and webinars at different institutions and conferences.

Dale holds his M.S. in Risk Management from St. John's University where he worked as a Graduate Research Assistant and graduated Beta Gamma Sigma. Subsequently, he passed Actuarial Science Exam P and worked as an Insurance Risk Analyst at Moody's Investor Services. His talent for teaching and passion for mathematics were cultivated at the University of Pittsburgh, where he tutored in the Upward Bound Program. Dale graduated summa cum laude and received a Culver Award from University of Pittsburgh’s Mathematics Department.

Charity Brown Griffin is Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Winston-Salem State University. She earned a B.A. in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in School Psychology from the University of South Carolina. After completing her graduate training, Charity served children and families at elementary, middle and high schools through her practice for Guilford County Schools as a Nationally Certified School Psychologist. Charity is also Licensed as a Psychologist by the North Carolina Psychology Board. Her research program examines cultural and contextual factors that contribute to positive youth development, with a specific focus on African American adolescents. More specifically, her research seeks to integrate principles from multiple disciplines (school psychology; developmental psychology; education) to elucidate African Americans youths’ experiences with race-related processes and the consequences of these experiences for educational, psychological, and health outcomes. Her work spans multiple areas and includes racial identity, racial socialization, racial discrimination, school racial climate, school engagement and gender-related processes. Charity is also committed to the translation of her research into practice, including the development of culturally specific intervention and prevention programming.

Neil Hwang was born and raised in South Korea, and migrated to the United States in high school. He spent a few years in the U.S. Army, including a deployment to Iraq in early 2000s, and went back to school to study business and math. After school, Neil went to Wall Street to work in the corporate sector for about 10 years in investment banking and management consulting. During this period, he started teaching part-time at local colleges on weekends. What started out as merely something to do to on Saturdays just to get his mind off from work became something he started to excitedly look forward to throughout the week. Finally, in the spring of last year, he was ecstatic to receive a full-time offer to teach accounting at Bronx Community College, where he is constantly amazed at the humility, genuineness, and kindness of the students he has the pleasure to interact with.

Glen Philbrick was raised on a dairy farm in central North Dakota. Glen graduated from Minot State University with a B.S. in Finance and Minor in Accounting. Shortly after graduating, Glen pursued the Series 66 and Series 7 securities licenses and then a M.S. in Management with focus on Organizational Behavior and Management Information Systems from Minot State University. While in college, Glen was active in the family farming operation and maintained the lifestyle he grew up in which included growing and preserving vegetables and meat. Glen had the opportunity to engage in missionary work overseas and domestically while in college. Glen began teaching business as an adjunct instructor at Aakers College, which later became Rasmussen College, and later full time at United Tribes Technical College. Glen has been a proud member of the Sitting Bull College faculty since 2016 and serves as the advisor for American Indian Business Leaders (AIBL). Agri-business and the cultural relevancy of local food production and food sovereignty are incorporated into several of Glen’s courses. Glen is a certified organic vegetable and vegetable seed producer and has been awarded grants for the research of ancient grains, local foods promotion, and vegetable research.

Verónica Caridad Rabelo, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Management in the College of Business at San Francisco State University. She received a Ph.D. in Psychology (Gender & Feminist Psychology) and Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in Psychology with concentrations in Latin@ Studies and Africana Studies from Williams College. She uses an intersectional and interdisciplinary lens to examine how race/ethnicity, gender/sexuality, and social class shape experiences of mistreatment, mindfulness, compassion, and well-being in the workplace. She researches these topics from the perspectives of underrepresented, underserved, and under-studied communities, including employees who are people of color, immigrants, gender/sexual minorities, and lower income. Her research also identifies methods to make teaching, research methods, and workplace environments more inclusive. Veronica’s honors include a Student Scholar Latina Award from the American Psychological Association and the inaugural Diversity Research Award from the University of Michigan Department of Psychology. In her spare time, she enjoys practicing yoga, creating glass mosaics, relaxing with her two cats Lentil and Dipper, and crocheting items for her Etsy shop, with 100% of proceeds donated to social justice organizations (http://lentilandstitch.etsy.com). For more about her research, teaching, and consulting, visit www.VeronicaRabelo.com.

Vanessa A. Sansone is Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Her research agenda aims to advance equity and success for diverse student populations in higher education. Her current scholarly interests focus on college affordability, Latina/o students, student veterans, Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and policy work. She has published a co-authored piece focused on first-generation Latina/o college students who work for pay while enrolled in college in The Review of Higher Education and has a forthcoming co-authored book chapter on culturally inclusive approaches to address Latina/o student postsecondary success. Having worked in higher education as a tutor, college advisor, institutional researcher, and program coordinator within both the university and community college settings, she has a decade of experience working as a student affairs and academic affairs practitioner. She serves as the co-founder and lead organizer of Colegio en Nuestra Comunidad, which is an annual citywide college fair that promotes college attainment to low-income neighborhoods within San Antonio, Texas.

She hails from a historically underserved area of San Antonio and is a first-generation college student. Her experiences have shaped her commitment to advance social justice for marginalized students in higher education. To progress this agenda, she engages in equity-driven research, teaching, and service. She holds a M.ED in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from UTSA, and a B.A. in Sociology from St. Mary’s University, San Antonio.

Lissa D. Stapleton was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. Stapleton is currently an assistant professor at California State University, Northridge in the Department of Deaf Studies. Her research primarily focuses on equity and access, identity development, and the educational history of Deaf students, faculty, and staff with a particular interest in the intersections of race, gender, and disability.

Prior to joining the faculty, Lissa worked as a Community Director in Residence Life with the Lighthouse (Deaf and Deaf Studies majors) Living Learning community, as a Resident Director for Semester at Sea and an international volunteer with Deaf Jamaican and Ghanaian communities. Her desire to find better ways to support Deaf college students of color lead her to pursue her doctorate at Iowa State University. She graduated in 2014 with her Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis in Higher Education and Social Justice and a minor in Women's Studies. She won the 2015 Melvene D. Hardee NASPA Dissertation of the Year award and was the runner up for the American Association for Blacks in Higher Education Dissertation of the Year award. Stapleton’s service and professional involvement includes working, presenting and supporting the initiatives of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) and the National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA).

Lissa earned her M.S.Ed in College Student Personnel from the University of Dayton. She attended Wright State University and graduated with a BSW with a minor in African and African-American Studies.

A native New Yorker, Blanca E. Vega is the daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants. Blanca is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Montclair State University. She earned a Ed.D. from the Higher and Postsecondary Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University. During that time, she also worked as Director of the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) at Marymount Manhattan College. She earned a B.A. in Anthropology from Brandeis University and a M.A. in Higher Education at New York University. Blanca's scholarship broadly focuses on equity, access, and success in higher education among underserved populations. Her primary area of research situates racism as one of multiple barriers that can impact higher education experiences and success – not just for students, but also for administrators and faculty. She is currently studying perceptions of racial incidents in higher education and organizational responses to these incidents. Her secondary area of research explores leadership and policymaking and their impact on access to and support for undocumented students. In this line of inquiry, Blanca examines leadership concerning undocumented students in an increasingly anti-immigrant political environment. Finally, she continues to explore Latinx intellectualism in higher education curriculum, instruction, and the professoriate.

