Community Organizing

During my doctoral studies, I co-founded a peer mentorship program with my colleague Juan Miguel Arias in order to help graduate students in education navigate the hidden curriculum of academia.

I also collaborated with my colleague Kia Darling-Hammond to fund and organize ProjectQED, an initiative supporting community-building and solidarity for queer educators and allies. In this capacity, I planned a yearlong event series centering the perspectives of LGBTQ+/SGL people of color in education. Some of these events included:

• Explorations of Intersectional Identities, Privilege Awareness and Colorblind Racial Ideologies (February 27, 2018), featuring Dr. Ja'Nina Garrett-Walker

• Thinking with Queer and Trans-Youth about Resistant Socialities and the Infrapolitics of the Street (May 3, 2018), featuring Dr. Cindy Cruz

• Queer Latina/o(x) Youth Advocacy and Pedagogy: A Case Study of The LGBT Acceptance Project (June 12, 2018), featuring Dr. Rigoberto Marquéz

• Complications to the Narrative: Race, Sexuality, and the Experiences of LGBTQ+ Asian Americans (October 12, 2018), featuring Dr. Daniel Soodjinda

• Queer Faculty and Staff of Color: Experiences and Expectations (February 11, 2019), featuring Danielle Aguilar, M.Ed.

• To Simply Be: Thriving as a Black Queer / Same-Gender-Loving Young Adult (May 20, 2019), featuring Dr. Kia Darling-Hammond

Both of these efforts were initially funded through generous grants from the Dean's Collaborative Learning Fund at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.

The peer mentorship program now receives institutionalized funding and continues to serve incoming students at Stanford.

You can read more about ProjectQED at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26379112.2021.1950007.