Meet the Team

• Rebeca Burciaga, PhD

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    Professor, SJSU Chicano and Chicana Studies and Educational Leadership

    Dr. Rebeca Burciaga is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Educational Leadership in the Connie L. Lurie College of Education and in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies in the College of Social Sciences. Dr. Burciaga's research centers on understanding and challenging educational practices and structures that (re)produce social inequalities for historically marginalized communities, specifically with respect to Latina/o communities. Her research in schools and communities spans over 20 years and includes mixed-methods research on pathways from preschool to the professoriate, the experiences of students who leave high school before graduation, and the ways in which geographic regions structure inequalities. She is the co-founder and former co-director of the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice. Dr. Burciaga's research has been supported and recognized by the Spencer Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Institute of Health, and the American Association of University Women. Dr. Burciaga was the founding director of the IEE. 

• Saili Kulkarni, PhD

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    Associate Professor, SJSU Special Education

    ​​Saili S. Kulkarni, PhD, (she, her, hers) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at SJSU. Dr. Kulkarni’s research seeks to understand the intersectional complexities of racism and ableism, particularly as they are located/constructed within Black and Brown student and teacher bodies in educational spaces. Her recent work explores understandings of exclusionary disciplinary practices as they are conceptualized for young (preschool and early elementary) Black and Brown students with and without disabilities in the Bay Area. She is additionally involved in work that explores the importance of special education teachers of color (SETOCs) and their positioning in various spaces (as students, through teacher credential courses, and through PK-12 classrooms). Dr. Kulkarni utilizes the framework of Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory (DisCrit; 2013) in her work and captures teacher and student experiences using counter narratives, case studies and self-study qualitative research. She is currently involved in a project called the Disability-Centered Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies Project which positions youth activists and disabled community scholars as research partners to generate anti-ableist/anti-racist school spaces.

• Robert Marx, PhD

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    Assistant Professor, SJSU Child and Adolescent Development

    Dr. Robert Marx (they/he) is a community-engaged researcher whose work focuses on reframing dominant visions of queer young people, so that they are no longer viewed as damaged or at-risk, but rather as the gifted, complex people they are. As a former high school English teacher, they approach this work from the intersection of educational studies, developmental psychology, and critical pedagogy, and his work encourages young people to see themselves as producers of knowledge and change agents.

• Luis Poza, PhD

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    Assistant Professor, SJSU Teacher Education

    Luis E. Poza, PhD, is a former elementary school teacher and an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at SJSU. His areas of research and teaching expertise include language ideologies, language and education policy, bilingual education, critical multicultural education, ethnic studies, and human rights frameworks for education. He currently serves as the faculty director of the IEE, and as the co-coordinator of the Ethnic Studies Residency Program, and his current work involves collaborating with educators across the Bay Area on developing Ethnic Studies curriculum that fosters access, voice, and agency for multilingual learners.

• Tammie Visintainer, PhD

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    Assistant Professor, SJSU Science Education and Teacher Education

    Dr. Tammie Visintainer's research focuses on issues of equity in science education at the intersections of race, identity, and learning at the high school and undergraduate levels. She explores the types of learning experiences that engage youth of color in authentic science practices, and empower them as learners and doers of science, and change agents in their communities. In addition, she examines the types of instructional and pedagogical resources that foster inclusion, community development, and the co-development of students’ science and racial identities. Dr. Visintainer has received an NSF Career Award grant for her current project, “Transforming Science Teaching and Learning through Empowering Teachers and Students as Climate Justice Action Researchers and Change Agents,” which supports school-based science teachers and students in conducting community-based science research on the causes and effects of extreme heat/urban islands in racially and ethnically diverse communities.

• Sudha Krinshan, Ed.D.

  • Assistant Professor

    Sudha’s research is focused on how literacy practices using pedagogies based on socio-cultural theory like multiliteracies provide challenging and empowering education for students with disabilities. She is interested in interrogating the deficit thinking surrounding students with disabilities and promoting anti-deficit pedagogies in the classroom. She is examining the use of constructivism in special education and teacher perceptions of ability in students with extensive support needs. Sudha is keen to forward the equity and justice orientation of the College of Education and a meaningful start has been her involvement with the disability studies strand in the Institute of Emancipatory Education. 

• Allison Briceño, Ed.D.

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    Associate Professor, Teacher Education Department

    Allison Briceño, Ed.D., is an Associate Professor in the Teacher Education Department at San José State University, where she coordinates the Multilingual and Multicultural Literacy Education MA program. Her research explores the rich literacy practices of multilingual students and culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies. Dr. Briceño’s recent book, Conscious Classrooms, is about centering students in the curriculum using books with diverse perspectives.

• Sandra Zuñiga-Ruiz, PhD

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    Dr. Sandra Zuñiga-Ruiz is an Assistant Professor in the Teacher Education Department at San José State University. Drawing from her lived experiences, Chicana/Latina feminist perspectives and critical approaches to learning, Sandra’s community engaged research work aims to understand how teachers of color develop understandings about race and justice with and of mathematics.

• Ellen Middaugh, PhD

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    Dr. Ellen Middaugh's research focuses on the role of emerging technologies in youth civic practices. She partners with educators and youth to develop innovative practices to foster civic media literacies and to use emerging technologies to advance community voice. You can read more about her work in the CLARION project website. 

• Kathryn Ribay, PhD

  • Assistant Professor

    [email protected]

• Yolanda (Yoli) Anyon, PhD

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    Dr. Yolanda (Yoli) Anyon (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work. Her community-engaged research draws on ethnic studies, critical theories, and mixed methods to understand the roles of public schools in perpetuating or mitigating systemic racism. Dr. Anyon’s current projects focus on racial disparities in the school-to-prison pipeline, restorative justice, and race-conscious approaches to improving school climate.

• Veneice Guillory-Lacy, PhD

  • Assistant Professor

    [email protected]

    Twitter: @VeneiceLacy

    Dr. Lacy’s research focuses on amplifying the voices of women of color in K-12 educational leadership, promoting social justice leadership, emancipatory leadership, freedom dreaming that leads to transformative education, and centering race and gender. She uses critical qualitative methods, while drawing from Critical Race Theory (CRT), Critical Race Feminism (CRF), Intersectionality, Black Feminist Thought, and Indigenous epistemologies. 

• Marcella McCollum, Ed.D.

  • Assistant Professor
    [email protected]

• Lara Kassab, PhD

  • Dr. Ervin-Kassab is an expert in creating emancipatory learning communities in TK-12, preservice and inservice spaces. Her research centers on equitable and just educational technology use in classroom spaces as well as in culturally sustaining performance, project, and problem-based teaching, learning, and assessment. She has led TK-12 inservice work in literacy, technology, assessment, and community building for 28 years. 

• Eduardo R Muñoz-Muñoz, PhD

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    Eduardo R Muñoz-Muñoz, PhD, is an associate professor serving as the Coordinator of the Critical Bilingual Authorization program “Bilingüismo y Justicia” at the Lurie College of Education at San José State University. Dr. Muñoz-Muñoz is passionate and convinced about the transformative power of critical teachers, and is honored by partaking in their sustainable development as professionals and critical agents of change.