James Walters has a long-term goal is to model, in real time and in living animals the mechanisms behind enterocyte regulation of lipid homeostasis, processes that have important implications for dyslipidemias; including obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Such dynamic events are difficult to model by traditional cell culture and histological approaches. His work has focused on understanding lipid absorption and lipid droplet formation via novel tools that exploit the optical clarity of the Zebrafish embryo, a feature that enables visualization of lipid absorption in live animals. He has developed new imaging strategies, diet and drug delivery methods, and genetic tools advantageous for the proposed study. These studies are the first to directly observe fluorescent lipids, fusion proteins, and reporter gene constructs in defined dietary conditions with single cell resolution. James now plans to use this system to achieve a comprehensive understanding of dietary lipid processing and identify new therapeutic targets for the treatment of dyslipidemia. As faculty at an undergraduate institution, Bluefield State College, that fosters his research, James has the great fortune to pay his experiences forward to teach, to train, and to inspire young minds.

Jessie L. Adolph is a PhD candidate at the University of Missouri-Columbia completing a dissertation on Fatherhood Narratives in Hip-Hop Lyricism. He received an MA in English from University of Missouri-Columbia in 2009 and BA in English with a minor in Africana Studies from Central Missouri State University in 2005. Prior to teaching at Lincoln University as an English Instructor, Jessie has served as a graduate instructor at University of Missouri, a community college instructor, and a high school teacher. The courses he has taught include Composition I and II, African American Literature, Contemporary Fiction, World Literature, and British Literature. Moreover, he taught writing instruction and lyrical analysis for the Minority Achievement Committee Scholars program, a public-school initiative geared towards preparing minority and underrepresented youth for the rigors of college life. Jessie is a McNair Scholar, Gus T. Ridgel Fellow, Thurgood Marshall Fellow, Award-winning College Outreach Programmer, Martin Luther King, Jr Leadership Award winner, and winner of the Kenneth Davis Folklore Award​. He enjoys organizing and facilitating poetry reading events, hip-hop symposiums, black history programs, African American fatherhood programs, and writing conferences for academic and marginalized communities. 

Lucia Alcalá is an assistant professor of Psychology at California State University, Fullerton. She received her BA in Psychology from the California State University, Northridge and her PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Lucia recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship from the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States to study Mayan mothers’ views and expectations on children’s development (parental ethnotheories) and their relation to children’s learning processes in the Yucatan Peninsula, México. Prior to her postdoc fellowship, Lucia was a visiting professor at the Universidad Intercultural Maya de Quintana Roo, where she worked with Mayan students from an intercultural education framework in which community practices and knowledge are integral parts of the academic program. Lucia has conducted research in the Mayan communities of Yucatan and other indigenous communities in Guadalajara, México, and California. Her research explores the cultural variation of children's cognitive and social development exploring the role of children’s contributions to family household work and community work in their approaches to learning—in other words, looking at why children in some communities help and why in some communities they don’t want to help. Lucia is currently collaborating with colleges in Guadalajara in a cross-cultural study looking at the recent arrival of Mayan immigrant families to Southern California and exploring how challenges and adjustments in family experience influence children’s development.

Latoya Brooks is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Bennett College instructing BSW students at a Historically Black women’s college. Prior to her career in academia, she worked as a clinician and a sexuality educator for over a decade. Latoya’s clinical practice included working with individuals with compulsive sexual behaviors, teen pregnancy prevention programs, and gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth.

Keisha A. Brown is a 2007 graduate from University of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s degree in American Studies and Chinese. In 2015, Keisha earned her doctorate in East Asian Languages and Cultures from the University of Southern California. Her dissertation, entitled “Representations of Blackness in Sino-African American relations, 1949-1972,” examines the representation of Blackness as conceptualized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the influence of said representations within Sino-African American relations. Sino-African American exchanges created hybrid spaces where ideals about and demands for social transformation were communicated. Her research primarily uses Chinese source materials to explore the tensions and solidarity engendered in these transracial and transnational interactions. Her work complicates the current Sino-African American narrative through an analysis of the multiple ways race, as a lens for understanding the “other,” handicapped the possibility of this alliance to fully materialize via a focus on the representation of Blackness in the Chinese context. Keisha is currently an Assistant Professor of History at Tennessee State University in the Department of History, Political Science, Geography, and Africana Studies.

Eric Butler’s desire to be an ecologist grew out of his love of nature as a child. Unlike some young adults, Eric never wondered what he wanted to be when he grew up—he always knew he wanted to be a scientist working with animals outdoors. During his PhD work, Eric focused on grasshoppers, which provide a convenient arthropod model for many important ecological interactions. During the last semester of his PhD work, Eric worked as an adjunct at an HBCU and began seriously considering working at an HBCU full-time. When he began his job at Shaw University, he found that while few of his students expressed an initial interest in wildlife or nature, this was largely due to a lack of exposure. A handful of field trips in a zoology class turned into the Wildlife Biology Club, which now takes students hiking and camping in natural areas. Several of Eric’s graduating seniors are now considering careers in zoology, ecology, or environmental education because of their experiences in this club. Eric has also been able to involve undergraduate students heavily in research. His own field is easy to start out in since many basic observations can be recorded without a student first learning how to use expensive equipment, and he has been able to use this to encourage students to start successful research projects in his lab, several of which are now close to publishing.

Tyesha L. Farmer is a summa cum laude graduate of Alabama A&M University, where she received her BS degree in Biology in 2003. Thereafter, she pursued a PhD in Genetics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she investigated differences in tumor biology and genome copy number alterations in African-American and European-American women diagnosed with early onset breast cancer. Upon completion of her doctoral studies in 2009, Tyesha received a post-doctoral fellowship position in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology investigating the role of target of rapamycin (TOR) signaling in cancer and the DNA damage response. In 2014, Tyesha joined the faculty at her alma mater as Assistant Professor of Genetics in the same department where she received her undergraduate degree. Her present research interests include evaluating rapamycin sensitivity and resistance in plant species, understanding the role of non-canonical TOR signaling in cancer, and large-scale genomic analyses with an emphasis on health disparities. Tyesha also has a passion for providing opportunities for minority students in medicine and STEM fields. She is a founding member of the Blackbelt Medical/Professional Health Consortium, which seeks to develop a professional health education pipeline program for minority students from rural Alabama. Tyesha is a native of York, Alabama in rural Sumter County. She enjoys watching astronomy documentaries, writing poetry, and playing tennis (although she is not very good at it).

