BREAKOUT SESSION TOPICS
& FEATURED PRESENTERS
MORNING BREAKOUT SESSIONS (11:30am - 1:00pm)
REVITALIZE: Collectivity & Community Trust
Los Angeles is currently facing critical issues focused on housing and gentrification due to increased cost of living and unfettered development within communities. In this session, invited speakers will give "pecha kucha" style presentations in order to share best practices and strategies for community investment in place-keeping, housing and community identity and provide solutions that can revitalize communities. Following the short presentations, participants will have the opportunity for a facilitated question and answer discussion with speakers.
Themes: Displacement/Gentrification, Housing/Homelessness, Unfettered Development, Cost of Living Increases, Racial & Economic Stratification
Presenters:
AMY PERKINS, MSW, is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at LA Family Housing, one of the largest comprehensive real estate developers and homeless service providers in Los Angeles. Amy serves as the Regional Coordinator for the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys’ Coordinated Entry System and organizes the region’s partners in their efforts to combat homelessness. With a background in both domestic violence services and the adoption and foster care systems, Amy understands how the intersection of trauma, environment, and oppression can impact the lives of marginalized communities. “There is no them and us. There is only us.” –Greg Boyle
TRINI RODRIGUEZ is co-founder and Executive Director of Tia Chucha’s, a cultural center/bookstore in L.A's San Fernando Valley that transforms community through ancestral knowledge, the arts, literacy and creative engagement. A former bilingual educator, court interpreter, and newspaper editor, she writes, speaks and works for personal and collective healing and systemic social change. Trini facilitates women's healing sweatlodge and talking circles in Native American and Native Mexican traditions. She and husband Luis J Rodriguez produce “The Hummingbird Cricket Hour” podcast to explore thoughts and move hearts on pressing matters of life, social change, and philosophy.
ELIZABETH TIMME is co-founder and co-executive director of LA-Más, a non-profit design firm that seeks to establish the potential for design-based outcomes in Los Angeles. With a diverse background working in resource-limited environments, Elizabeth has led the office to focus on projects that critically engage systemic problems and provide solutions based on research and community engagement. To date she’s led the LA Watts Community Studio project and the Reseda Great Streets initiative to pilotalternative uses for pedestrian-oriented streets that would reshape and rethink the future of equitable city growth. Most recently Elizabeth developed the strategy and approach for the Backyard Basics – a proposal for collective housing in Elysian Valley comprised of Accessory Dwelling Units for the Architecture + Design Museum’s Shelter, and is building a pilot ADU in partnership with the Mayor’s Innovation team in Los Angeles. Elizabeth teaches at Woodbury University's Architecture & Civic Engagement (ACE) Center and serves on the Zoning Advisory Committee of Re:Code LA, a city-led effort to transform the city’s outdated zoning code. She holds a master’s degree in architecture from Harvard's Graduate School of Design and a bachelors’ degree in architecture from the University of Southern California.
Facilitator:
As manager of exhibitions and communications at the Craft & Folk Art Museum since 2010, SASHA ALI has organized close to 50 exhibition of contemporary craft, art, and design. She also produces and hosts a monthly program on NTS Radio called Miss Modular, which is a dedicated platform for womxn musical artists. She has organized nightlife events, including benefit concerts for Palestine Children's Relief Fund, Kashmir Earthquake Relief, and Operation USA. She holds a BA in Art History from UCLA and an MA in Communications Management from USC.
EDUCATE: Investing in Our Youth
The "school-to-prison" pipeline has become a disturbing national trend in which children are funneled into the juvenile justice system through "zero-tolerance" and other destructive policies that are implemented in schools. In this session, participants will hear from leaders who are advancing youth leadership development and skill-building in order to shift the paradigm from the "school-to-prison" pipeline to the "school-to-creative economy" pipeline. The session will begin with a short, facilitated panel discussion which will focus on how we proactively invest in our youth, followed by round-robin small group discussions with each speaker to discuss best practices and strategies for youth leadership development, investing in creative, career pathways and workforce development.
