(H)ACER Faculty & Staff

Kimberly Lau

Kimberly Lau

Provost, John R. Lewis College 

Linnea K. Beckett

Linnea Beckett received her Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Context of Education, with a designated emphasis in Feminist Studies from UC Santa Cruz. As an anthropologist of education, Linnea uses critical ethnography and participatory methodologies to examine settler colonial and white supremacist practices often normalized in school and community relations. Her dissertation research documented a long-term, popular educationand digital storytelling effort in a predominately Latinx, California farm-working community with a rich history of resistance. Linnea is the Co-Founder and Director of the Apprenticeship in Community Engaged Research program in the Division of Social Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. There, she works with undergraduate students in conducting their own critical ethnographies in addition to other research projects directed toward understanding the complexities and potential impacts of community-engaged research. She teaches CLTE 135: Social Justice, Institutions & Power (Fall Quarter), (H)ACER Practicums (Spring Quarter) and supervises 2-unit internships.

Robert Majzler

Bob Majzler holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from UC Santa Cruz and his research interests include racial and gender identity development; social psychology of social movements; and critical, feminist, and liberation psychologies. In addition to teaching CLTE 136 Methodologies of Critical Practice, he also teaches the John R. Lewis College Core course and other undergraduate research courses at College Nine and John R. Lewis College, utilizing the Slug Stories Project.  Bob enjoys travelling, learning languages, and sports.

Ali Gutierrez Esquivel 

Ali Gutierrez Esquivel 

Ali is a third-year student majoring in Global and Community Health. She is from San Luis Obispo County, specifically from Paso Robles. This is her first time participating in Alternative Spring Break, and she is extremely excited to work with communities that remind her of home and gain a broader perspective of economic and environmental issues affecting communities. As a Co-lead, she aims to have students learn about different communities and gain memorable and meaningful experiences through community members who impact today's world.

Sahare Rostami

Sahare Rostami 

Sahare Rostami is a second year student at UCSC and grew up in the Bay Area. She is majoring in Biology and Psychology with a minor in anthropology. Through being a Co-lead in the (H)ACER program she hopes to develop a deeper understanding of the challenges and nuances involved in addressing social, economic, educational, and environmental injustices from working with community partners. She is also excited to learn about how to honor the cultural and social strength of community members and build meaningful relationships on the basis of collaboration and mutual respect. 

Arianna Fabian

Arianna Fabian

Arianna is a second year education and psychology student from the east Bay Area. Through the (H)ACER program, she hopes to learn more about how to connect local communities to powerful education that is centralized to their location. With environmental justice and education as a focal point of the internship, she hopes to not only learn more about the environment she is in, but also develop valuable leadership skills as a future educator. She is striving to be able to impact young students to work towards a brighter future through learning.

Daniel Thurmond

Daniel Thurmond

Daniel Thurmond is an Agroecology and Legal Studies undergraduate also studying Education coming from an urban farming and gardening background throughout Los Angeles, where they operated and taught at several high school and middle school gardens and milpas across LA and oversaw an integrated elementary school urban farm educational project. They have dedicated their life to creating systemic, radical change in social, food, labor, and educational systems, and their work has found roots in the farmworking communities of Pajaro and Watsonville, CA. With community at Calabasas Elementary School with the (H)ACER program, Daniel seeks to continue developing and implementing critical, anti-colonial and materially important pedagogy and education.