Layla Avila

Layla Avila serves as CEO/Executive Director of Education Leaders of Color. Along with Kaya Henderson and Aimée Eubanks Davis, Layla convened eighteen prominent African-American and Latino education leaders to discuss whether a new entity of education leaders of color was necessary to expand the faces, voices and emphases of education efforts and build the bridges needed to sustain and expand its success. This group became EdLoC’s Leadership Committee.

Previously, as Executive Vice President, Layla led TNTP’s efforts to broaden TNTP’s impact through strategic partnerships. She also served as Chief of Staff for CEO Dan Weisberg, and oversaw TNTP’s new business development and federal grant strategy, external research and evaluation, and organizational accountability. Layla also oversaw all of TNTP’s work to recruit and train new teachers where TNTP’s Teaching Fellows Programs pioneered new ways of preparing teachers to be effective in the classroom. Before that, as Vice President and Partner for TNTP’s Teaching Fellows programs, Layla managed the design and implementation of projects across the Southwest.

Layla started her career with Teach For America in 1997, working as a bilingual and ESL teacher at August A. Mayo Elementary School in Compton, CA, and serving on the school's Leadership Team. She also served as an analyst for the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence For Hispanic Americans, an interagency working group to increase educational opportunities for Hispanic Americans.

Layla holds a BA in Economics from Columbia University and an MA in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Layla was elected to the South Whittier School District Board of Trustees in 2005.

Jaclyn Suffel

A Houston native and a 12 year Memphian, Jaclyn graduated cum laude from Southwestern University. Upon graduation, she was accepted to Teach for America (Memphis '07) where she taught English and Theatre. Her teaching experience inspired her to accept a position with Stand for Children- first as a Community Organizer, then as a Training Manager and Communications Director where she led several campaigns and programs. After Stand, Jaclyn worked as a communications professional, notably at the Alliance for Nonprofit Excellence, where she trained hundreds of nonprofits on communication best practices and founded/led the inaugural Memphis Giving Tuesday, Grit Grind Give Day which has raised over a million dollars for nonprofits to date. Most recently she served as the Manager of Strategic Communications and Outreach at Shelby County schools where she managed large scale identity and perception improvement campaigns (SCS is 901 and SCS ArtsMatter), and the strategy for their social media channels. In this role she launched an innovative training program to empower teachers to be communications leaders within their schools called the PRO Program. For her work she was awarded two NSPRA golden achievement awards. In addition to her professional work, she volunteers in the local theater community as an actor, director, and board member.

Erin Krapf

Born, raised, and currently living in Phoenix, Arizona, Erin comes to EdLoC having worked her entire adult life management operations and logistics for nonprofits, including over eight years of program management and support with TNTP, half of which was in service of the Arizona Teaching Fellows program where Erin managed the recruitment, training, hiring, and certification of hundreds of teachers. Prior to TNTP, Erin served as a Program Director for a Phoenix-based youth development organization, Program Supervisor and Family Support Specialist for an Arizona-wide behavioral health organization, and a Community Development Peace Corps Volunteer in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Erin attended the University of Arizona for History and the School for International Training Graduate Institute for Management.

Sharhonda Bossier

Sharhonda is the Deputy Director at Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC). In her current role, Sharhonda focuses on identifying, equipping, elevating and sustaining talented Black and Latino leaders to thrive in the highest-level education roles and lead a more inclusive education reform movement.

Prior to joining EdLoC, Sharhonda Bossier worked with Education Cities, a national non-profit that supports and advises city-based education organizations on their efforts to grow great public schools. In addition to core advising work, Sharhonda utilized her experience launching and leading a multi-state education engagement and advocacy organization to help members develop the skills and capacity to engage much more effectively with stakeholders. Prior to joining the Education Cities team, Sharhonda co-founded Families for Excellent Schools where she developed their training program and overall parent engagement strategy.

A graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Sharhonda started her career in education as a public school teacher and also brings years of legislative and electoral campaign experience in both volunteer and leadership capacities to her work at Education Leaders of Color.

