Global Educators Network Executive 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 Community 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 MA 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.

Marina Broeder

Marina Broeder, originally from Moscow, Russia, has been an English as a Second Language (ESL) faculty at Mission College in Santa Clara, CA, since 2001, after graduating magna cum laude from Moscow State Linguistic University with a diploma in Linguistics, Intercultural Communication, and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). She has been a summer lecturer with VIA and English for Foreign Students programs at Stanford University since 2015. She has written curriculum for an online Grammar Review course and two noncredit courses in the English for Food Service program at Mission College.

As a 2018-2019 Stanford University EPIC Fellow, Marina has helped organize the annual International Education Week celebration at Mission College as well as develop several cross-disciplinary collaborations including Cross-Cultural Partners Program for ESL and Communication Studies students.

Marina is a recipient of 2017 Hayward Excellence in Education and 2015, 2017 Service to the College Excellence awards.

Chesa Caparas

Chesa Caparas is faculty in English and Asian American Studies at De Anza College, where she teaches in the IMPACT AAPI and FLOW Hip-Hop Learning Communities. She is also the Faculty Coordinator for the Jean Miller Resource Room for Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Originally from the Washington, DC area, Chesa attended boarding school in Switzerland before moving to California in 1999. She earned a BA and MA 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. She has also been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the Philippines where she plans to research discourses of digital literacy.

Scott Lankford

A Professor of English (emeritus) at Foothill College, Scott completed his PhD 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; similarly, his 2015-16 Stanford Educational Project to Internationalize the Curriculum (EPIC) Fellowship project used the climate crisis as a focus for college writing classes. Arguing that the Anthropocene is the ultimate international interdisciplinary intersectional intergenerational existential social justice crisis, his next book will be entitled Earth’s Largest Lakes and the Battle to Save Them (including Russia’s Lake Baikal, Africa’s Lake Tanganyika, South America’s Lake Titicaca, North America’s Great Lakes, and Australia’s Lake Eyre). With generous funding from Foothill College, his 2020-2022 sabbatical research project will study climate impacts on Mt. Everest. 

Danni Redding Lapuz

Danni Redding Lapuz serves as the Dean of Social Science & Creative Arts at Skyline College. She supports a variety of discipline areas, as well as programs including the Kababayan Learning Community, Honors Transfer Program, Art Gallery, and Theater. Previously, Ms. Redding Lapuz served as the International Program Manager at College of San Mateo. She has taught in the Music Departments of numerous colleges and universities, and has previously served on a number of other projects related to international education. She was a Stanford University Global Studies EPIC Fellow.

She has an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, specializing in Indonesian Performing Arts and Southeast Asian Studies. She received the Fulbright-Hayes fellowship for study at Universitas Sam Ratulangi (Sulawesi, Indonesia). She performs domestically and internationally with Gamelan Pusaka Sunda with renowned Suling Master Pak Burhan Sukarma and serves as a vocalist with Peninsula Women’s Chorus, winner of the American Prize for Choral Music.

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 Masters 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.

Don Uy-Barreta

Don Uy-Barreta has been teaching economics around the San Francisco Bay Area since 1999. Prior to joining academia, he previously worked as a Portfolio Analyst at Franklin Templeton Investments for nearly 12 years. His main interest is in macroeconomics and he is passionate in showing his students how to apply the economic concepts by using global economic events. Don was previously a Fellow under the Education Advisory Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He was also an EPIC Fellow at the Global Studies Department at Stanford University. He has guest lectured in the Philippines, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom on the topics of globalization and international trade. Don is most happy when he is traveling and adding to his collection of various currencies from all over the world which is a passion he wishes to leave to his daughter. He holds an undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics.