Former Global Educators Network (GEN) Board Members

Cynthia Brannvall

Cynthia Brannvall is an art historian and a multi-media artist who teaches art history as a full time faculty member of Foothill College. She is a California native of African American and Swedish descent. Cynthia has undergraduate degrees in art practice and art history from UC Berkeley where she was a Phi Beta Kappa and a Ronald E. McNair scholar and was awarded the Departmental Citation for her research in art history. She has an M.A. in art history from San Francisco State University with an emphasis on modern and contemporary art. An advocate and ally for social justice and equity, Cynthia’s artwork explores identity formation envisioned in an imagined deep time terrain of memory, reclamation, and the geographies of forced and voluntary migrations. Her artwork has been selected for juried group exhibitions in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Washington DC. She has affiliation with SFMOMA Artists Gallery and Chandra Cerrito Gallery.

Chesa Caparas

Chesa Caparas is faculty in English and Asian American studies at De Anza College, where she teaches in the IMPACT AAPI and First Year Experience Learning Communities. Originally from the Washington, DC area, Chesa attended boarding school in Switzerland before moving to California in 1999. She earned a B.A. and M.A. in modern literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was a Stanford Human Rights Education Initiative (SHREI) fellow from 2013-14, during which time she developed curriculum on human rights violations in the tech industry. In 2014, she was one of the recipients of the League for Innovation’s “Innovation of the Year” Award for her contributions to the art installation "Toxic Networks." In 2022, Chesa was a Fulbright Scholar in the Philippines where she researched media and information literacy. She is currently pursuing a master's in information and knowledge strategy at Columbia University.

Scott Lankford

A professor of English (emeritus) at Foothill College, Scott completed his Ph.D. in modern thought and literature at Stanford in 1991, serving as co-director of Foothill’s award-winning Cultural Diversity Center (1991-1994), and dean of language arts (1994-1997).  In 2010, his book, Tahoe Beneath the Surface, was named a Nature Book of the Year by Foreword Magazine.  In 2011, in collaboration with the Stanford Design School, he co-founded the Foothill College Center for a Sustainable Future.  In 2012-13, his Stanford Human Rights Education Initiative (SHREI) project focused on infusing climate change across the curriculum; his 2015-16 Stanford Education Partnership to Internationalize Curriculum (EPIC) Fellowship project again used the climate crisis as a focus for college writing classes. Arguing that the Anthropocene is the ultimate international, interdisciplinary, intersectional, and intergenerational existential crisis, current works in progress include SuperLakes: The Battle to Save Earth's Largest Lakes, and Everest Is Melting: Climate Change on the Roof of the World.

Stephanie M. Roach

Stephanie M. Roach is the Library Systems and Application Developer for San Mateo County Community College District, and is co-lead of the California Community Colleges’ Library Services Platform Systems Work Group. Previously, she was an associate professor and digital resources librarian at College of San Mateo. She received a Master's in library and information science from San Jose State University's iSchool in 2010. In 2011 she received the California Library Association's Technical Services New Leader Award, and in 2015-2016 was awarded an EPIC fellowship at Stanford Global Studies where she focused on internationalizing her approach to teaching, incorporating the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, and understanding the global nature of information and technology. She is interested in the ethics and intersection of information and technology, and in approaching her work using an equity lens.