José García is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at California State University Channel Islands. He received his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in Cultural Studies in Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to receiving his PhD, José obtained an MA in Mexican American Studies with a concentration in Education from San José State University and a BA in Political Science and Spanish from California State University Stanislaus. José is a former elementary school teacher; he taught kindergarten and second grade. His current research and teaching interests explore the roles of lived experiences—vivencias—in shaping the dispositions and practices of teachers of color, particularly Latinas/os, working in and with historically marginalized communities. José’s current research and teaching interest is informed by a study where he examined 1) the rationales of a group of Latina/o Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries for pursuing careers as educators and 2) their dispositions as teachers. José’s recent and forthcoming publications can be found in Critical Education, The Urban Review, and Diálogo, an interdisciplinary journal published by the Center for Latino Research at DePaul University. Additionally, he has presented his research at regional and national conferences.

Monica Gray is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Lincoln University. She simultaneously received her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering (Water Resources concentration) and Master’s of Public Health (Environmental & Occupational Health concentration) from the University of South Florida, Tampa. She also received a Master’s in Biological Engineering from the University of Georgia, Athens and BS in Agricultural Engineering from the University of the West Indies, Trinidad. Monica is a seasoned engineer and educator who has lived, studied, and worked in various countries around the world. Prior to arriving at The Lincoln University, she managed the global curriculum portfolio for over a hundred and twenty programs in sixteen countries at Arcadia University and was instrumental in successfully developing and implementing study abroad opportunities and exchanges for undergraduate engineers from institutions across the country, while internationalizing the engineering curriculum through cooperation, consortia, and curriculum integration.​

Sheena Harris is from Pompano Beach, Florida. She joined the United States Army Reserves in 2000 and deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. She earned her BS in Political Science and Master’s of Applied Social Science in History at Florida A&M University. She went on to earn her doctorate in African American History from The University of Memphis. Upon graduation, she joined the History Department at Austin Peay State University in Clarkesville, TN, where she spent most of her time teaching abroad in Central America and Senegal, West Africa. In 2014, Sheena accepted a position at Tuskegee University as an Assistant Professor of History. She is currently in the final stages of her book on the life of Margaret Murray Washington—the 3rd wife of Booker T. Washington. She recently published in a collective work, Real Sister, where she explored the history of black women from Sarah Baartman to reality television. She has published works on Margaret Washington, women in the public sphere, and education in Mt. Meigs, Alabama. In addition to teaching and writing, Sheena is also an administrator. She is the Interim Director of Student Engagement Initiatives and the coordinator of the University-Wide Honors Program. She also recently started a mentoring program called YEP (Youth Empowerment Program), which helps struggling teens with SAT/ACT prep.

Melanie Hernandez is an Assistant Professor of English at Fresno State, where she teaches courses in American literature and cultural production. She specializes in nineteenth-century U.S. literature, with an emphasis on comparative African American and Chicana/o Studies. Her ongoing research focuses on strategic racial performance, authenticity politics and social policing, and violent racial satire. Prior to teaching, Melanie led another life in television and radio production. She accepts full responsibility for her role in launching the Oxygen network and ABC’s The View and for subjecting LA’s morning commuters to her so-called “humor” on K-EARTH 101. By far, however, she is most haunted by the indignities of low-level production work for Saturday Night Live!, E! News Daily, The Howard Stern Show, and Eyewitness News. Nevermore—Melanie earned a PhD in English and a certificate in public scholarship from the University of Washington (2013), an MA in English from CSU Dominguez Hills (2005), and a BA in psychology from New York University (2002). She held the Jay T. Last Fellowship in visual culture at the American Antiquarian Society and was a volunteer instructor for University Beyond Bars in collaboration with the Washington State Reformatory.

Crystal A. Jackson joined the faculty of the Department of Sociology at John Jay College – City University of New York (JJC-CUNY) in August 2013. JJC is an urban commuter campus and Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in the heart of New York City whose motto is “we educate fierce advocates for justice.” Jackson’s research and teaching address the sociology of gender & sexuality, sexual labor, social justice, inequalities, and feminism. As a feminist sociologist, she also teaches Gender Studies courses and currently serves on the Gender Studies Program Advisory Committee. Jackson’s research emphasizes feminist and queer understandings of sexual labor and gender politics in the United States. Her qualitative scholarship on the history and contemporary politics of U.S. prostitution policies, sex worker rights activism, and anti-sex trafficking efforts, identifies and critiques institutionalized inequalities embedded in the criminal justice system. Crystal is co-author of The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex, and Sin in the New American Heartland (Routledge, 2010), an ethnographic exploration of the only legal sale of sex in the country, Nevada’s rural brothels. She has also studied strip club laws, attendees at an annual expo for the adult film industry, and queer adult film producers and performers. Crystal earned her PhD in sociology, with an emphasis in women's studies, from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Annita Lucchesi is a faculty member in the Liberal Arts division at Blackfeet Community College (BCC), a TCU serving the Blackfeet Nation, in rural northern Montana. She earned her BA in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley and an MA in American Studies from Washington State University. She will begin her doctoral studies at the University of Lethbridge in Fall 2017, pursuing a PhD in Cultural, Social, & Political Thought. At BCC, she teaches a wide range of liberal arts courses, including College Writing 101, Intro to Critical Thinking, and Indigenous Philosophies. Annita's research interests include critical cartography, historiography, indigenous experiences of genocide, indigenous feminisms, and indigenous pedagogies. Her MA thesis explored the use of cartography to create holistic narratives of Native American intergenerational experiences of genocide, and her current work maps the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, with the aim of creating resources that can create space for restorative justice. Annita is Southern Cheyenne; her band traditionally made their home where the Rocky Mountains meet the Plains, in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming. Her Indian name is Hetoevėhotohke'e, which translates to Evening Star Woman.

Nicole Ashanti McFarlane thinks about how African Americans engage technologies to compose spaces of color and preside over Blackness in the public sphere. With academic backgrounds in Political Science and African American Literature, she began her career in digital media by freelancing as a technical design consultant and content contributor in the early days of blogging and music filesharing. Her work in rhetorical representations of African American English and Black cultural production in American political culture combines her interests in popular culture and social activism. Currently a professor of English Rhetoric and Composition at Fayetteville State University, Nicole teaches courses in rhetorical theory, professional writing, and new media. To find out more, follow her at @DrAshantiMc or CircuitouslyCute blog.

Katrina Nguyen is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor at Xavier University of Louisiana, College of Pharmacy. Her typical day includes clinic work in the morning, where she helps patients manage their chronic disease at a community health center, and teaching in the afternoons. She received her PharmD in 2012 and completed her PGY1 Community Pharmacy Residency in 2015 at Xavier University of Louisiana, College of Pharmacy. Katrina also received a BS in Finance from San Diego State University in 2005. Currently, her areas of focus are Hepatitis B and C management, Diabetes, Dyslipidemia, Hypertension, and Gastro-Intestinal diseases. Also, she has recently begun teaching Pharmacy Law. Her short-term goals are to be Board Certified and obtain grants for her research. Her long-term goal is to be promoted to Clinical Associate Professor. I look forward to collaborations in research and hope to establish a study abroad clinical rotation for our students.

