Saraí Blanco Martinez
Saraí is a social worker focusing on community change and a 6th year PhD candidate in the Combined Program of Education and Psychology. She conducts community-engaged, participatory action research to better understand how to better support the efforts of Latinx immigrant-origin young people to heal from experiences of racism and discrimination. She finds joy in dancing, cooking, and spending time in nature with her two dogs, Nala and Cookie.
Victoria Vezaldenos
Victoria Vezaldenos is a third year student in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology and a 2023 NASEM Ford Predoctoral Fellow. She graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Minor in Education Studies and in 2022 completed her Master’s in Educational Studies with a focus in Program Evaluation and Improvement Research at UM. She is interested in exploring ethnic-racial identity development processes for Multiracial adolescents and young adults. Her work aims to develop a reliable measure of critical Multiracial ethnic-racial identity to allow for wider-spread use of quantitative methods in the field of Multiracial ERI development.
Oluwaseun Oyindamola Ogunleye
Oluwaseun Oyindamola Ogunleye is a PhD student in Educational Studies at the Marsal Family School of Education. Her research focuses on Black migratory bodies through an Afrocentric lens. She is deeply committed to fostering transborder solidarity in schools, exploring how we can collaborate across language and citizenship differences to solve problems together. Oluwaseun is passionate about integrating problem-solving frameworks and methodologies into linguistic, and citizenship studies, with the goal of collaborating with educational systems in Africa and other regions with African diasporic populations to address African-centered challenges. She is also keen to explore these ideas through the lens of educational grounded theory and Critical Participatory Action Research methodologies. Outside of her academic work, she enjoys cooking African cuisine, listening to jazz, and watching TV shows.
Gabrielle Tanksley
Gabrielle Tanksley is a doctoral student in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology. She received her undergraduate degree in Psychology with Honors from Brown University in 2021. Gabrielle is interested in the socialization of minoritized youth in mainstream schooling systems and their psychological outcomes. Her work aims to understand how teachers’ critical consciousness and perceptions of children shape their overall attitudes and outcomes.
Alumni (Graduate RAs): Amanda (Mandy) Finn, Sydney Kayne, Stephanie Miller-Tejada, Kate Morman, Sasha Mejía, Oscar Ramirez, Delina Zapata, Erika Mendez, Casta Guillaume, Bryan Montano Maceda, Mo Torres