ISEEED - Key Persons
Analena Hope is a scholar, activist, and educator committed to organizing low-income communities of color around food justice and environmental justice. She is an Assistant Professor of Ethnic and Women's Studies at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and an active member of several community-based organizations in South Los Angeles. Analena's research investigates and complicates notions of food security and food sovereignty, and situates food as central to freedom struggles and liberation movements.
Antwi Akom Ph.D. is a nationally recognized thought leader on urban acupuncture - which combines people-centric design with cutting-edge technology in order to achieve new standards of affordability, mobility, sustainability, equity, and economic opportunity for all.
Named a 21st Century Smart Cities Visionary, what makes Dr. Akom's work unique is that his approaches are rooted in racial, spatial, health, and neighborhood innovation. His work focuses on integrating community voice into the heart of urban planning processes and to support local driven strategies towards equitable community development and neighborhood transformation. Informed and inspired by the idea that ‘the people closest to the problem are also the people that are closest to the solution,' Dr. Akom works with community members, designers, architects, planners, engineers, artists, activists, and businesses, to bridge the gap between local knowledge and professional knowledge, in a way that builds power and self-determination and helps to restore the long-term economic, educational, environmental, artistic, and social health of our cities.
Dr. Akom is a Master facilitator who has shared best practices, tools, trainings, and conducted over 150 community engagement workshops world wide that have catalyze improvements in community assets, land use, transportation, housing, health, social services, arts, culture, environment, education, energy, sustainability, and the social determinants to holistically transform urban systems. He is currently the Principal for contracts focusing on Equity and Engagement with the City of Oakland, Berkeley and Memphis.
In 2014, Dr. Akom Co-Founded Steetwyze a human-centered and participatory technology design firm that helps cities and communities enhance their use of community-generated data, location-based data, and Big Data to improve services, inform local decision-making, and better engage local residents. Streetwyze's multi-disciplinary team of experts combines people-powered place-making with next gen digital engagement platforms and processes to the fields of architecture, design, data visualization, data democratization, land-use, health, housing, urban, suburban, and rural planning.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Treasurer of the Board
Job Titles:
- CO - FOUNDER
- Associate Professor of Raza Studies and Education at San Francisco State University
- Co - Founder of Roses in Concrete Community School
- Co - Founder of Teaching Excellence Network
Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Raza Studies and Education at San Francisco State University. He is also the founder of the Roses in Concrete Community School, a community responsive lab school in East Oakland (www.rosesinconcrete.org), the Teaching Excellence Network (www.10teaching.org) and the Community Responsive Education Group (www.communityresponsive.org). As a classroom teacher and school leader in East Oakland for the past 24 years, his pedagogy has been widely studied and acclaimed for producing uncommon levels of social and academic success for students. Duncan-Andrade lectures around the world and has authored two books and numerous journal articles and book chapters on effective practices in schools. In 2015, Duncan-Andrade was tapped to be a Commissioner on the National Commission on Teaching & America's Future (NCTAF) and in 2016 was part of the great educators invited to the White House on National Teacher Appreciation Day by President Obama. Duncan-Andrade has also been ranked as one of the nation's most influential scholars by EdWeek's Public Influence Rankings for the past three years.
Jeff Duncan-Andrade is the co-founder of Roses in Concrete Community School, where the goal is to develop youth who are characterized by self-discipline, integrity, love and hope in the pursuit of justice and equity for all communities. The long-term goal is to create a model for urban education that prioritizes the needs of youth and families as the pathway to building healthy and sustainable communities across the U.S. and around the world. The Roses in Concrete Community School name was inspired by the book of poetry based on the writings of Tupac Shakur released in 1999, The Rose That Grew from Concrete. This vivid image captures the need to celebrate the tenacity and the will of the rose that against all-odds, finds a way to grow in the inhospitable and toxic environment of the concrete, that it might transform the concrete into a rose garden.
Jeff Duncan-Andrade is the co-founder of Teaching Excellence Network (TEN) brings together teachers, school leaders, students, and families to build community responsive schools and classroom cultures that lead to engagement and success. TEN is designed by nationally acclaimed teachers and educational researchers to find and share resources that support the development of qualities that make schools exceptionally effective in serving their students and community. TEN has expanded from 26 schools and 3 districts in the San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland) to over 200 schools in 9 states. TEN is now in 48 schools in 14 districts across California and currently serves 10 school districts in Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Washington and Washington D. C. Other national partners include KIPP Schools and Teach For Americal. Since 2012, TEN has served over 1628 teachers, 452 administrators, and 27,539 students worldwide. We have partnered with over 4,193 families-the majority of whom are people of color living in poverty across the nation.