Kaya Henderson

Kaya Henderson leads the Global Learning Lab for Community Impact at Teach For All. There, she seeks to grow the impact of locally rooted, globally informed leaders, all over the world, who are catalyzing community and system-level change to provide children with the education, support, and opportunity to shape a better future. She is perhaps best known for serving as Chancellor of DC Public Schools from 2010-2016. Her tenure was marked by consecutive years of enrollment growth, an increase in graduation rates, improvements in student satisfaction and teacher retention, increases in AP participation and pass rates, and the greatest growth of any urban district on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) over multiple years.

Most recently, Kaya has served as a Fellow with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a Superintendent-in-Residence with the Broad Leadership Academy, a coach with Cambiar Education, and a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Georgetown University.

Kaya's career began as a middle school Spanish teacher in the South Bronx, through Teach For America. She went on to work as a recruiter, national admissions director, and DC Executive Director for Teach for America. Henderson then served as the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at The New Teacher Project (TNTP) until she began her tenure at DCPS as Deputy Chancellor in 2007.

A native of Mt. Vernon, NY, Kaya graduated from Mt. Vernon Public Schools. She received her Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and her Master of Arts in Leadership from Georgetown University, as well as honorary degrees from Georgetown and Trinity University. Her board memberships include The Aspen Institute, The College Board, Robin Hood NYC, and Teach For America. She chairs the board of Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC), an organization that she co-founded.

Richard Nyankori

Currently, Richard Nyankori is Director of Leadership Programs at Netflix. His consulting practice, RJN Consulting, focuses on providing investment diligence support and leadership development.

Prior to Netflix, Richard was the CEO and co-founder of Distillio, an education technology start-up focused on improving the success of students with disabilities. Before Distillio, Richard was the executive vice president of Insight Education Group where he established its award-winning product development team. Richard served as Deputy Chancellor of Special Education for the District of Columbia Public Schools where he instituted a sweeping set of reforms to reverse the decades-long decline of the special education in the nation’s capital.

He serves on the non-profit boards of Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC) and the National Association for Advanced Teacher Education (NAATE). He formerly participated on the boards of RedefineED ATL and the SWIFT Center (University of Kansas).

Richard is a member of Class IV of the Pahara Fellowship. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, an MS from McDaniel College and a BA from Emory University.

Kenya Bradshaw

Kenya Bradshaw oversees TNTP’s strategy to support districts in dramatically transforming their approach to community engagement in order to create real and lasting changes in education. Previously, as a Partner, Kenya led TNTP’s work with the Houston Independent School District to develop an effective teacher evaluation system, and completely redesign the district’s staffing process and compensation system to recruit and retain only the most effective teachers.

Before joining TNTP, Kenya served as the Tennessee Executive Director for Stand for Children. She also has worked for the Urban Child Institute, The University of Tennessee, and the First Years Institute, advocating on behalf of children and youth. In 2008, her work with the Shelby County Office of Early Childhood and Youth led to the creation of child impact statements as a tool for local governments to use to ensure that every action they take is in the best interest of children.

Kenya’s community engagement expertise runs deep. She has served on numerous community boards including the Girl Scouts of the Mid-South, Tennessee Pre-K State Advisory Council, and Common Ground, a local racial reconciliation effort. In 2012, she was named one of “12 Who Made a Difference” in Memphis by the Commercial Appeal, and an honoree for the Memphis Business Journal’s Top 40 Under 40 Awards.

Kenya received her BS in marketing and MBA at The University of Tennessee.

Aimée Eubanks Davis

Aimée is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Braven. She was inspired to start this innovative initiative based on her deep passion and belief that our next generation of leaders can emerge from everywhere. Growing up in low income and underrepresented communities and working with young people from similar backgrounds drives her to be on a mission to discover, develop, and connect extraordinary, diverse, and driven young people to high-quality opportunities and networks.

Eubanks Davis has spent the majority of her career at Teach For America. In 2002, she joined the TFA staff as Vice President of New Site Development, helping to grow the organization’s presence into Miami and Philadelphia, as well as doubling TFA’s presence in New York City.

In 2005, Eubanks Davis became the Chief People Officer and oversaw the organization’s staff growth from 200 to over 2500 staff members. Additionally, she worked on the development of a comprehensive competency model for staff recruitment, selection, performance management, and learning and development, ensuring that the Human Assets team was positioned to fuel the growth and success of TFA. In 2011, Eubanks Davis took on the expanded role of Executive Vice President of People, Community and Diversity, leading TFA’s work to uphold its commitment to diversity and to build an organization that is a model of fairness and equality. In January of 2013, she began overseeing the Public Affairs and Communications teams.