Themes: School to Creative Economy Pipeline, Preparing Students for the Workforce, Arts as a Preventative Tool, Parent Resources, Physical and Emotional Safety, Youth Leadership Development
Presenters:
Born in El Paso, Tx. and raised in Boyle Heights, Ca., FABIAN DEBORA has been creating art since his childhood. Beginning his art career in 1995 as a member of the East Los Angeles Streetscapers, Fabian was mentored by many Chicano artists and muralists and was introduced a creative expression in all forms, from graffiti to murals to sketching and fine art painting. Over the years Fabian has created murals throughout East Los Angeles and continued to develop his style through work on canvass. He has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, including Santa Barbara, Ca., Los Angeles, Ca., and Kansas City, Mo. Brooklyn NY. Fabian He is currently the Community Connection Director, Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network, and works in collaboration LPAN (Latino Producers Action Network). As a Director of Arts Department. He is also a teaching artist with ACTA (Alliance for California Traditional Arts) Arts in corrections program, he also worked at as the Director of substance abuse services and programming/counselor and mentor at Homeboy Industries for 11 years in Los Angeles and continues as instructor between community artists in Boyle Heights and students in the classroom. Fabian continues to use art as a vehicle to communicate and educate and touch people throughout his journey. By conceptualizing and interpreting his personal experiences as well as the experiences of his community, Fabian believes that he too can effect change. He is determined to continue to expand his horizons and to fully and honestly express himself through his art.
DENISE GRANDE develops strategies for bringing about systemic change in school districts in Los Angeles County to implement quality K-12 arts education. Denise oversees the programmatic implementation of these strategies and develops the resources and communication tools to support these efforts. She also oversees the management of the existing 100+ partner coalition and cultivates partnerships to expand support in all areas. She represents the Los Angeles County Arts Education Collective locally, statewide and nationally, and leads a staff of ten and a team of consultants who provide specialized coaching services to school districts. Prior to the Arts Commission, Denise was Director of Programs and Strategic Partnership for the Metropolitan Opera Guild at the Lincoln Center. During her 20 years at the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, she played a leadership role in program design, implementation, research, and evaluation. Denise received her BA from UCLA in dance and was a Coro Fellow through the California Arts Council’s Arts Leadership Fellow Program.
ERIC V. IBARRA is a photographer and ethnographer from Los Angeles, CA. Born to a Mexican immigrant father and Colombian immigrant mother, Eric is the youngest of three, an uncle to four brilliant kids, and a dad to a spirited terrier mix named Elmer. Eric was introduced to photography at a young age by his mother, Sofia, who was an avid photographer that loved documenting family parties and travels, creating photo albums, and archiving the Ibarra family history. During his teenage years, Eric became more interested in photography and received his first 3-megapixel digital camera as a gift from his parents. Taking it everywhere - to soccer practice, parties, hanging out with friends - Eric quickly began to appreciate the process of documenting his own stories and adventures. After attaining his bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Cal State Fullerton, Eric learned about therapeutic photography, photo therapy, and photography for social change. At the age of 23 he developed a project that would put cameras in the hands of young people and teach them how to document their own stories. In the summer of 2010, Las Fotos Project, a photography mentoring and youth development program for teenage girls was born. Las Fotos Project teaches youth how to use photography and written expression to explore identity, advocate for change in their neighborhoods, and work towards strengthening their emotional and social well-being. Las Fotos Project’s mission is to inspire teenage girls and elevate their voices through photography, and as of 2017 after 7 years of programming, the organization has worked with over 1,100 teen girls from the United States, Guatemala, Mexico, India, and Venezuela.
SARA LONCKA has worked with kids and teens for over a decade in a variety of capacities. From coast to coast, Sara has taught both in and out of the classroom on subjects ranging from history to film acting to character education and has managed school outreach efforts for the American Red Cross in St. Louis and directed adolescent suicide prevention and postvention efforts across the state of Missouri. Now, Sara is the Director of the Fellows Program in Public Affairs (FPPA) at Coro Southern California. Coro, for over 65 years, has cultivated and trained aspiring civic leaders. Sara developed curriculum to adapt the full-time FPPA program to the high school level and trained the inaugural cohort of Coro Youth Fellows. She now oversees the program. Sara holds a Master's in Urban Education from joint coursework at both the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Missouri. She is currently trying her hand at writing young adult fiction.
CAMILLE SCHENKKAN is the Program Director for Next Generation Initiatives at Center Theatre Group, and the Managing Director at the new-works development company Circle X Theatre Co. She holds a Masters in Arts Management from Claremont Graduate University, and a dual Honors English/Theatre degree from Scripps College. Schenkkan served on the national Emerging Leader Council and was a core member of Emerging Arts Leaders/LA’s from the group’s inception in 2005. She is passionate about career development for emerging artists and arts managers, and regularly teaches resume and cover letter writing, business communication, and other professional development classes at universities and organizations across Southern California. She started at Circle X as an intern in 2004 and never left. After serving as their Director of Development for more than eight years, she transitioned to Managing Director in 2013.