Louie Briones is the Chief Financial Officer of ISEEED. He has served as CEO and President of Briones International LLC for over 30 years, which specializes in using cloud technologies to increase efficiency and security, while reducing administrative costs for community based non-profits.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Health and Wellness Expert
Health and Wellness Expert, Madame Athena Chang, specializes in educating, empowering and aiding individuals in creating healthy, long-term lifestyle changes. For Madame, healthy living is not just a career, it is a way a life. Her passion led her to Columbia University where she received a Master's in Educational Development with a specialization in Health. In 1998, Madame founded her health business, Madame Chang Inc., and later For Life Inc., the non-profit arm. In 2006, Madame Chang migrated to the island of St. Lucia where she consulted with the United Nation's health agency, the Pan American Health Organization, on the Health Promoting Schools Project, an initiative that aimed to transform schools into healthier environments. Madame Chang has since migrated to Los Angeles, California where she created and implemented a wellness strand at Will and Jada Smith's former school. She also co-hosted Healthy for Life, a health talk show on Jamie Foxx's Foxxhole on Sirius XM. She recently became the Director of Community where her focus is to increase awareness in the African American and Latino communities of the many toxic chemicals that are in our household products.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor in the Teacher Education Department at the University of San Francisco
- PROFESSOR PROGRAM MANAGER for EDUCATIONAL EQUITY
Patrick Camangian is an associate professor in the Teacher Education Department at the University of San Francisco. He has been an English teacher since 1999, beginning in the Los Angeles Unified School District where he was awarded "Most Inspirational Teacher" by former mayor Richard Riordan and the school's student body. Professor Camangian supports Jeff Duncan-Andrade's work around educational equity and currently volunteers in the Oakland Unified School District teaching English. He has collaborated with groups such as California's People's Education Movement, the Education for Liberation national network, and San Francisco's Teachers 4 Social Justice. Learn about Professor Camangian's work with the Education for Liberation Network and the Free Minds Free People Conference: https://youtu.be/yr9ogjmFs_g
Dr. Noguera is the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University. Dr. Noguera is a sociologist whose scholarship and research focuses on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions, as well as by demographic trends in local, regional and global contexts. Dr. Noguera is the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education and the co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings (IGEMS). From 2008 - 2011, he was an appointee of the Governor of New York to the State University of New York (SUNY) Board of Trustees. Dr. Noguera has published over 150 research articles, monographs and research reports on topics such as urban school reform, conditions that promote student achievement, the role of education in community development, youth violence, and race and ethnic relations in American society. His work has appeared in multiple major research journals.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Secretary of the Board
- Vice President of Business Development at MdotM
Rodney is Vice President of Business Development at MdotM. The purpose of MdotM is to allow advertisers access to mobile inventory of various types. Rodney manages MdotM's relationships with the variety of supply sources available to advertisers through MdotM ("Earth's Biggest Mobile DSP"). Rodney has a fond love for technology, sports and social issues. He is interested in ensuring that individuals from all backgrounds and experiences get exposure and hands on participation in the creation, implementation and usage of digital platforms. Rodney currently lives in Chicago with his wife.
Job Titles:
- PROGRAM MANAGER for EQUITABLE ENGAGEMENT and COMMUNITY ENGAGED DESIGN
Tessa Cruz is the Program Manager for Equitable Engagement and Community Engaged Design at ISEEED. She is also the Director of Outreach and Engagement for Streetwyze and has over seven years of experience in community engagement facilitation, community based research and geospatial data collection. Tessa brings over 8 years of experience leading administrative and management efforts for non-profits and learning institutions including Oberlin College and San Francisco State University and over 2 years of experience working on multi-year interdisciplinary research grants. Prior to joining ISEEE and Streetwyze she served as the Public Programming and Public Policy Intern at SPUR, where she supported event coordination and development, as well as the creation of their annual public Ballot Analysis Toolkit. She has a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Oberlin College with a concentration in Sustainable Development and Environmental Justice.