Before joining TFA staff, Eubanks Davis was a program officer at The Breakthrough Collaborative; prior to that position, she led the Summerbridge New Orleans site to become one of the most successful sites in The Breakthrough Collaborative. Eubanks Davis, a graduate of Mt. Holyoke College, was a 1995 TFA corps member and taught sixth grade social studies and language arts in New Orleans.

Natalie Gordon

Natalie Gordon began her career in school leadership by obtaining a Master’s in Education degree from Trinity College via the New Leaders for New Schools Program, a year-long program designed to develop outstanding leaders for service in urban schools. She received her bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and she is currently pursuing an Executive Master’s in Leadership with the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.

Ms. Gordon has over 18 years of experience in urban education, with a particular expertise in school start-up. She is currently the principal of Jefferson Academy, a newly established, DCPS International Baccalaureate middle school. She was also the Founding Principal of Friendship Tech Prep, and both Principal and Assistant Principal at DC Prep’s Edgewood Campus. Ms. Gordon began her education career in New York City as a middle school teacher with Teach for America. Beyond school leadership, Ms. Gordon has worked with TFA as an advisor to corps members, a summer institute faculty director and a regional recruiter. She has extensive experience in the non-profit sector as both the Education Director and Executive Director of DC SCORES, a consultant with The New Teacher Project to lead administrator recruitment in DC Public Schools and manager of the DC Teaching Fellows Program.

Heather Harding

Heather is the Director, of Policy and Public Understanding for Education at the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. Based in our DC office, Heather leads a portfolio of investments that build a winning narrative about educational equity and advance policies that enable an education system that delivers excellence to all.

Heather’s professional career has spanned classroom teaching, professional development, non-profit management and empirical research. She served as the founding Executive Director of a research-practice partnership at George Washington University and held several senior management roles at Teach For America. Heather was most recently a Senior Program Officer in Education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Heather holds a master's and doctoral degrees in education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and completed her undergraduate studies in Journalism at Northwestern. She retains her love of rigorous research & artful writing. She serves on several non-profit and charter school boards including the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Freedom Community Charter School in Washington, DC where her two children attend.

Kira Orange Jones

Kira serves as the executive director of Teach For America-New Orleans and she serves as an elected member on the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Kira was a 2000 corps member in Baton Rouge, where she taught fourth grade at Eden Park Elementary. She went on to serve as school director for Teach For America's summer institute and, as vice president of new site development, leading the organization’s efforts to expand to three new regions.

Kira is also a moderator for the Pahara fellowship, a 2010 fellow of the Aspen-New Schools cohort, and a member of the Aspen Global Network. In 2015 Kira was named to TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.

She holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University, an M.Ed. in school leadership from Harvard University, and is an elected member of the statewide education policy making board, the Louisiana Board of Elementary & Secondary Education, advocating for policies to advance meaningful change for children throughout the state.

Chastity Lord

Chastity Lord is the President and CEO of the Jeremiah Program, which is one of the country’s most successful two-generation prosperity solutions for families headed by single mothers in poverty.

A national nonprofit leader, Chastity has dedicated her life to disrupting systems of inequity through a social justice lens in an effort to bridge the opportunity gap. Chastity has a unique mix of both practitioner and executive leadership and has spent two decades specializing in organizational development, education, college access, fundraising, and leadership development.

Most recently, Chastity served as Chief Operating Officer at Color of Change (COC), a racial justice organization with over 1.5 million members. COC was recognized by Fast Company as one of the most innovative nonprofit organizations in 2015 and again in 2018 under Chastity’s leadership. In her COO role, Chastity led the overall strategic growth and health of the organization’s internal culture, senior leadership, fundraising, compliance and operations. Her leadership also supported the execution of innovative systems that aligned campaigns and infrastructure to meet the increasing demand for COC’s platforms and political voice.

Prior to joining Color of Change, Chastity was the Chief External Officer of Achievement First, a nonprofit organization that operates 37 charter schools in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Brooklyn. Over five years, Chastity worked with community leaders to secure $200 million, favorable expansion terms and progressive educational policy funding, helping level the playing field for poor and marginalized communities.

