Who We Are

Dr. Douglas Fisher is Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and a leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College having been an early intervention teacher and elementary school educator. He is the recipient of an International Reading Association William S. Grey citation of merit, an Exemplary Leader award from the Conference on English Leadership of NCTE, as well as a Christa McAuliffe award for excellence in teacher education. He has published numerous articles on reading and literacy, differentiated instruction, and curriculum design as well as books, such as PLC+: Better Decisions and Greater Impact by Design, Building Equity, and Assessment-capable Learners.

Alejandro Gonzalez Ojeda, Ed.D. is an assistant professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University, where he is also the program manager of the preliminary administrative services credential program. He has contributed to and led curriculum and course experience redesign efforts through Wallace Foundation funded initiatives. Significant outcomes from redesign efforts have resulted in sustaining district partnerships, expansion of the principal preparation program regionally and state-wide in California through the development of a fully online program. His scholarly and practitioner work has focused on evidence-based practices that prioritize collaborative leadership and clear instructional purpose. Alejandro’s work has been published in diverse outlets such as practitioner literature, and in peer reviewed articles and chapters. He has led professional learning both nationally and internationally on school leadership, literacy instruction, and educational technology. Alejandro’s work in the field of literacy spans policy and practice analysis. His most recent contributions to the field have emphasized effective practices in resource adoption, and comprehensive intervention practices. A passionate advocate for use of technology for purpose, his work also features ways in which educators can harness technology purposefully rather than at surface level. Throughout his career he has led the design and implementation of blended and fully online learning programs at the K12 and graduate level, including developing capacity among staff. 

Dr. Vanessa Placeres is an Assistant Professor in the school counseling program at San Diego State University. Prior to her work as a counselor educator, she worked as a licensed professional counselor and a school counselor at a high school. With over 10 years of clinical experience, her passion lies in working alongside children and adolescents and she specializes in play therapy. Her research focuses on the training of school counselors and culturally responsive services, more specifically she focuses on multicultural awareness, educational equity, and promoting mental health in K-12 education. 

Dr. Vincent “Vinnie” Pompei (he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the educational leadership program at San Diego State University. Before joining SDSU, he spent nearly a decade as the National Director of Youth Well-Being Programming at the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest civil rights organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ equality. His research and publications primarily focus on student mental wellness, safe school climates, identity safety and belonging, and LGBTQ+ inclusion. Currently, Dr. Pompei serves as the PI on a grant funded by the California Department of Education to develop online educator learning modules on LGBTQ+ inclusion. He has served as President of the California School Counselor Association, authored the LGBTQ+ Section of the American School Counselor Association’s National Model, and is on the Advisory Committee for Safe and Supportive Schools at Equality California. The U.S. Department of Education, the National Education Association, and the California PTA have acknowledged Dr. Pompei’s dedication to creating safe and affirming schools.

Dr. Brent Duckor is Professor at the Lurie College of Education at San José State University. He serves as core faculty and doctoral advisor in the Ed.D. Leadership Program at SJSU and is affiliated with the Department of Teacher Education. A leading scholar in the field of K-12 assessment who also conducts research using applied psychometric techniques, Dr. Duckor received his Ph.D. in Quantitative Methods and Evaluation at the University of California, Berkeley. He holds a Masters of International Affairs with a Business concentration from Columbia University and a B.A. degree in Politics with Honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His scholarship has appeared in Teachers College Record, Phi Delta Kappan, Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Educational Measurement, Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, and Educational Leadership. His books on Mastering Formative Assessment Moves (ASCD, 2017) and Feedback for Learning (Corwin, in press) with Dr. Carrie Holmberg demonstrate an unwavering commitment to equity and the pursuit of excellence for traditionally marginalized students. A former high school teacher at Central Park East Secondary School in New York City, Brent taught History, Economics, and Civics/Government in the Senior Institute. For over 30 years, he has blended his passion for linking policy with practice and works to inspire new teachers and educational leaders to work closely together on behalf of traditionally underserved students.