Facilitators:
CHARLIE JENSEN is the program director of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, one of the largest and most prestigious continuing education programs for creative writing in the nation. He served on the Americans for the Arts Emerging Leader Council for six years, and he is passionate about using communication strategies to build support for arts, culture, and arts education.
SAFIYA COOPER is a 17 years old senior who attends Ramon C. Cortines Visual and Performing Arts. She is a theatre academy student and through her theatrical endeavors, she was also exposed to arts advocacy initiatives. Her participation as a Student Ambassador with Center Theatre Group as well as a participant of several South LA arts organizations such as, Inner City Arts, 24th St Theatre, Los Angeles Theatre Academy, and Shakespeare Center gave her additional insight into the necessity and the urgency of programs such as these. Local community organizations such as these do more than put on fun shows, they provide outlets that offer opportunities to young people who probably do not have art programs in their schools. She is enjoying learning more about various ways of community engagement and how to get young people excited about expressing themselves through the arts.
ACTIVATE: Local Empowerment
In preparation for the upcoming election, this session will focus on tangible strategies for civic engagement and empowering local leaders. Invited speakers will give "pecha kucha" style presentations in order to share best practices and strategies regarding advocacy opportunities for non-profit organizations, getting out the vote, and empowering local leaders to advocate for change in their communities. Following the presentations, participants will have the opportunity for a facilitated question and answer discussion with speakers.
Themes: Local Empowerment, Advocacy 101, Voter Registration/Get Out the Vote
Speakers:
GIPSY ALVARADO born and raised in East Los Angeles and the eldest of four children raised by a single mother many times faced with many challenges because of the lack disinvestment services in East Los Angeles County. Graduated from Pasadena College in Business Administration although peers were enrolled and graduating from college. Noticing the lack of disinvestment not only in Education services but also mental health Services had a big impact in my community and I. Realizing that folks in our community were not aware of their voting rights or knowing the reason cuts were impacting our daily lives I was determined to inform and empower those around me who shared similar situations. I started to get involved as a youth with the Civic Engagement program at InnerCity Struggle in 2009 with the love for Social justice to ensure quality education, prevent School to prison pipeline to all LAUSD students I participated A- G for all , Breakfast in the classrooms. New East Side Critical battle for new schools, Community Schools, Fight for Wellness centers, Prop 30, 55, 56, 57 statewide effort and locally Prop HHH and JJJ, key parent leader of the East LA Best Start Co-hort as an official member for the consulting committee. With the ultimate goal to continue her leadership and contribute to educate, empower and build local political power, Currently working on the Make It Fair Campaign.
MARILÚ GUEVARA received a Bachelors of Arts from the University of California Irvine and a Masters of Arts from California State University Long Beach, both degrees in Political Science. Marilú was born and raised in Compton, California, where she still resides. Prior to working at the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles (LWVLA), Marilu worked in preparing students for higher education in Compton high schools and as a Financial Aid Director. She is approved by the Department of Education to administer Title IV funding. Marilú has worked with Mayoral and Senate level campaigns and Get Out the Vote grassroots efforts. In 2016, she became the Executive Director for the LWVLA and is responsible for promoting the organizational vision of the League, donor development, strategic planning, civic engagement programs, communications, community leadership and public relations. Marilú is a former College Bound mentor, currently serves on the Action Civics L.A. Partners Board and is a member of the Los Angeles County Community & Voter Outreach Committee.
JEFF KLEIN oversees voter education, outreach, community relations, and legislation for the LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, the department that manages the single largest electorate in the United States. He has more than 20 years of experience in elections – 8 years working on a partisan level and 12 years working in a non-partisan administrative capacity. In addition to community engagement, his tenure at the Registrar also includes extensive experience in pollworker training and Election Day operations. Klein holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from California State University, Northridge and a master’s degree in public administration and policy from California State University, Long Beach. He has been twice elected to the Elysian Valley Neighborhood Council and remains active not just on a professional level, but also at a person level in communities throughout the region.
