Panelistas

Teresa Acevedo is the co-founder of Tucson Children’s Project which works to advance the rights and potential of all children and families. TCP works in community collaborations to expand the understanding of the Reggio Emilia approaches in one’s own context. Teresa is the author of numerous articles related to ECE including the co-author of a locally constructed curriculum framework. She is a former Director of Education for Head Start Child-Parent Centers, Inc.

Dr. Alfredo J. Artiles is Professor of Education in the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. His scholarship examines paradoxes of educational equity and addresses their consequences. For instance, he studies how disability diagnoses can unwittingly stratify educational opportunities for racial or linguistic minoritized groups and advances models and tools to rectify such inequities. He co-authored the National Research Council’s 2017 report Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English and served on the White House Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.

His current work is documenting how constructs such as “disability” and “inclusive education” embody alternative meanings across settings and scales that can deepen inequities, and recent publications include work on the racialization of disabilities; support for children with disabilities within community-based childcare centers in Malawi, and directions for reenvisioning equities research.

Vannessa Falcón Orta, Candidate, Ph.D. in Education, San Diego State University and Claremont Graduate University. In 2013 she graduated from the California State University, Long Beach with an M.S. in Counseling, emphasis in Student Development in Higher Education. Prior to her graduate studies she transferred from Southwestern Community College and received a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from SDSU in 2008. Vannessa identifies as Transfronteriza from the San Diego-Tijuana borderlands. She was born in Los Angeles, CA and is the daughter of working-class immigrant parents from Mexico and Peru. Her current research, service and teaching is informed by her background and is focused on Transfronterizx students in postsecondary and higher education institutions in the San Diego-Tijuana borderlands. She has published her findings in the Journal of Transborder Studies, the journal of New Directions for Student Services, and the Journal of Borderlands Studies. Vannessa has served extensively on organizing grassroots student-led change initiatives as president and founder of the Transfronterizx Alliance Student Organization (TASO) at SDSU. Currently, she serves as the Founding Director of the Transborder Student Ally Program (TSAP) at SDSU. The mission of TSAP is to create a visible network of culturally competent allies in postsecondary and higher education institutions, high schools and communities in the San Diego-Tijuana border region and along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands by educating faculty, staff, teachers, students and community leaders about the Transfronterizx student population.

Carlos García is of Mexican Yaqui descent. For seven years he was a founding and national younger conductor of Orquesta Sinfónica Esperanza Azteca Sonora. In 2017, he was an arts ambassador to meet with the President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto. In 2019, Carlos created for Grupo México, the Orquesta Sinfónica La Caridad. Currently, he is a bassoonist of the Fred Fox Graduate Wind Quintet and member of the Prof. Olegario bassoon studio at the University of Arizona. Carlos is also the Executive President of Instituto Cultural Mexicano de Tucson (ICMT), a non-profit organization that creates arts connections between Mexico and the United States.

Dr. Martha Ingrid Gutiérrez Román is a Biochemical Engineer, High School Experimental Sciences Teacher and Pedagogical Professional Advisor, with doctorates in Ecology and Sustainable Development as well as Education.

Dr. Bruce Johnson is Dean of the College of Education, Professor of Environmental Learning and Science Education in the department of Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural Studies, and Paul L. Lindsey and Kathy J. Alexander Chair at the University of Arizona. Dr. Johnson has a Ph.D. in Education Psychology with a minor in Science Education, an M.S. in Environmental Education, and a B.S. in Elementary Education. He was previously an elementary and middle school teacher in Arizona and New Mexico and director of outdoor schools in New Mexico and Australia. Dr. Johnson’s research includes the teaching and learning of ecological concepts, development of environmental values/attitudes and actions, and curriculum development, and teacher preparation and development.

Dr. Etta Kralovec, Professor of Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural Studies and 2015 Distinguished Outreach Professor at the University of Arizona. Under Kralovec’s direction, the UA M.Ed program established the equity literacy framework to prepare critically-conscious teachers for the complex border educational environment and has received over 4 million dollars in federal funds to prepare STEM teachers in Arizona border communities. She is also Founding Director and Principal Investigator for the Bisbee Science Exploration and Research Center (BSERC); the founding Director of the Borderlands Education Center; author of Schools that Do Too Much, and the co-author of The End of Homework.