Dr. Lorri M. Capizzi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counselor Education at the Lurie College of Education at San José State University. She has over 15 years of federal grant administration experience with Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) working with schools, districts, and counties serving students in foster care and students experiencing homelessness. Dr. Capizzi’s expertise with youth at-risk spans K-12 to higher education emphasizing practice-based training and applied research. She is a specialist in the area of foster youth and has been a consultant to County Offices of Education where she has advised districts on developing Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs). She serves as the faculty advisor for the CSU Guardian Scholars Program for emancipated foster youth in higher education at San Jose State and advises SJSU administration on program design and curriculum development for this program. Her research partnerships/projects have served the California Department of Education, County Offices of Education - Foster and Homeless divisions, California Department of Child and Family Services and The Superior Courts of Santa Clara County.

Dr. Antoinette Linton is an Associate Professor of Secondary Science Education in the Department of Secondary Education at CSU Fullerton. She is currently the lead faculty for the department’s anti-racism webinar series. Her area of expertise includes science education, teacher education, and epistemic practices that operationalize the NGSS for students. She is the Subject Area Coordinator of Science, and her most recent publications include, A Clinical Classroom Process, a chapter in Rethinking Field Experiences in Preservice Teacher Preparation; Teaching Biology In the Age of the Next Generation Science Standards, a chapter in Multicultural Curriculum Transformation in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics, and her current work, Developing a Mentorship Practice Through Self-Study in the Journal of School Leadership.

Dr. Fernando Rodríguez-Valls is a Professor at California State University, Fullerton. Dr. Rodríguez-Valls has created partnerships with school districts and local educational agencies to develop and implement community-based [bi/multi] literacy programs. At CSUF, Fernando coordinates the Bilingual Authorization Program and the World Languages Program. In this capacity, he recruits and prepares future educators to design, implement, and evaluate asset-based and heteroglossic practices. As a scholar, Dr. Rodríguez-Valls’ publications focus on equitable and linguistically inclusive methodologies for emergent bilingual, newcomer, and [im]migrant students as well as on the socio-cultural factors affecting their academic achievement, educational continuity and school engagement. Fernando has directed and co-directs grant projects in which teacher candidates have the opportunity to create brave learning spaces where teaching overpowers instruction, where learning surpasses drilling, where languages conquer monolingualism, where critical thinking eradicates fanaticism and a fake sense of monoglossic and univocal identity.

Dr. Dawn Person is a Professor of Educational Leadership at California State University, Fullerton. She serves as the Director of the Center for Research on Educational Access and Leadership (C-REAL), where she oversees evaluation projects and grants identifying best practices for eliminating educational opportunity gaps with the support and diligent work of student researchers. Dawn was part of a team of authors who wrote about the undergraduate experience of students of color attending predominantly white colleges, and she is co-editor of a book on the first-year experience and students of color. She has written numerous articles and book chapters on student success and factors influencing Black and Latinx students, and women and student athletes of color. She has also written about student resilience and student cultures in higher education.

Dr. Sung Hee Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Special Education at California State University, Fullerton, California, USA. She received her Ph.D. in Special Education from the University of Washington. Dr. Lee’s areas of research interest are learning disabilities and literacy education. Particularly, she has focused on investigating the integration of technology into literacy education of students with and without learning difficulties. Dr. Lee has also received several internal and external grants. All her funded projects focus on investigating the technology integration into literacy education of students with and without learning difficulties.

Dr. Alison G. Dover is an Associate Professor in the Department of Secondary Education at California State University, Fullerton. She holds a doctorate in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A former high school English Language Arts teacher, Dover works collaboratively with local and national school communities to advance equity, multicultural education, and culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogy. In addition to Preparing to Teach Social Studies for Social Justice: Becoming a Renegade (2016, Teachers College Press), Dover has written more than 25 articles related to equity-oriented K-12 and teacher education. Dover’s current research focuses on in- and out-of-school learning among newcomer and emergent bilingual students in Southern California.