Later, Chastity spent eight years at The Posse Foundation, a nationally recognized and MacArthur Genius awarded college access program, devoted to public high school students who show academic and leadership potential but may be overlooked by the traditional college admission process. In her role as Regional Vice President, Chastity played a critical role in Posse’s strategic plan to double its national footprint by 2020 while overseeing and codifying the impact of sites in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and DC.

Chastity’s professional north star and commitment to equity and social justice for the past two decades is influenced by her own personal experience as a first-generation college graduate. Chastity understands that education is not the panacea for inequity but unapologetically credits it to transforming how she dreams and disrupting the cycle of poverty for her own family.

Chastity has a BA in organizational communication from University of Oklahoma and an MBA in strategy and marketing from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She is a 2012 Pahara-Aspen Fellow with the Aspen Global Leadership Network and serves on the board of Shriver National Center on Poverty and Law.

Beatriz "BB" Otero

BB Otero currently serves as Special Assistant to Montgomery County, MD Executive Marc Elrich providing advice and direction on health, human services, early childhood and immigrant integration strategy.

As president of Otero Strategy Group, an innovative consulting practice integrating education, health, human services and community development supports, with a focus on socially responsible policy and practice she advises nonprofits, philanthropy and local governments in strategic planning, policy development and funding strategies.

Ms. Otero served for four years as Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services for the Government of the District of Columbia. Prior to which for 25 years she led CentroNia, a nationally recognized child and family services organization serving over 1,200 children and their families. As part of this work she developed DC Bilingual Public Charter School and multiple child development sites throughout the Washington region.

Additionally, Ms. Otero has a wide range of international experience and has also served on numerous local and national boards, including boards of education, hospitals and think tanks.She is the recipient of numerous awards for her leadership, advocacy and public service; in 2000, she was named Washingtonian of the Year.

Ana Ponce

Dr. Ana F. Ponce is the executive director of Great Public Schools Now (GPSN), an organization dedicated to ensuring all Los Angeles students receive a high-quality education by accelerating the growth of high-quality public schools. She joined GPSN at the start of 2019, after almost 18 years at Camino nuevo Charter Academy where she led the organization as it grew from one to eight schools. Her accomplishments prompted Forbes Magazine in 2011 to name her one of the top seven most powerful educators in the world.

Ana is the youngest daughter of Mexican immigrants and the first in her family to graduate college. She earned a full scholarship to Middlebury College in Vermont, a world away from Pico Union, the neighborhood where she grew up. Her first teaching job was a Teach for America assignment at a public school in South L.A. After three years in the classroom, she landed a fellowship at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York, where she earned a master’s degree in bilingual education.

Determined to close the achievement and opportunity gaps for low-income minority students, she returned to Los Angeles and helped open the first independent charter school in South L.A., where she taught for seven years before joining Camino Nuevo in 2001.

Ana holds a second master’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and a doctorate in educational leadership from Loyola Marymount University. A veteran of the charter schools movement in California, she serves on several boards and committees, including the Board of UnidosUS, a national Latinx advocacy organization, and a founding member of Educators of Color (EdLoC), an organization dedicated to elevating the leadership, voices and influence of people of color in education and to improving public education through more inclusion efforts.

Derwin Sisnett

In 2015, Derwin Sisnett founded Maslow Development Inc. (Maslow), a nonprofit organization that develops communities around high performing schools. Prior to creating Maslow, Derwin co-founded Gestalt Community Schools (Gestalt), a charter management organization that manages the growth of high-performing, community-based charter schools in Memphis, Tennessee. Maslow was established in order to extend the community development and real estate practices that are a core part of Gestalt Community Schools’ mission to other high performing schools across the country. To date, Gestalt serves 2,300 K-12 scholars across 6 campuses in Memphis. In addition to his work at Maslow and Gestalt, Derwin serves on the Power Center CDC Board of Directors, the Crosstown Arts Board of Trustees, the Martin Institute for Teaching Excellence Board of Trustees, the Methodist Extended Care Hospital Board of Directors, and the Memphis Light, Gas & Water Board of Commissioners, where he serves as Chairman. Derwin has earned a BA in Psychology from Emory University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Hollins University. Derwin is also a Pahara-Aspen Fellow and a Broad Academy Fellow.