Celena is an education specialist for Child-Parent Centers, Inc., which provides Head Start and Early Head Start services throughout five counties in southeastern Arizona. The grantee operates 40 sites throughout a five-county area, serving both rural and urban areas. Child-Parent Centers recently was funded to include 24 family child care providers who serve infants and toddlers in a home setting. As pedagogista, Celena supports the philosophy and strategies of the Reggio Emilia approach that have been studied by the Child-Parent Centers educators.

Dr. Iliana Reyes, Ph.D. is currently the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Community and Global Partnerships in the College of Education at the University of Arizona. She specializes in a range of research and educational issues on early childhood education, multilingualism, and Immigration and Borderlands Education with families, teachers and young children. She has conducted research in Mexico on multilingual education and community literacy issues in an indigenous, Náhuatl-Spanish, immigrant community were family, children and teachers collaborate to revitalize the indigenous language. She is a consultant and board member of the Tucson Children’s Project, a non-profit organization focusing on teacher professional development of the Reggio Emilia approach. She has worked as a Researcher Scientist at CINVESTAV in Mexico City, and as an affiliated faculty with the University of Arizona Center for Latin American Studies and the Second Language and Acquisition Teaching Program. Dr. Reyes’ projects have been supported by grants from the Foundation for Child Development, HELIOS Education Foundation, the International Reading Association, and UC-MEXUS-CONACYT among others. She is the author of over multiple publications, is an international speaker, and conducts research and professional development programs in the US, Mexico, Colombia, and abroad.

Sylvia Irene Schmelkes del Valle es Vicerrectora Académica de la Universidad Iberoamericana y Socióloga, con Maestría en Investigación y Desarrollo Educativo. Investigadora de la educación desde 1970. Ha publicado más de 150 trabajos, entre libros y artículos, sobre los temas de calidad de la educación, educación de adultos, formación en valores y educación intercultural. Fundó y fue Coordinadora General de Educación Intercultural y Bilingüe de la Secretaría de Educación Pública (2001-2007). Fungió como presidente de la Junta de Gobierno del Centro de Investigación e Innovación Educativa de la OCDE (2002-2004). Recibió la medalla Joan Amos Comenius, otorgada por la República Checa y por la UNESCO, en 2008. Dirigió el Instituto de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo de la Educación de la Universidad Iberoamericana Cd. de México de 2007 a 2013. Recibió el Doctorado Honoris Causa por la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California y por la Universidad de Concordia en Montreal, Canadá. Fue la primera presidente del INEE autónomo de abril de 2013 a abril de 2017 y Consejera de la Junta de Gobierno del Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación hasta su extinción en 2019.

Dr. Gloria Ciria Valdez Gardea, Professor and Researcher in the Transboundary Study Program of El Colegio de Sonora, is a cultural anthropologist and coordinator of the Migrant Childhood Seminar. She recently received recognition from the National Council of Science and Technology in Mexico for the solidarity initiatives implemented towards migrant children and adolescents in times of COVID-19. She belongs to the National System of Level 2 Researchers. She has multiple publications, the most recent being Desperate Cacophonies. Impact of the Anti-Immigrant Policy on Cross-Border Families (The College of Sonora and the University of Sonora, 2020 [in press]).

Dr. Angela Valenzuela is a Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. She is author of the award-winning book, Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring (1999), Leaving Children Behind: How “Texas-style” Accountability Fails Latino Youth (2005), and Growing Critically Conscious Teachers: A Social Justice Curriculum for Educators of Latino/a Youth (2016). Dr. Valenzuela serves on the LULAC National Task Force on Higher Education, and she is the Executive Director of the National Latina/o Education Research and Policy Project, a consortium of ten institutions that enhances teaching for high school youth in Texas, California, Wisconsin, Chicago, New York, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Currently, she is also a member of the Biden-Harris Transition Team, focusing on education policy.

Ya'da'o Ignacio Velasco, Maestro zapoteco de educación primaria indígena en la Escuela Primaria Ignacio Zaragoza, perteneciente a la "Dirección General de Educación de los Pueblos Originarios de Oaxaca." Licenciatura en Educación Primaria en el Medio Indígena; Maestría en Educación Matemática e Interculturalidad en la Escuela Primaria y Preescolar; Egresado del Project SEED en el Colegio de Educación de la Universidad de Arizona, EUA. Es experto en pedagogía y habilidades docentes en educación intercultural bilingüe y matemáticas, y ha impartido talleres y hablado extensamente sobre estos temas.