Natalie Spencer is currently an Assistant Professor at North Carolina A&T State University. Before joining academia, she served as a high school counselor for over five years. Natalie is also a Licensed Professional Counselor, National Certified Counselor, and Approved Clinical Supervisor. Natalie earned her doctorate in Counselor Education and Supervision from North Carolina State University and her master's degree in school counseling and undergraduate degree from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include the academic and personal/social experiences of gifted/high-achieving African American students, mindfulness, grief and loss, and pregnant teens/teen mothers. She enjoys presenting her research at local, state, and national conferences.

Don Unger is an Assistant Professor of Writing & Rhetoric at St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, where he teaches courses in professional writing, rhetorical theory, and digital rhetorics. Additionally, he serves as a Faculty Fellow of Community-Engaged Teaching & Learning in St. Edward's Center for Teaching Excellence and as the Social-Media Editor for Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society. His work has appeared in the journals Computers & Composition; Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology & Pedagogy; and in the forthcoming edited collection Communicating Globally: Applications for International Communication Exchange.

Patrice Parker Waller currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at California State University Fullerton, where she coordinates the Foundational Level Mathematics Credential Program. She holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Teaching and Learning with a concentration in Mathematics Education from Georgia State University. Her research interests include teaching and learning mathematics abroad, improving teaching and learning in K-12 and undergraduate mathematics, teaching mathematics for social justice, and pre-service and in-service mathematics teacher development. Patrice has travelled to several countries, including Brazil, South Africa, Morocco, and Ghana, to explore the teaching of mathematics and to examine instances of mathematics embedded in various cultures. In 2014, Patrice was awarded a Fulbright-Hayes Scholarship to investigate mathematics, women, and culture in Belize. She is a member of several national mathematics organizations, including the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE), where she was selected as a STaR Fellow in 2016.

KiMi Wilson is an Assistant Professor in Curriculum and Instruction at California State University, Los Angeles. KiMi's research has been examining mathematics and science identity development for Black students in K-12 public schooling in relation to STEM education and participation. His published works have focused on identity development of Black males pursuing STEM in higher education and teacher identity development in mathematics. He anticipates expanding his research to focus on Black students’ mathematics and science learning in elementary classrooms. KiMi has formerly worked as a public school teacher in California as an elementary teacher and a secondary math and science teacher, with experience working with pre- and in-service teachers. He is passionate about eliminating educational inequities in STEM for all students, specifically students who are historically marginalized in STEM college majors and careers.

William Arcé is an Assistant Professor at CSU Fresno State. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley, his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, and a Postdoctoral Fellowship from Bowdoin College. William’s scholarship and teaching cover two fields: 20th-century American literature and U.S. Latino/a literary histories. His research focuses on U.S. war literature and the national identities that were forged after WWII. He has various articles in scholarly journals and edited collections, including recent publications in Confluencia: Revista Hispanica de Cultura y Literatura, Latino Studies Journal, and the recent Transnational American Studies Series. His book project titled Soldado Raso: Nation, Masculinity and Community in Mexican American and Puerto Rican Literature of the Viet Nam War places U.S. Latino literature of the Vietnam War in conversation with current discussions regarding masculinity and national belonging. The manuscript is in its final stages. In addition to 20th-century American and Mexican American literatures, his other teaching interests include U.S. 20th-century American masculinities; southwestern literature and film; and theories of the novel. In 2014, the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity recognized William as a national Emerging Scholar. Currently, he is Fresno State’s Presidential nominee for ELEVATE.

Lily Arias is originally from Lima, Peru. She got her master's and doctoral degrees in Biology from Texas Tech University and Indiana State University respectively. Lily has held faculty positions at Temple University, SUNY College at Old Westbury, and currently at Tougaloo College. At Tougaloo, Lily teaches General Biology; Ecology, Evolution, and Diversity; Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy; Plant Biology; and online classes. This semester, Lily successfully implemented the flipped classroom model in one of her classes. In the next few weeks, Lily and her students will start a study on animal and plant diversity.

Erin F. Barnes is an Assistant Professor and Internship Coordinator in the Rehabilitation Counseling Program at The University of Texas at El Paso. She earned her Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Counselor Education from the University of Iowa in 2011.

Erin’s primary research interest is knowledge translation. Her research spans international borders, including India and Italy. In India, Erin worked closely with the Satya Special School in Pondicherry to evaluate the structure of their group home for children with disabilities. She made recommendations to improve structure and organization, emphasizing the need to assess client-specific outcomes using constructs such as quality of life and activity participation. She has published extensively about issues related to diversity and professional identity development among rehabilitation counselor trainees. Erin’s teaching integrates Community Engaged Scholarship, and she has been successful in working collaboratively with diverse community agencies and populations to help their clients to achieve economic independence.

Clinically, Erin has worked in diverse roles to perform rehabilitation counseling-informed practice. Her job titles (e.g. 11th Hour Advocate for Hospice, Rape Victim Advocate, Smoking Cessation Counselor, Probation/Parole Officer, Grant Coordinator, Employee Assistance Program Counselor, and Rehabilitation Assistant) reflect the breadth and depth of her experiences. She is currently providing pro bono services to individuals and families in her community.

Desmond W. Delk is an assistant professor in the department of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation at Langston University in Oklahoma. Desmond completed his Ph.D. in Kinesiology with a concentration in Teaching and Research in Physical Education at Auburn University. An Atlanta, Georgia native, Desmond obtained his bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College and a master’s of education from Auburn University. Desmond’s research focuses on the experiences of physical education teachers of English Language Learners as well as the socialization of kinesiology students from diverse backgrounds. In 2012 he published the second-ever children’s book based on an HBCU, I Love My SSU!. Over the past four years he has used the book as a way to both excite children about their first homecoming at Savannah State University and to inform them about the history of SSU and other HBCUs. Furthermore, Desmond has even established a scholarship at Savannah State University to ensure that students are able to meet one of college’s biggest obligations—tuition and fees.

Amber M. Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Child Development at California State University Sacramento (CSUS). Her research examines Latina/o student perceptions of institutional characteristics and how those perceptions influence academic, professional, and personal outcomes through the P20 educational pipeline.