Marco A. Davis

Marco A. Davis leads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI), a national nonprofit organization dedicated to developing the next generation of Latino leaders. CHCI provides public service and policy experiences to outstanding Latino/a/x students and manages a network of nearly 4,000 highly accomplished alumni, and also convenes a variety of stakeholders that include Members of Congress and other public officials, corporate executives, and nonprofit advocates and leaders to discuss issues facing the nation and the Hispanic community. Davis joined CHCI in May 2019.

Prior to joining CHCI, he was a partner at New Profit, a national nonprofit venture philanthropy organization that invests in breakthrough social entrepreneurs and in systems change initiatives. At New Profit, he led Capitalizing Diverse Leaders and Organizations, a comprehensive strategy to create a more equitable social sector through increasing capacity-building funding and support for diverse leaders, and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Before New Profit, Davis served under President Barack Obama as Deputy Director and Acting Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, which included leading engagement with the Hispanic community on the My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Initiative. He also served as Director of Public Engagement for the Corporation for National and Community Service. Previously, he was Director of Global Fellowship and Regional Manager for Latin America at Ashoka’s Youth Venture. Earlier in his career, he was Director of Leadership Development at UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), where he created the Líderes Initiative.

Davis is a frequent speaker on topics including the U.S. Latino community, diverse leadership in the nonprofit sector, and education in the United States, and has been featured at events such as the Aspen Ideas Festival and Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. He is an Ambassadors for Health Equity Fellow, a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow, and a Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP) NGen Fellow.

Davis serves on the boards of Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC), and the Education Design Lab. He received a B.A. in History and Latin American Studies from Yale University, and is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Originally from the New York City area, he lives in the District of Columbia with his wife and daughter.

Greg Gunn

Greg Gunn is the co-founder of Lingo Ventures, where he makes early-stage investments in education and workforce technologies. In 2000, he co-founded Wireless Generation, a leading educational software company now (as Amplify) serving more than 3 million children annually with groundbreaking assessment and instruction products. As President, Greg built the company’s product development, sales, services, and analytics divisions and shipped the award-winning mCLASS® handheld formative assessment platform.

Greg holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Chicago, an MBA and Master’s in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He currently is a trustee of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, PowerMyLearning, and Education Leaders of Color. He was named one of Fast Company magazine’s “100 Most Creative People in Business” in 2012. He serves as an expert-in-residence at Harvard University’s Innovation Lab and is on the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Victor De La Paz

Victor De La Paz is the Chief Financial Officer for the Achievement First Public Charter School network (AF), which manages 34 schools in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. In this role, he is responsible for steering all financial operations for AF such as revenue, payroll, accounts payable, internal audits and controls, and budgeting and forecasting. Prior to AF, Victor served as CFO for New Haven Public Schools and Baltimore City Public schools, as well as various leadership roles at Hartford Public Schools. A non-traditional education leader, he transitioned from corporate finance roles in the insurance and banking sector in 2008 through completion of the Broad Residency in Urban Education. Victor will be joining the Pahara-Aspen Education Fellowship in the Summer of 2018. He holds an MBA from the Darden School of Business and bachelor’s in History and Political Science from Rutgers College.

Nancy B. Gutiérrez

Dr. Nancy B. Gutiérrez is President & CEO of the NYC Leadership Academy, a nationally recognized nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and developing school and school system leaders to dismantle inequities in schools and create the conditions necessary for all students to thrive.

Nancy joined the Leadership Academy in 2014 and was named President & CEO in 2018. She is a Fall 2019 Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow. Prior to her tenure with the Leadership Academy, Nancy launched a program for executive leadership advancement for the New York City Department of Education that led to superintendent certification.

Nancy began her career as a teacher and principal in her home community of East San Jose, CA, where she was the founding principal of Renaissance Academy, the highest performing middle school in the district and a California Distinguished School. Nancy also led the successful effort to turn around the district’s lowest performing middle school. She was named the UC Davis Rising Star and Association of California School Administrator’s Region 8 Middle School Principal of the Year in 2010.