Dr. Natalie Tran is currently the Director of the National Resource Center for Asian Languages (NRCAL), Chair of the Department of Secondary Education, and Director of the Ed.D. program at CSUF. She is founder of the Vietnamese American Education Advisory Council, which was created to seek input from the community to develop the Vietnamese Bachelor’s degree, credential pathway, and bilingual authorization at CSUF. Dr. Tran has experience serving as Co-Principal Investigator for an NSF-funded project to develop Spanish-English dual language immersion curriculum and provide teacher training to improve math and science achievement among middle school, low income Latino students. Working at the intersection of research, area studies, the preservation and devotion to diversity, and public dissemination of knowledge, she understands the multiple roles necessary to be successful as the director of NRCAL, and has led the center to marked success as an invaluable nationally-reaching resource for educators.

Dr. Nick Henning, Professor of Secondary Education at CSUF, has been a teacher educator for nearly two decades within three different teacher education programs (UCLA, Claremont Graduate University, and CSUF). He is an expert in the fields of social justice teacher education, urban schooling, collaborative teacher supports, social studies education and curriculum, justice-oriented teaching, and K-12 Ethnic Studies. He has presented at multiple international, national, and statewide conferences, has work published in numerous journals, including Teaching and Teacher Education, Urban Education, The Urban Review, and has co-authored a book, Preparing to Teach Social Studies for Social Justice: Becoming a Renegade.

Dr. Julián Jefferies teaches critical approaches to education and creates study opportunities for first-generation Latino/a students in Mexico and Puerto Rico, where he encourages students to apply course concepts in an experiential manner, strengthen their Spanish and reunite with their Latin American roots. He researches the lived experience of undocumented youth, recently focusing on return migrants in Mexico, for which he received a Fulbright-García Robles Scholarship. In 2018, he was recognized by the CSU for Faculty Innovation and Leadership for his study abroad programs.

Dr. Pablo Jasis is a former teacher, community advocate and university scholar with over thirty-five years as an educator. His research and educational practice focuses on the relationship between schools and historically underserved communities, migrant and multicultural education, as well as the means of enhancing pedagogical practices with emerging bilingual students. He is the Principal Investigator of HEP (High School Education Program), which has provided educational opportunities to hundreds of migrant farmworker adults and families for over 20 years. Dr. Jasis regularly advises school districts on critical educational issues, his articles and book chapters are widely read and cited.

Dr. Eugene Fujimoto served for over 20 years as a practitioner on equity and diversity issues in higher education. Publications include works in the Journal of Ethical Educational Leadership; Community College Review; and Urban Review. Recent scholarship includes presentations at the Critical Questions in Education Conference; the American Educational Research Association; and NASPA Leadership Institute. Research interests include leadership in equity and diversity as well as access issues pertaining to community-based influences in transforming the culture of colleges and universities.

Dr. Joyce Gomez-Najarro is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Literacy and Reading Education at California State University, Fullerton. Her research interests include social justice in teacher education; teachers’ understandings and approaches to assessment; preparing teachers to engage in effective literacy instruction when serving culturally and linguistically diverse student populations; and teachers’ treatment of student identity within educational policies and teaching practice.

Dr. Nancy Watkins was a K-12 educator for over 30 years working and teaching in public schools in California. Dr. Watkins serves as an assistant professor at Cal State Fullerton teaching educational leadership in the College of Education as well as pedagogy and leadership courses at several local colleges. With a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Claremont Graduate University and an Educational Leadership Doctorate from UCI/CSU, Dr. Watkins specializes in equity-driven leadership, educational policy, and teaching strategies. Her research interests continue to focus on the role of teachers in the policymaking process, administrative leadership, and the establishment of just, equitable, and inclusive opportunities for all students.

Maritza Lozano is an Assistant Professor in the Educational Leadership Department at California State University, Fullerton. Lozano’s research on the design of equitable learning environments examines the micro and macro-level processes that support learning for culturally and linguistically diverse youth. Informed by her 20+ years of experience working with schools across the United States, Lozano is committed to working in partnership with P-12 communities. Lozano holds a B.A. in Spanish Literary Studies from Occidental College, an M.A. in Education from California State University, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.