Jennifer L. Hayes is an Assistant Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Tennessee State University in Nashville Tennessee, which is an HBCU. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English with an emphasis in rhetoric and writing from The University of Tennessee. She earned her master’s degree from Tennessee State University, and she earned her doctorate from Middle Tennessee State University. Her doctoral work focused on African American women writers and Black feminist criticism. Her agenda as a professor is to equip students with skills to critically engage diversity within and outside the classroom. At the center of her teaching philosophy, she advocates the development of rhetorical strategies in students’ academic, personal, and professional writing situations. She introduces students to various resources on campus, emphasizes the connection between reading and writing, and encourages digital literacy by incorporating multimodal projects and activities. Jennifer strives to ensure that her students are equipped to consider the political issues impacting their lives by creating assignments and assessments that compel critical thinking and problem-solving strategies. Her specialization is in contemporary African American women’s literature, and her current scholarship analyzes multicultural communities in the works of contemporary dramatists such as Lynn Nottage and Kia Corthron. Additionally, Jennifer participates in several service activities on campus that promote student success. She currently serves as the Retention and Recruitment chair for Languages, Literature, and Philosophy, as a member of the Technology Committee, and as a general education tutor within the Tiger Tutoring program.

Zuleka Henderson is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Bowie State University. Zuleka’s research and writing have focused on addressing trauma and the behavioral health needs of African American adolescents and on advancing intergenerational healing among Black families.

Zuleka is passionate about her role as an educator. She is collaborating with scholars across disciplines to develop teaching approaches that can reduce research and statistics anxiety among social work students. She has also worked with colleagues to examine the implications of historical trauma theory for culturally relevant pedagogy within social work research curricula. Zuleka’s scholarship and academic work is complemented by her commitment to community. She served on the leadership team of a Rites of Passage program for young girls from New York City and has volunteered to present workshops about trauma, healing, and creative self-expression for adolescents in Washington, DC.

Zuleka received her Ph.D. in Social Work from Howard University, her Master’s Degree in Social Work from Fordham University, and her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

Elys Vasquez-Iscan is an assistant professor and Presidential fellow at Hostos Community College of the City University of New York where she holds a dual appointment in the Health Education Unit and the Aging and Health Unit. She also teaches for the John Jay College of Criminal Justice prison to college pipeline (P2CP) program at Otisville Correctional Facility. This program provides college credit courses to inmates as well as assistance with re-entry to post-secondary educational institutions upon release from the correctional system.

Elys holds a master’s of public health degree in international community health from New York University and a doctorate degree in Health Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She was a Fulbright Fellow in 2003 in Brazil. Elys is a member of the planning committee and contributor to the health curriculum of the Health Education and Research Opportunity (HERO) high school in the South Bronx. HERO High School has been noted by Mayor Bill de Blasio for serving as a bridge to college programs that awards high school students from the South Bronx the opportunity to simultaneously obtain a high school diploma and an associate’s degree. Elys also mentors a vast number of ethnic and racial minority doctoral students during the dissertation process. She has worked as a program planner for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the Bureau of HIV/AIDS and has served as a consultant for the U.N.

Ervin James III is a full-time faculty member at Paul Quinn College in Dallas, Texas. Erv teaches both humanities and social science courses. In addition to teaching, he also serves as the faculty advisor for the PQC Honda All-Star Challenge Team, Liberal Arts Club, and the Alpha Chi National Honor Society. Ervin received his bachelor’s degree in political science from Tuskegee University and his master’s and doctorate degrees in history from Texas Southern University and Texas A&M University, respectively. Before becoming a college professor, Erv distinguished himself in public history and historic preservation. As a 1772 Foundation Fellow, he completed research projects for the Boston African American National Historic Site, the National Center for Preservation Training and Technology, the Texas Historical Commission, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Currently, he is engaged in a comparative borders research project that focuses on the African diaspora in Europe. He is also committed to developing innovative andragogical teaching techniques and retention strategies for first generation college students enrolled in urban institutions that serve under-resourced communities. Erv prides himself in being a family man. He is a proud husband and father. He is married to veteran Dallas Independent School District Educator Andraya Anderson-James. His son, Myles Anderson James, is his pride and joy.

Jennifer M. Johnson is an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development at Bowie State University, the oldest HBCU in the state of Maryland. She serves as the Program Coordinator for the Elementary Education (MS) Program. Since 2004, Jennifer has been an active scholar-practitioner in the fields of college access and student retention. Her research areas include pre-college access programs, historically black colleges and universities, students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), and high-achieving students of color. She has presented at several national conferences including the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the National Conference for Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE). Her scholarly agenda is: "To promote the college access and persistence of traditionally underrepresented populations (e.g. first generation college students, lower-income individuals, and racial/ethnic minorities) through the examination of the experiences and outcomes of students across institutional contexts in higher education." Jennifer holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Psychology from Syracuse University, a master’s degree in Elementary Education from Chestnut Hill College, and a master’s degree in Higher Education Management from the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Natasha R. Johnson is an academic, activist, artist, and attorney. As a Director of Academic Programs and Assistant Professor, she teaches under a social justice framework. As an attorney, she founded Globalizing Gender, a non-profit organization committed to creating a gender-just world. She has taught, lawyered, and created social justice programs domestically and abroad. In addition, as a curator and artist, her work sits at the intersection of educating and advocating for gender justice.

Melvenia M. Martin is the Associate Director for the Center of Undergraduate Research/Project Director for McNair Scholars Program. Melvenia received her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Environmental Biology from Tulane University, M.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Tulane University, and B.S. in Biology from Grambling State University.

She has worked in many capacities at Grambling, including serving as an Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Program Events Coordinator for Undergraduate Research Representative, Program Manager for GSU STEM Faculty Seminars, and Coordinator of the Louis Stokes Alliance of Minority Participation (LAMP). Melvenia has extensive research experience, including serving as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institutes of Health and a Review Panelist for the National Science Foundation. 

Alfred G. Pérez is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His scholarship focuses on child welfare policy and practice decisions and the extent to which these policies and practices meet their objectives while also yielding unintended consequences. To this end, Alfred is currently investigating the policy and personal challenges of translating state-sanctioned permanence—adoption and guardianship—into psychologically meaningful permanence among foster care alumni. Alfred is also co-Principal Investigator (with Monica Faulkner and Tina Atkins) of the Texas Youth Permanency Study, a longitudinal study examining the post-permanency experiences and long-term developmental outcomes of older youth in Texas’ foster care system. Alfred teaches graduate courses in social welfare history and policy.

Before moving into academia, Alfred served as senior policy advisor to former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, served as policy analyst for the Pew Commission on Children and Foster Care, and was a featured speaker at the White House bill signing ceremony of the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999. Alfred currently serves on numerous boards and advisory committees, including the Texas Supreme Court Children’s Commission, and is a consultant to the U.S. Children’s Bureau’s Capacity Building Center for States.

Alfred received his B.A. in Social Work from San José State University, M.S.W (Social Policy & Evaluation) from the University of Michigan, and Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the University of Chicago.

