2019 Co-Lab Collaborators

The 2019 Community Resilience Co-lab is convened by a planning team comprised of UCI graduate and undergraduate students with guidance from the AY 17-18 Co-lab Collaborators and the faculty advisory group of the UCI Community Resilience Projects.

AY 17-18 Co-lab Collaborators

AY 17-18 Co-lab Leads

Jade K. Agua

Bio

Jade Agua currently serves as the Director of the Cross-Cultural Center at the University of California, Irvine where she provides a space for students to imagine and inspire an equitable, socially just campus, affirm and develop intersectional, cultural identities, and build a more inclusive community. Prior to coming to UCI, Jade served as the Program Director of the Office for Multicultural Learning at Santa Clara University, where she oversaw the Multicultural Center and Rainbow Resource Center. At SCU, Jade was able to implement learning outcomes based on multicultural competencies, revive the Difficult Dialogue series, and develop new diversity trainings for the campus community. Before SCU, Jade worked at the University of Southern California (USC) as a Program Coordinator and Graduate Advisor in the School of Cinematic Arts and as Assistant Director for Asian Pacific American Student Services. Jade earned her B.A. in Sociology and Master’s in Public Administration at USC.

Adisa Ajamu

Bio

Àdisà is the inaugural Director of the Center for Black Cultures, Resources & Research (CBCRR). Before joining UCI, he served as the Deputy Director of the UC Riverside STEM Academy. He has served on the faculties of San Franscisco State University in the Department of Black Studies and Virginia Commonwealth University in the Department of African American Studies as well as in a number capacities with the American Psychological Association. His training is in the areas of developmental psychology, health psychology and the social, ethnic and cultural relativity of social science with an emphasis on African cultures and behavior change.

Àdísà is the co-author of two books along with Thomas Parham and Joseph White on African American psychology, The Psychology of Blacks: an African Centered Perspective (1999) and the fourth edition of The Psychology of Blacks: Centering our perspectives in the African consciousness (2010). He was a contributing author to the seminal ASCAC World History Project (1998)as well as Black Psychology (2004) edited by Reginald Jones. He has published numerous scholarly essays, articles, book reviews and book chapters on African and African American life and culture. Currently he is the founding editor of Àsę, online blog for Association of Black Psychologists.

Andrea Gutierrez

Bio

Rachel Harvey

Bio

Rachel Harvey is the Sustainability Program Manager for Student Housing at the University of California, Irvine. She provides leadership in the development of educational efforts to increase sustainability literacy and inspire residents and staff to incorporate sustainable behavior change into daily habits. Rachel also helps to lead Housing’s successful Costa Rica Program in Global Sustainability and Cultural Immersion.

Most recently, Rachel served as program manager for Plastic Free Hawai‘i, a program of the Kōkua Hawai‘i Foundation which provides resources, tools, and trainings to educate schools, business partners, and community members about the environmental and health benefits of minimizing single-use plastics in the Hawaiian Islands. Her work helped Hawai‘i become the first state to ban plastic grocery bags in all counties. Bringing an appreciation of place, culture, and social issues, Rachel has several years of experience in non-profit outreach, event coordination, volunteer management, and sustainability consulting. This work includes legislative campaigns, environmental education curriculum planning, public and private partnership relations, and workforce development.

Rachel’s academic research concerned community-based, cultural heritage tourism and urban development, including fieldwork in South Africa. During research in Cape Town, she worked with numerous community-based organizations and small business owners to give voice to their concerns about conservation, representation, and exploitation in the tourism industry. Rachel was asked to be a member of the City of Cape Town Department of Tourism’s task force on cultural tourism. Before coming to UCI, she taught classes on anthropology, tourism, and African studies for the University of Florida and the University of Hawai‘i system as well as assisted on a clinical trial for the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Hawai‘i. Rachel holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Florida, an MA in anthropology from the George Washington University, and a BA from Wofford College.

Abby Reyes

Bio

Abby Reyes directs the UCI Community Resilience Projects in the Office of Sustainability at the University of California, Irvine. The projects create human infrastructure through which climate and sustainability solutions foster and reflect participation and leadership of underrepresented communities in our university and beyond. From 2013-2016, Abby directed the UCI Sustainability Initiative and was a co-Principal Investigator of the FloodRISE project, leading the Research Integration and Impact Team. She co-chaired the Faculty Engagement and Education Working Group of the UC Global Climate Leadership Council and oversees UCI’s Global Sustainability Resource Center. She has provided facilitation and design services for the UC-CSU Knowledge Action Network on Transformative Climate and Sustainability Education, UCI Salton Sea Initiative, UCI OCEANS, Research Justice Learning Community, Nexus 2014, the Borrego Stewardship Council, and is the lead trainer for UC climate and food fellows in transformative sustainability leadership. She has also facilitated advocacy and research collaboration with indigenous communities in California, Colombia, and the Philippines, and contributed to landmark international human rights and environmental cases in domestic federal courts.

Reyes completed her undergraduate degree at Stanford and JD at UC Berkeley Law. She clerked for the Honorable Richard A. Paez on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and co-chairs the board of directors of EarthRights International. She is a partner in the National Association of Climate Resilience Planners and an ambassador for the Pollination Project. Reyes received UC Irvine’s 2015 Excellence in Leadership Award and a 2016 California Higher Education Sustainability Best Practices Award. She has a TEDx talk on How to Come Home.

Oscar Teran

Bio

Oscar Teran, Esq. is UCI’s first Dreamers Resource Center Director. Mr. Teran completed his Juris Doctor at University of California, Hastings College of the Law and has pursued social justice as a public interest attorney through roles at California Rural Legal Assistance and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. Prior to these roles, he held positions in student services and academic administration at Hastings and at Chapman University.

Mr. Teran’s experience as an academic administrator is complemented by his long-standing commitment to immigrant advocacy, which led him to initiate Chapman University’s development of Dreamer Support and Ally Training. His unique expertise as a student services professional and practicing attorney will support UCI’s commitment to an inclusive campus climate and continued growth in our capacity to ensure that undocumented students have the same range of opportunities, experiences and success as their peers, at UCI and beyond.