Facilitators:
TREVOR DAVIS is a community organizer and arts advocate. He serves as Co-Chair of the Arts & Culture Committee of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas’ Empowerment Congress, and on its Leadership Council, and Co-Chaired the Congress' 25th Annual Summit at USC this year. As Co-Chair of the Arts & Culture Committee, he has been helping to spearhead an arts policy framework focused on cultural equity & inclusion and arts for social impact among other efforts. He recently built upon this work to great effect, successfully organizing advocates to push the Board of Supervisors toward more robust funding of LA County's groundbreaking Cultural Equity & Inclusion Initiative. Trevor served as Board Chair of the acclaimed Ate9 Dance Company, and currently is a Cultural Agent with the U.S. Department of Arts & Culture. He also served as Executive Director of the arts cooperative Imaginese Productions -- a non-profit dedicated to uplifting diverse voices in media and harnessing the arts for social justice. In this role, Trevor co-founded the education programs at Imaginese, which develop civic leadership with at-risk youth through the arts. Trevor also serves on leadership at the Westwood Presbyterian Church, where he is working to spearhead a unique interfaith solar project for LA County. He currently does progressive organizing with Artivists into Action, the Eastside Action Hour and others. In addition to his advocacy, Trevor is a marketing consultant focused on experiential and cause marketing.
ILIA LOPEZ is a native to Los Angeles and is passionate about how the arts can be a transforming force in the lives of individuals and communities. She is currently the Director of Strategic Relations at Cornerstone Theater Company, a community-engaged theater company that has been making new plays with and about communities for over 30 years. Among her accomplishments at Cornerstone this past year was leading their successful 30th Anniversary fundraising and marketing campaign, reuniting past Board, Ensemble and community members and more than doubling their fundraising efforts for their annual giving and fundraising event. She is also responsible for opening the doors at Cornerstone to become a polling place for the local community. Prior to Cornerstone, she was the first Development Director at Our Community School (OCS), a K-8th grade public charter school that balances academics with creativity. She was responsible for fundraising, community outreach and marketing for the school. Among her accomplishments at OCS was the creation of their Community Building Breakfast series, which brought in several businesses and local government officials that became successful partners and sponsors of the organization. In 2005, Ilia founded and became the Executive Director of Fostering Imagination, a nonprofit organization, which provided enrichment and mentoring programs for foster youth between the ages of 12-23 that included theater, filmmaking, adventure, and life skills. Through this program, she saw first hand the therapeutic effects that art has on individuals, and continues to mentor many of the youth from this program. Ilia holds a JD from Southwestern University School of Law, and a BA in Liberal Studies from California State University, Los Angeles. She is also a member of the California Bar Association.
AFTERNOON BREAKOUT SESSIONS (2:00pm - 3:30pm)
CONNECT: Building Alliances & Connecting Our Stories
Participants are invited to interact with speakers in a small-group setting to discuss some of the main challenges facing Los Angeles and learn how to support individuals and organizations advancing the cause. Each group will feature an invited speaker to facilitate a discussion and offer information and resources to participants interested in their issue area. Participants are invited to sit with a single group for the duration of the session or "float" around the room to connect and inform themselves on a range of issue areas, including: Immigration & DACA, Food Justice, Women's Rights and Environmental Justice.
Themes: Allyship, Cross-Sector Collaboration, Groundswell Advocacy
Speakers:
SHIRLEY ALVARADO-DEL AGUILA Also known as Sumaq, was born in Iquitos, Peru. Over the past 15 years, she has organized in Peru as well as in different states such as New York, Arizona and California on issues relating to violence against women and migrant rights. Shirley is a Communicator with a focus on individual and social justice. Her work is driven by her passion and belief in the ability of individual reconstruction with the overall goal of personal and political liberation. Shirley works at Peace Over Violence, one of the oldest domestic and sexual violence crisis centers in the nation. She has been with AF3IRM Los Angeles since 2013.
MILTON HERNANDEZ NIMATUJ is Maya-Cakchiquel, born in Guatemala and rooted in Southeast Los Angeles. He was 16 in 2000 when he became involved in environmental justice work with CBE’s youth program as part of the successful organizing effort to defeat the proposed power plant, Nueva Azalea, in South Gate, in southeast Los Angeles County. That campaign, along with involvement in conferences, workshops, actions and presentations, developed Milton’s sense of his own empowerment as a community organizer. CBE/Youth EJ allowed Milton to grow as and interact with a variety of people and movements. He became active with Wise Up!, an immigrant youth group that helped pass AB540 (now a California state law), which allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public California colleges. Milton also helped establish Qteam, a queer and transgender youth of color collective that creates change through multi-issue organizing. As youth coordinator at the Southern California Library, he developed curriculum for high school students about south L.A. history, community issues and organizing efforts. Now, he is part of LA Comunidad Ixim, a Maya group working to highlight and preserve the cultural struggle and legacy of indigenous people from Guatemala living in LA. Currently as the CBE SoCal Program Director, Milton provides support to both Wilmington and South East Los Angeles communities, to the organizers and the campaigns. The campaigns involve the permanent shut-down of corporate serial polluters, ensuring just transition for the workers and residents, and transforming neighborhoods into green zones. “CBE/ Youth for Environmental Justice (Youth EJ) gave me the tools and space to challenge and create in my own community, but most importantly, it proved to me that youth are the leaders of today not just tomorrow. For the past 5.5 years I have served as staff for the youth component of CBE and now excited to have the opportunity to work as the Southern California Program Director because I strive to offer a similar if not better space than the one that welcomed me 16 years ago.”