Samuel Roberson is currently an Assistant Professor of Human Performance and Recreation at Claflin University where he instructs six Recreation courses. Samuel is an advocate of experiential learning and community scholarship. His teaching philosophical belief, influenced by Dewey (1963), is that the utility of what we teach students is retained through how we facilitate experiential experiences of the knowledge we impart. He worked as a Program Specialist at Prairie View A&M University Cooperative Extension Program and was tasked with developing grants, training, and implementation of a statewide healthy living initiative and 4-H programs in counties and on campus. In addition, Samuel participated in strategic planning through community and employee focus groups. Samuel has guest lectured on the topics of Situational Leadership, Relationship Based Programing, Youth Voice, and Cultural Competency at National Recreation and Park Association conferences. His research experience includes examining the Impact of a Camp for Siblings of Children with Cancer and an Examination of Work to Family Spillover, Family Meal Rituals, and Parenting Styles on Children Outcomes of Obesity. Samuel was certified as a training-the-trainer for such topics as managing conflict, performance management, and goal setting. Samuel has presented at other national and state conferences such as American Camp Association, George Wright Society, and Texas Recreation and Parks Society. Lastly, Samuel has been a proud recipient of Certificate of Teaching Excellence, School of Education, Claflin University 2015; White House Champion of Change Award, October, 2012; and NRPA Graduate Student of the Year Award, 2007.

R. Joseph Rodriguez is Assistant Professor of Literacy and English Education in the Department of English at The University of Texas at El Paso. His interests are in culturally sustaining pedagogy and socially responsible biliteracies. His research on children’s and young adult literatures and literacy education has appeared in the following: Exploring Teachers in Fiction and Film: Saviors, Scapegoats and Schoolmarms (2016), Democracy and Decency: What Does Education Have to Do with It? (2016), Study & Scrutiny: Research in Young Adult Literature (2015),Generation BULLIED 2.0: Prevention and Intervention Strategies for Our Most Vulnerable Students (2013), and English Journal (2011).

Joseph earned a Ph.D. (2001) in curriculum and instruction from the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education, a master’s degree (1999) in English from The University of Texas at Austin, and a bachelor’s degree (1997) in modern languages and literatures from Kenyon College. He has taught English and Spanish language arts at various levels in public schools, community colleges, and universities. Joseph is active in National Council of Teachers of English.

When Joseph is not reading, writing, and teaching, he enjoys cooking, hiking, kayaking, storytelling, and traveling. He and the love of his life are caregivers to cantankerous canines. His favorite news sources include, but are not limited to, BBC, The Christian Science Monitor, Latino USA, The Nation, NPR, The New York Times, The Onion, The Progressive, Rethinking Schools, Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, and The Sun. Catch him virtually on Twitter @escribescribe or via email: rjrodriguez6@utep.edu.

Novell E. Tani is a first generation college graduate and Ph.D. recipient within his family. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University. Novell obtained his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology, where he examined the relationship between unconscious bias in pre-service teachers' as they interpreted primary school age students' academic performance. Novell has articles published in peer reviewed journals on topics related to individualized instruction, content areal literacy, and dialect’s impact on reading comprehension. He has lived in London for a period of time, where he led groups of students on an abroad program that focused on educational psychology.

Novell serves his department in several capacities; his responsibilities range from teaching, serving on academic committees, advising, and directing master’s thesis course work/research.

Marissa Vasquez Urias is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Administration, Rehabilitation, and Postsecondary Education (ARPE) at San Diego State University (SDSU)—a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI).

As the Associate Director of the Minority Male Community College Collaborative (M2C3) at SDSU and a Faculty Affiliate with Project MALES at UT Austin, Marissa is actively engaged in critical and applied research that challenges structural and cultural praxis that prevent equitable outcomes for historically underserved students in higher education. In particular, Marissa’s work examines factors that facilitate the success of male students of color, particularly Latino and African American men in community colleges. As a scholar-practitioner, Marissa also serves as the Managing Editor for the Journal of Applied Research in Community College(JARCC) and as a Board Member for the Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC).

Marissa earned an associate degree from Southwestern College in San Diego, CA. She then earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley; a master’s degree in Counseling with a specialization in College Counseling and Student Development from the University of San Diego; and an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from San Diego State University.

Tonya M. Williams joined the faculty in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Johnson C. Smith University as an Assistant Professor of Political Science in Fall 2011. She is a graduate of the University of California, Davis and Clark Atlanta University in political science. Tonya’s research is anchored in the study of gender, race, public policy and reproductive politics, and women of color in politics at the elite and grassroots levels. In addition to teaching courses in American government, Tonya serves as the Pre-Law advisor and founding Coordinator of the 3+3 Pre-Law Scholars Program, an accelerated dual degree (BA/JD) partnership between JCSU and Charlotte School of Law. Prior to joining Johnson C. Smith University, Tonya was the recipient of the Academy for Educational Development (AED) New Voices Gulf Coast Transformation Fellowship (2007-2010). In addition to her teaching and research portfolio, Tonya has nearly ten years of non-profit experience in program development, grant writing, and policy advocacy and has held leadership positions in reproductive justice and human rights organizations in San Francisco, CA and Atlanta, GA. During her tenure working in social justice organizations, she authored two popular education social justice publications and has authored articles for progressive publications.

Jessica Franco-Zarian graduated from St. John's University with a M.S. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Childhood Education. She went on to earn a Doctorate in School Leadership and Administration, successfully defending her dissertation on Dual Language and ESL education in New York. She started her career in an elementary school as a kindergarten teacher and then became the school-wide data specialist tasked with collecting and analyzing student work to determine gaps in both curriculum and instruction. Jessica went on to use her knowledge of data analysis and educating diverse student populations in her role as an Assistant Principal. In her current position as Assistant Professor in the Master’s of Education program at Metropolitan College of New York (MCNY), she uses her unique experiences to help prepare the next generation of educators for the challenges of education.

Taryn Ozuna Allen is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington (UT Arlington). Taryn’s research interests focus on the educational experiences of under-represented students, particularly Latino students, as they access and pursue education at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), such as Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Her research also focuses on the academic and social experiences of transfer students who enroll in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Taryn has research affiliations with the Center for Mexican American Studies and the Learning Innovation and Networked Knowledge Research Lab at UT Arlington, Project MALES at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), and the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her doctorate in higher education administration, with a concentration in Mexican American Studies, from UT Austin (2012). She received her master’s degree in Student Affairs Administration (2005) and bachelor’s degree in General Family and Consumer Sciences (2003) from Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Cynthia Benally is an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. She is from the Tobacco People and born for the Coyote Pass clan. She is a National Board Certified Teacher as a Middle Childhood Generalist and an elementary school teacher of 19 years. Cynthia is currently on faculty with the Center for Diné Teacher Education at Diné College. She earned her doctorate in education from Arizona State University in 2014. Her dissertation focused on two Arizona policies that mandate Native American history instruction in all Arizona K-12 classrooms. She researched the genesis of the policies and their implementation in urban school districts. Her current research interests include utilizing Native epistemologies and knowledge systems in education and teacher preparation programs. These were the focus of her article, “Creating and Negotiating Native Spaces in Public School Systems: An Arizona Example,” published in a 2014 special issue of the Journal of American Indian Education.

