Illuminating a path that helps leaders change systems, so that all students – and all
communities – can flourish.

Maria Roberts has worked in public K-12 educational systems for over 20 years. She began her career as a middle school special education teacher and has worked in federal settings I, II and III. She has experience in serving at all three school levels (elementary, middle and high school) and has served in both urban and suburban school districts. She has held leadership positions at both the district and school level including AVID District Director, Equity Director, and Associate Principal. She is the current principal of Wilshire Park Elementary School in the St. Anthony-New Brighton School District. Each experience has provided her the opportunity to successfully evaluate and implement equitable policy and practices resulting in changes in curriculum and instruction, grading and discipline practices. In addition to her work in school systems, she actively supports learning and leadership among colleagues and values partnership between practitioners and academics. For the past five years, she has served as the Senior Facilitator for the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute and is a facilitator for the MN Principals Academy where, in partnership, she designed the culturally responsive leadership strand.

Dr. Brookins currently serves as an Assistant Superintendent in South Washington County Schools. He is a former principal of 21 years at the Elementary and Middle School levels. Dr. Brookins has a passion for education and a love of dialogue with current educators on educational opportunities with specific emphasis on leadership, equity and learning (andragogy and pedagogy). Emancipating change carries a deep meaning for Dr. Brookins as he serves adults and children. As a servant-leader he realizes the importance of staying involved in the lives of his students through-out their entire educational journey. Dr. Brookins mentor's children directly and indirectly as they simply need words of encouragement and motivation or, as they need guidance to make life-changing decisions. Sharing his experiences and perspectives often provides insight and options they may not have otherwise considered. He is a firm believer in education and the belief that education has the ability to change and even save the lives of young people.

Dr. Alison Gillespie currently serves as Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning within the White Bear Lake Area Schools. Alison Gillespie has held a variety of school leadership roles in Minnesota including: High School Principal and District Level Principal on Special Assignment for White Bear Lake Area Schools, Associate Principal at Wayzata High School and Alternative High School Supervisor for various schools supporting students in Richfield and Minneapolis Public Schools. Alison started as a middle school and high school educator for English Learners in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Chandler, Arizona and Richfield, Minnesota prior to entering school leadership in 2004. Dr. Gillespie is a courageous equity-centered leader. She is passionate about transforming schools and aligning district systems to ensure high achievement and humanizing, culturally affirming experiences are realized consistently for each student. Alison is committed to organizational health and building a truly collaborative culture between district and building leaders. She is knowledgeable in leadership team development, strategic planning and continuous improvement. She serves as an adjunct professor in K-12 principal licensure programs and coaches principal interns. Dr. Gillespie holds national certifications in principal mentorship through the National Association of Elementary School Principals and instructional leadership from AVID and AASA. Alison holds a bachelor’s degree in Middle/Secondary Education and Spanish from University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Arizona State University, and Master’s and Ed.D in Organizational Leadership from Teacher’s College- Columbia University.

Dr. Eskender Yousuf's research interests are guided by the hope of establishing just schools for all students, especially those minoritized. His overarching research questions investigate how race and racism impact the lives of African immigrant/refugee students, their families, and communities in relation to schooling. His current line of research examines the racial and ethnic identity construction of an East African immigrant/refugee subgroup (Oromo) in relation to their k-12 schooling experiences. Broadly, the implications of his research speak to ways that educators and educational leaders can honor, acknowledge, and humanize the identities of minoritized students.

Coy Carter, Jr. is a PhD candidate in Educational Policy and Leadership at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. His research explores the connection between race, space (school closure, gentrification, dispossession, white flight), and education to understand how historic and current policies are creating inequitable opportunities for minoritized students. His dissertation examines education policies contributions to racializing space in education and their impacts on minoritized student access to culturally responsive space, curriculum, and pedagogy. Additionally, he contributes to research on police violence, school leadership accountability, and the need to diversify the educator workforce.

Dr. Lixin Zhang holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Evaluation Studies from the University of Minnesota with research interests in equity, community-based research and evaluation, and social network analysis. Her experience in health care, government, and educational sectors has helped her form a strong foundation for building evidence-based programs and making meaning of the evaluation data to support program planning, development, and implementation. Throughout her professional services, Dr. Zhang has been a multi-tooled methodologist using qualitative, quantitative, and mix-method approaches and social network analysis to generate rigorous evidence for social programs. Additionally, Dr. Zhang has served as an evaluation leader to help build evaluation capacity for the organization by creating evaluation training materials and providing ongoing evaluation learning cycles to meet the organization's learning needs.

Bodunrin O. Banwo has spent over two decades working in youth and community development. Dr. Banwo completed his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota in Education Policy and Leadership. His research focus is on the liberatory effects of communitarian programming in schools. Before beginning his Ph.D., Dr. Banwo served as a food access manager for the City of Baltimore, where he worked to improve the city’s food supply chain and the economic viability of selling healthy food in Baltimore City. Throughout his career, Bodunrin has served as a public school teacher in Camden, NJ; Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay, South America; Food System Manager for the Philadelphia-based nonprofit, The Food Trust; and Arizona public advocate and lobbyist for a Washington DC-based nonprofit, Project Vote. Dr. Banwo professional life has been dedicated to improving people’s lives from the many social and ethnic diasporas scattered around the world, and he looks forward to working with individuals, groups, and communities with a passion for continuing the work begun by our ancestors to make our world a more merciful and just place.

Lisa Collins received her EdD from Lewis & Clark. Her scholarship has focused on racial trauma, and in her dissertation, she conducted an autoethnography of the experiences of a Black female educator in predominantly white districts. Dr. Collins has 30 years of education experience, including building and district-level leadership. Her consultation work and presentations have focused on wellness for equity, trauma awareness and response, and culturally responsive school leadership.

Ezekiel Joubert III is an educator, community-engaged scholar, and creative writer. As faculty of Educational Foundations in the Division of Advanced and Applied Studies at California State University-Los Angeles, his teaching explores theories, methods, and politics that undergird the psychological foundations of education and qualitative research methods in education. His scholarly interests focus on the intersections of racial capitalism and Black education, the political economy of student movement, the history of educational inequality in Black rural communities near Metro Detroit and in the Midwest, and Black organic educational intellectual thought and activism. He is currently an American Communities Program Fellow, where his work centers Black migration and education in Los Angeles. Additionally, he writes personal narrative essays and is working on a collection of speculative poems and short stories on teaching and learning in marginalized communities.

Rashad Williams is an Assistant Professor of Race & Social Justice in Public Policy. His interdisciplinary research crosses the boundaries of urban planning, urban politics, and the critical philosophy of race to study the urban expressions of the black reparations movement. As an ideational scholar, Williams' research explores the conditions under which egalitarian ideas become implemented into municipal policy. He has coined the term reparative planning to describe the implementation of redress policies at the urban scale. He has also published work in the areas of planning theory and housing policy. In 2022, he was honored with the Emerging Scholar Award by the Urban Affairs Association