JESSICA HUERTA wants to pursue a career as a public advocate for immigrant rights and social cohesion in the receiving countries. She joined the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) as an Information and Referral Specialist in 2014. Her passion for promoting immigrant integration, civil and workers’ rights, and access to education has grown from a personal to a professional interest. Before coming to CHIRLA, she completed her Bachelor Degree in Psychology and Sociology from the University of California, Irvine in 2011. In 2013, she completed her MA in Public Policy at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. In addition, as a policy researcher, she collaborated with the Roma Initiative Project at the Open Society Foundation in Budapest, Hungary. Currently, she is the community education coordinator and Department of Justice representative (DOJ accredited) at CHIRLA. She provides trainings and workshops on varies topics; such as Know Your Rights, Immigration Policies, Labor Laws, Healthcare and Financial Literacy, which gives her the opportunity to better assess and inform members on one-one and group basis about potential immigration reliefs, worker’s rights, social services and general information. Her ability to connect with the immigrant community helps families to empower themselves, demand their rights and social recognition with dignity and respect.
NEELAM SHARMA, CSU’s executive director has worked with CSU since 2000. She has over 30 years experience in youth development, social justice, and food systems work and is deeply committed to building youth leadership on issues of health, sustainability and the environment. She was the lead organizer behind CSU’s community food assessment which was the launching pad for CSU’s food systems work today, recruiting and engaging dozens of community partners, and mentoring volunteers and interns to carryout the assessment. Neelam has been responsible for leading the development of CSU’s food justice education and training programs, and the Village Market Place social enterprise. She has extensive knowledge and experience in urban agriculture and small-scale food production and is responsible for developing CSU’s urban farm sites and training staff and volunteers in natural and sustainable food production methods to maintain these sites. Since moving to the United States from England, Neelam has mostly lived in the South Central community CSU serves, and has two children who attended neighborhood schools. She was a founding member of the Healthy School Food Coalition, the parents’ coalition responsible for passing the “soda ban” in the Los Angeles Unified School District, as well as the Los Angeles Food Justice Network (precursor to the LA Food Policy Council) and the California Food and Justice Coalition. As a result of her experience and success working and organizing with residents to expand urban agriculture, build models for grassroots economic development, and improve community health, Neelam is recognized as a national leader on the intersection between community economic development, youth empowerment and food justice.
HEAL: What Makes a "HEALTHY" Community?
A health indicator is defined as a characteristic of an individual, population or environment which is subject to measurement and can be used to describe one or more aspects of the health of an individual or population. In this session, participants will join small group discussions facilitated by a leader in one of the four health-related topics: Food Justice, Mental Health, Environmental Justice, and Social Justice. Each group will tackle a different topic and discuss what makes a "healthy" community and how their topic affects the overall health of a community. Following individual small-group discussions, leaders from each discussion will bring their group's thoughts into a larger conversation about how each of these topics are interconnected and how they impact the overall health of our communities.