Nancy is a graduate of the inaugural cohort of the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.) program and is a graduate of the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS) Aspiring Superintendents Academy. She served on the national board of the Coalition of Essential Schools for more than a decade. She is an instructor at NYU and frequently speaks and teaches for the Harvard Principals’ Center institutes for School Turnaround Leaders, Urban School Leaders, and Race, Equity, Access, and Leadership. Nancy also serves on the Latinos for Education teaching team and was a member of Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC) before being named to the Board of Directors.

Trevor Brown

Trevor Brown, Managing Partner, New Profit, Inc. Trevor leads a team at New Profit in the Social Entrepreneur Investment selection process. He is an experienced growth advisor that has worked, both domestically and abroad, in an array of industries and functional areas.

Trevor graduated from Tufts University with a BA in Economics and holds an MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.

Trevor lives in New York with his wife, Marice, and three children, Maria-Paz, Mariana, and Ian.

Tequilla Brownie

A native Arkansan, Dr. Tequilla Brownie is passionate about interrupting intergenerational poverty and improving social mobility for all students, and views education as a key conduit for equity and meaningful change.Dr. Brownie is an Executive Vice President with The New Teacher Project (TNTP), a national education consulting firm based in Brooklyn, New York. Dr. Brownie leads TNTP’s Organizational Strategy and Policy, Advocacy and Community Coalitions work. Her team’s work is focused on improving local and national academic outcomes and disrupting educational inequities to ensure all students are afforded an opportunity to be successful.

Before joining TNTP, Dr. Brownie worked for nine years in Memphis City Schools, where she oversaw the district-wide effort to improve student outcomes by increasing teacher effectiveness. Working alongside TNTP’s staff, Tequilla helped build community support for quality education, and drove human capital reforms that led to significant policy changes. She is also a licensed therapist and worked as a school social worker, where her focus was on supporting students’ and families’ efforts to improve academic and social outcomes. Dr. Brownie is a sought-after national speaker on policy issues, and frequently presents to key state legislatures and other leaders at the national and local level to drive important policy changes related to educational equity.

Dr. Brownie is a proud graduate of a rural Arkansas public school system. She holds an undergraduate degree from Yale, a masters degree from the University of Tennessee – Knoxville, and a doctorate of education from the University of Memphis, where she completed her dissertation on policy implications surrounding teacher effectiveness.

Dr. Brownie and her husband, Derrick, U.S Army (Ret.), reside in Marion, Arkansas, with their 9 year-old son, Markell.

Luis Avila

Luis Avila is the President and Founder of Iconico Campaigns, a company that works to build advocacy capacity in organizations around the country. Migrating in 2000 from Mexico, Luis stayed in the U.S. to attend college, where he developed projects with people involved in arts, politics and social justice. In 2004, Luis learned about civic participation in Jackson, Mississippi, as part of the American Freedom Summer program. He collaborated with organizers and leaders to advocate for the DREAM Act, fight against SB1070 and challenge Sheriff Joe Arpaio's discriminatory practices in Arizona. In 2008, Luis joined the Obama campaign where he got insight on cornerstone aspects of electoral organizing. This knowledge, paired with technologies developed to boost volunteer engagement, is applied now in all his advocacy and community engagement work. Luis spearheaded Somos América in 2011, the largest immigrant-rights coalition in Arizona, and currently sits on the Boards of Advisors of the National Council for La Raza and The New Teacher Project, an organization working to end education inequality. A long-time family and community engagement expert, Luis has designed engagement models for domestic and international organizations and school systems. In 2016, he served as Nevada's Democratic Coordinated Campaign Field Director, contributing to major victories in the state legislature, electing the first Latina Senator and delivering the state to Hillary Clinton, and he’s currently launching Instituto, an organization to build political infrastructure in communities of color in Arizona.

William Anderson

A Colorado native that attended Metropolitan State University for his Bachelor’s degree, the University of Phoenix for his Master’s degree in education, and is currently a doctoral student at the University of Colorado at Denver studying education. He works at The Manual High School in Denver Colorado as a social studies teacher, teacher-leader, and is an adjunct professor for Colorado College in their Education department. He was a member of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Teacher Advisory Council from 2014-2016, and is currently a member of the National Geographic Teacher Advisory Council. He is a dream chaser, reader, runner, lover of history, music, and junk food. A quote that sums up his teaching philosophy is, “Of all of our studies, History is best qualified for our research” Malcolm X.