Ken’s lifelong passion has been learning languages as a means to facilitate interpersonal connections with people from diverse cultural backgrounds and experiences. This passion led him to study in Beijing during his undergraduate years and to earn a PhD in Chinese Literature from the University of California, Irvine in 2010. After having taught as a visiting professor there for a year, Ken moved into his current position at Whittier College, where he has had the opportunity to flourish as a teacher-scholar, expand his range of course offerings, and become passionate about a liberal arts education that serves an extremely diverse group of students. Ken offers courses in Chinese language, literature, and cultural topics ranging from cinema to early philosophy. In teaching, he enjoys taking students off campus for experiential learning, with recent trips to The Pacific Asia Museum, The Japanese American National Museum, The Chinese American Museum, a walking tour of Chinatown Los Angeles, and various culinary experiences. Naturally, Ken is a strong advocate of study abroad and is proud to have sent a number of his own students for semesters in China over the past few years. To date, his published research has primarily focused on philosophies of music and language in early pre-modern texts, but his academic interests are eclectic enough that he is engaged in a number of disparate scholarly projects at any given time. 

Stacye A. Blount, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Fayetteville State University (Fayetteville, North Carolina), began her tenure at the university in fall 2010. She received the PhD in Sociology from the University of Akron in summer 2009. Her research interests focus on mental health, race, teaching and learning in sociology, and African American debutante cotillions. Armed with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Medical Technology (also known as Clinical Laboratory Science), Stacye is certified as a Medical Laboratory Scientist by the American Society for Clinical Pathology. Prior to pursuing a career in academia, she spent thirteen years in the clinical laboratory science industry.

Yvette Lynne Bonaparte is a collaborative marketing scholar and practitioner. She has a twenty-year track record of success in private industry and has held leadership positions in the areas of brand/product management, global marketing, customer insights, and program management with some of the world's leading corporations in the consumer packaged goods, technology and health care industries. She has also consulted with leading organizations within higher education and the health care industry in the areas of strategic marketing and diversity and inclusion.

During her corporate marketing career, Yvette and her teams successfully launched and managed numerous products and programs targeting various audiences. Her responsibilities included leading global marketing teams, building and realigning departments to support corporate goals, developing and implementing strategic marketing plans, managing multimillion-dollar budgets, and delivering profits. Yvette’s academic accomplishments include degrees from the following universities: Brandeis University (BA in economics), Duke University - The Fuqua School of Business (MBA in marketing), and North Carolina A&T State University (PhD in leadership studies). Currently, Yvette is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Department of Business Administration in the School of Business at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina, where she teaches courses in marketing and management. The primary focus of Yvette’s research agenda is pharmaceutical/health care marketing and its relationship to disparities. Additionally, she is interested in researching and documenting the leadership experiences of underrepresented minorities in corporate settings.

Langston Clark is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio in the department of Kinesiology, Health and Nutrition. Langston completed his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in Physical Education Teacher Education at The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to obtaining his Ph.D., he received his M.A. in Adapted Physical Education from The Ohio State University and a B.S. in Physical Education from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (A&T). Given his experience as an undergraduate at A&T, an HBCU, he has developed a passion for the continued development and elevation of minority serving institutions. Langston’s research focuses on the manifestation of social justice within HBCUs, Physical Education Teacher Education, and athletics. Some of his recent and forthcoming publications can be found in Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, Journal of Black Psychology, Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, and the Race, Gender, and Class Journal. Furthermore, Langston has made numerous presentations surrounding issues of social justice at a variety of national and regional conferences. Pedagogically, he is interested in the preparation and development of teacher education students of color.

Cheron H. Davis is an assistant professor in the Elementary Education Department at Florida A&M University’s College of Education. She is a former elementary teacher with over eight years in higher education. She earned her doctorate in reading education from Auburn University. Cheron’s research interests include multicultural literature, professional development of pre-service and practicing teachers, and multicultural pedagogy in the reading curriculum. In her free time, Cheron enjoys college football, reading novels, and spending time with her family.

Allison Franzese is an Assistant Professor in the Natural Sciences Department at Hostos Community College. As a member of the Physical Sciences unit, she teaches courses in General Chemistry and Environmental Science. Allison also holds an appointment as an Adjunct Associate Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, where she conducts research using geochemical tools to study past ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns and their role in global climate change. Her primary area of research is the Agulhas Current System, and she has been actively engaged in the international Agulhas research community. Allison gave an invited talk at a special session on the Agulhas Current System at the 2010 Ocean Sciences Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and she also presented her research at the AGU Chapman Conference on The Agulhas System, held in South Africa in 2012. Prior to her appointment at Hostos Community College, Allison was a Science Fellow in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at Columbia University, where she taught “Frontiers of Science,” which is an interdisciplinary course that serves as the science backbone of Columbia University’s Core Curriculum. She was a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University and earned her PhD from the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at Columbia University in 2008.

Ignacio Hernández, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at California State University, Fresno—both an AANAPISI and an HSI. Ignacio turns to minority-serving community colleges as a source of inquiry within the broad institutional landscape of higher education in the United States. His research seeks to highlight the experiences and lessons learned by Latina/o leaders in community colleges that may serve to re-imagine normative definitions of community college leadership and the social practice of leadership in higher education.

Ignacio is the son of Mexican immigrants from Jalisco, México. He was born and raised in Los Angeles County and attended public schools in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley. He began his journey in higher education by enrolling at Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC), one of California’s community colleges. After earning an AA at Mt. SAC he navigated the transfer pathway and earned a BS in Mathematics from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). At CSULB Ignacio also completed a MS in Counseling with an emphasis in Student Development in Higher Education. Ignacio left California for the Midwest where he completed his PhD with a major in Education and a minor in Statistics at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Susana Hernández is an Assistant Professor in the Higher Education, Administration, and Leadership pathway in the Department of Educational Leadership at California State University, Fresno, both an AANAPISI and HSI. Susana’s research examines educational opportunity in discourse and policy. Her work disrupts traditional and conventional policy analyses and raises imperative understandings of how educational opportunity is constructed. Her work has examined in-state resident tuition policies that affect undocumented students as well as how federal policy discursively shapes Latino educational opportunity and equity. She is currently conducting research on Hispanic Serving Community Colleges in California’s Central Valley and the role student affairs plays in advancing Latino student success. Hernández earned her Ph.D. from Iowa State University, a Master’s of Science in Counseling with an emphasis in Student Development in Higher Education from CSU Long Beach, and Bachelor’s degrees from UC Irvine. Prior to becoming a professor, Susana held several student affairs positions across multiple systems of higher education. She was a program coordinator in the Hispanic Serving Institution Office at California State University, Long Beach as well as an admissions counselor at UC Irvine where she worked with community college students, high school students, and families across the state of California. Susana is the daughter of Mexican immigrants from the state of Jalisco and grew up in the city of Inglewood, California. Her longstanding commitment to educational equity is demonstrated in the meaningful ways she incorporates her family’s history into her daily practice as a scholar and educator.