Themes: What do we NEED to have a healthy community? Health Indicators
Speakers:
MICHAEL GRAFF-WEISNER is the VP of Strategy & External Relations at Chrysalis – a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping economically disadvantaged and homeless individuals become self-sufficient through employment opportunities. At Chrysalis, Michael leads the organization’s work in the community, developing partnerships and projects, working with public-sector partners and policy-makers, as well as spearheading the agency’s plans for growth and expansion. Michael brings over 18 years’ experience in the nonprofit, private, and public sectors to his position at Chrysalis. His workforce development experience includes creating and managing job training programs at the Wilshire-Metro WorkSource Center in Los Angeles, and managing programs serving refugees at CAMBA in Brooklyn, NY. Outside of the workforce development field, Michael has worked as a technology consultant to nonprofit organizations, designed and launched an after school program for high school students, and worked as a researcher at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Michael received a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Amherst College and a Master of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
LUKE IPPOLITI, Agency Relations Manager, grew up close to nature on the side of the Shorthill Mountain outside of Lovettsville, VA. His first local food experiences involved foraging for wild raspberries, onions, and mint in the forest surrounding his family’s wood cabin home. His travels have taken him to New York City, where he received a BFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, to Post-Katrina New Orleans, where he spent 17 months as a disaster relief volunteer for Emergency Communities, and then to California. He spent eight years working for MEND Poverty in Pacoima, designing innovative solutions to food insecurity, using culture, the culinary arts, and gardening to help create “pathways to self-reliance” for low-income families. Being embraced by the MEND community connected him to his own immigrant roots, showed him what the pursuit of the American Dream truly looks like, taught him the definition of the word “dignity”, and illuminated what it takes to examine privilege and become an effective ally in the struggle for justice – all lessons he applies as a member of the Food Forward community.
ROSEMARIE MOLINA is a leader in the fight for social justice for working class communities of color. She began her career in the workers' rights movement supporting hotel workers, factory workers and carwash workers who sought to improve the conditions of their workplaces. She spent five years organizing in South Los Angeles with the CLEAN Carwash Campaign where she combined direct action organizing with creative policy campaigns to win greater workplace organizing tools for workers across Los Angeles and California. In January 2015, she joined the LA Raise the Wage Campaign as the Director of Organizing where she successfully led a coalition of 250 organizations to win the monumental $15 minimum wage and anti-wage theft enforcement policies for hundreds of thousands of Angelenos.In 2016, she joined the dynamic movement building efforts of Community Coalition in South Los Angeles as their Civic Engagement Director. As the Director, she creates and implements programs that empower residents to utilize their collective political power to bring equity and resources to the systematically underserved region of South Los Angeles. Rosemarie is also a board member at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of South California where she is supporting the emerging community organizing strategies of the organization. She received her B.A. from UCLA and her M.A. from California State University, Dominguez Hills. She is also a mother to a four year old daughter.
CINDY MONTAÑEZ is a lifelong Angeleno raised in the Northeast San Fernando Valley. At the age of 25, Cindy was elected as the youngest mayor and councilmember of her hometown of San Fernando. At 28 years old, she made history by becoming the youngest woman elected to the California State Legislature. Cindy then moved on to serve as Assistant General Manager at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. She is currently CEO of TreePeople, an LA-based environmental organization that has engaged more than 3 million people in making Los Angeles more climate-resilient and water-secure. TreePeople's environmental education programs impact more than a quarter million students per year.
Facilitators:
ERIKA NUNO is an accomplished marketing and communications strategist with over 15 years experience, including a decade within the music industry developing campaigns for high-profile talent and Fortune 500 brands. Sony BMG, Universal Music, iTunes, Amazon, Univision, Pepsi, Valley Performing Arts Center, Fania Records, City of Los Angeles, and Target are amongst the many brands and organizations she has worked with. Her interest in environmentalism led her to begin Nunovations, a marketing consultancy with a mission to develop creative strategies that bridge the gap between the arts and business to accomplish sustainability. Her eye for developing brand stories into immersive art and culture experiences is also exemplified in her role as Partner in the creative agency, Champion City. Nuno holds an Advanced BA in Economics and Business Management from Occidental College, where she currently serves as the Vice President of the Latino Alumni Association (OCLAA). She is on record with a Global Sustainability Certificate from UCLA, and is a Member of the national environmental organization Green Latinos, the Sustainable Business Council of Los Angeles, and the #OurWaterLA Coalition.
ZOE SILVERMAN is a museum educator in Los Angeles. As Specialist for University Audiences at the Hammer Museum at UCLA, she manages programs for campus partners, including student gallery educators, academic internships, and arts-integrated professional development for teachers, graduate students, and faculty. She has worked as an educator and coordinator at a variety of arts institutions, including the Skirball Cultural Center, the Bakalar & Paine Galleries at MassArt, and the Harvard Art Museums. She received an M.A. in Learning and Visitor Studies in Museums and Galleries from the University of Leicester and an M.A. in History from Harvard. She cohosts Open Admission, a podcast about museums and the people who work in them. In prior lives, Zoe was a medieval historian and high school teacher. These days, she is thinking about mindful approaches to arts education, social-emotional learning, and community wellbeing.
