I am a new member joining the Futures Initiative team. I am the Student Leadership and Communications Specialist Fellow. Along with the Co-Directors of the Leadership Institute, Lauren Melendez and Mike Rifino and Frances Tran, the Interim Associate Director of the Futures Initiative, we organized and hosted the Leadership Fellows Workshop for the CUNY Undergraduate Leadership Fellows. We have an engaging and amazing cohort of fellows that I am excited to build productive relationships with as the year progresses.

If you have read Christina and Frances blogs, you know about the two great events that took place in less than a week, which were Pedagogies of Dissent for Asian American Studies, hosted by Frances and Queer Pedagogies and Pedagogy for LGBTQ Instructors, hosted by Kalle Westerling. I was a camera person for both events (along with Christina) because I prefer to be behind the camera than in front of it :-). On that note, I look forward to the rest of the events hosted by the Futures Initiatives.

I am a graduate student in the Learning Strand of the Urban Education Ph.D. program at the Graduate Center. My research interests include examining traditional and non-traditional ways of learning, the school-to-prison pipeline, culturally sustaining pedagogy, critical race theory, socialization of Black girls and women, zero-tolerance policies, mattering and marginalization, mindfulness and hip-hop pedagogy. I also develop and use hip-hop infographics as tools to facilitate discussions topics such as the role and socialization of women in history, philosophy, behavioral economics and the relationship between crime and class.

Being part of Futures Initiative allows me to work with amazing people who are doing incredible things in their respective fields.

That is it…for now. Peace and Love.