Bethanie Ski Lister serves as an assistant Spanish professor at Bennett College, a private, women’s HBCU. She completed her M.A. in Spanish K-12 Teaching at Appalachian State in December 2014. Although she traveled to Salamanca, Spain as part of her graduate program, the large majority of her language experience comes from interaction with Spanish speakers here in the United States. In the past, she has not only taught Spanish but has also translated and interpreted for and completed outreach work with Spanish-speaking families in rural North Carolina.

Ignacio Martínez is an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at El Paso specializing in the history of colonial Latin America. Originally from Roswell, New Mexico, Martínez is the son of immigrant parents from Durango, Mexico and the first in his family to attend university. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of New Mexico and his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. His research and scholarly interests include the Atlantic World, the intellectual history of colonial Mexico, the history of emotions, and the social and cultural history of the Spanish borderlands. His current work investigates social relationships along New Spain’s northern frontier during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by looking at the various ways in which friendship was understood, performed, and manipulated by its residents. This study utilizes amity as a lens to better view the complex negotiation for power and influence that occurred along the frontier.

Jaclyn O’Toole is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Johnson C. Smith University, in Charlotte, NC. She was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA where she began her formal dance training. She received her B.A. in Dance and B.A. in Communications from Coker College, where she was a member of the Omicron Delta Kappa honors society. She received her M.F.A. in Dance Performance and Choreography from Florida State University. As a graduate student, Jaclyn applied for the Cloud Dance Festival and was accepted to present her work and choreography in London. She received a grant in performing arts, allowing three undergraduate students to travel with her and perform her choreography. Her work has been presented in venues including the Cloud Dance Festival in London, DUMBO Dance Festival in New York City, Panoply Arts Festival, South Carolina Dancing Festival, and numerous American College Dance Association Festivals. Jaclyn has set choreography on West Chester University and Winthrop University’s dance programs. She has served on the dance faculty at the American Music and Dramatic Academy’s Los Angeles campus (AMDA). Jaclyn received her certification in Lester Horton Technique through the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She is a member of the L.A. basedSarah Berges Dance Company, performing currently as a guest artist in her fifth international company season.

Susan Perez is an Assistant Professor at California State University, Sacramento in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Science and Postdoctoral Fellow at the University California, Davis with the Department of Internal Medicine and School of Nursing. Her research focuses on how consumers use the Internet to obtain and process health-related information for themselves and their families. Her mixed-methods research uses both qualitative interview methods and screen-capture methods to elucidate information-seeking behaviors. She has published on topics such as the exploration of nurse-to-population ratios in relation to population health outcomes and the role of Internet health information on patient/provider interactions. In Susan’s ten years of experience in community clinic health administration, she led infrastructure changes in local organizations for improved patient satisfaction, enhanced quality outcome measures, and the integration of health information technology systems. This experience has equipped her to relate public health theory and research to practice setting in order to attend to the most salient issues that community-based services address. Susan has a bachelor’s of science in Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior and a bachelor's of arts in Spanish with an emphasis in literature from the University of California Davis as well as a master’s of public health from Benedictine University.

Vanessa Raynor is an assistant professor of communications at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina and holds the position of Program Coordinator for the Communication Sciences and Disorders Program in the Department of Allied Health Professions. She also teaches communication sciences and disorders courses, develops program curriculum, serves as a member of both the curriculum and adjunct faculty committees, advises the National Student Speech-Language-Hearing Association, supervises students in the Speech Clinic, and manages and organizes Speech Clinic patients. Vanessa owns a small private practice, Rehab Matters Speech and Language Services, which provides speech and language intervention services for children from birth to 3 years of age. She is a member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. Vanessa graduated from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro in 1999, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. In 2001, Vanessa completed her graduate coursework at North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina. She received her doctorate of speech-language in 2008 from Nova Southeastern University in Miami, Florida. Her dissertation was titled “Training caregivers in feeding geriatric residents with developmental cognitive deficits and dysphagia.” Vanessa believes in volunteering in her community. She is a board of trustee member at the Ronald McDonald House of Durham in Durham, North Carolina. Vanessa’s research interests include the improvement of literacy skills through kinesthetic and tactile operations and the development of appropriate pragmatic language skills among African-American college students attending an HBCU.

Erica R. Russell is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Norfolk State University. She is a Licensed Psychologist, and she is certified by the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology. Erica obtained her B.S. in Psychology from Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA) where she minored in African American Studies and Criminal Justice. She received her M.A., as well as her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology with a subspecialty in Clinical Child and Family from Howard University (Washington, DC). She currently serves as the Principal Investigator for the FACE IT Initiative, a project that grew from an HBCU Center for Excellence in Behavioral Health mini-grant award.

Her varied research interests include first-generation college students and graduates—promoting understanding and support for their unique experiences; prevention and intervention for populations placed at-risk; fostering resilience; and mental health/wellness and help-seeking among traditionally underserved populations. Additional interests include the strong Black woman archetype and intergenerational relationships. The important role, relevance, and contribution of HBCUs serve as the backdrop for investigating these interests.

Erica is a Virginia native who supports the use of self as a change agent. She believes that relevance is key to engagement. As such, she values the infusion of popular culture and mentorship within the learning environment. She enjoys time spent with family and close friends. In work and life in general, she seeks to answer the call to “leave things better than she found them.”

Michael Steven Williams is on the faculty in the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY). He earned his bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from Villanova University, his master’s degree in Higher Education from the University of Pennsylvania, and his Ph.D. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from The Ohio State University. Primarily a quantitative researcher, his interests broadly focus on equity and diversity, the social-psychological development of students, and institutional diversity in American postsecondary education. Specifically, he centers his inquiry on two aspects of higher education: (a) the student, particularly student socialization and mentoring and (b) the institution, with a focus on specialized institutions such as historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Prior to joining the faculty at Baruch he served as a student affairs educator in a number of different roles, including but not limited to Residence Hall Director, Living Learning Community Assistant Director, Admissions Assistant, Lecturer, and graduate research associate.

Sissy S. Wong is an assistant professor of science education at the University of Houston. Her scholarship focuses on the impact of content-specific induction and mentoring that emphasizes equity and social justice, development of nature of science knowledge in elementary and secondary science teachers, and effective online instruction of the STEM disciplines. She has been involved in research regarding induction and mentoring, as well as the beliefs and practices of science teachers since 2008. She has multiple professional presentations and peer-reviewed publications on these topics. Sissy received the Journal of Research in Science Teaching’s paper of the year award in 2012 for a paper she co-authored on the impact of induction programs on beginning secondary science teachers. She was also acknowledged by the National Science Teachers Association in 2014 for a paper that examined the role of content-specific induction on laboratory practices of beginning secondary science teachers. Sissy has been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in science education since 2008. She has also designed and implemented teacher professional development workshops and conference sessions on various topics relevant to effective science teaching and science teacher development.