Aeiress Stancil is a sophomore Environmental Science major with a minor in Film & Visual Culture Studies at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA. She aspires to become a broadcast meteorologist and environmental journalist, driven by a commitment to making complex environmental issues accessible — particularly for Black and historically disenfranchised communities facing environmental disparities.
On campus, Aeiress serves as a Digital Engagement Intern with the Sustainable Spelman Office, where she translates sustainability issues into culturally relevant content through digital campaigns and creative storytelling. She is also a Building Improvement Toolkits (BIT) Fellow through the Resilient HBCUs Initiative, partnering with the Southface Institute and Sustain Our Future Foundation to conduct sustainability assessments and building performance evaluations that advance climate resilience and infrastructure equity at HBCUs.
In addition to her environmental work, Aeiress is an active journalist and editor for two college newspapers, where she leads reporting and content development while mentoring fellow student journalists. Her editorial work centers on amplifying underrepresented voices across topics of climate, culture, and campus life.
Through the intersection of science, media, and advocacy, Aeiress is building a career dedicated to community empowerment and equitable environmental storytelling.
Karla Vasquez Perez (she/her/ella) was born and raised in El Salvador and migrated to the United States in 2017 as the daughter of a single mother. Since then, she has rooted her life and work in the Los Angeles County where she is committed to supporting immigrant and working-class communities through community-driven and racial justice efforts.
Karla is a fourth-year student at UCLA, triple-majoring in Labor Studies, Political Science, and Chicanx and Central American Studies, with double minors in Community Engagement and Social Change and Central American Studies. Her dedication to both the LA community and immigrant communities has led her to work across nonprofits, grassroots organizations, unions, and government offices to help bridge community knowledge with policy-making.
She currently serves as the Organizing and Advocacy Director for the ING Fellowship and works at the Refugee Children Center within the Families and Children and Legal Departments, where she is developing a campaign addressing fear and harm caused by ICE raids in communities. Karla is also a student worker, Policy Researcher at the Office of Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, working across workforce and economic development, justice, and immigration portfolios.
Grounded in the belief of thinking globally and acting locally, Karla was selected as one of 22 women to participate in the She Leads for Peace Leadership Academy through UNITAR under the United Nations, where she centers peacebuilding in policy and community work. She also conducted research across six continents as an Obama-Chesky Scholar for Public Service, further shaping her global perspective on equity and governance. She is passionate about humanitarian and community-based work with a focus on racial justice, radical hope, and care-centered approaches.
At UCLA, Karla serves as Chair of the Labor Studies Student Union, uplifting voices of students interested in the labor movement, Co-Chair of Corazón de UCLA for humane approaches to immigration advocacy and awareness, and a UCLA Data Justice Scholar, where she focuses on community-centered mapping and research, translating a social justice issue into data. She believes that community spaces are deeply interconnected and that lasting change is built collectively. Karla hopes to dedicate her life to public service rooted in racial justice, dignity, and care for all communities.
Jovanna Walker is a Black queer organizer, museum educator, and student who is currently living on occupied Narragansett land, also known as Providence, RI. She holds a B.A. in Sociology and History, with a specialization in African and African American history, from George Washington University. She is currently a first-year Public Humanities graduate student at Brown University, where her research interests include rebellions in women’s prisons, autonomous Black nationalist schools, and public murals as a site of world-building for Black artists in Boston.
Outside of the university, she is an organizer with the Jericho Movement, a national organization that supports and organizes for the freedom of US-held political prisoners, as well as the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM). Jovanna is also a member of the Black Knowledge Coalition, a collective of Black/New Afrikan femme and gender-expansive organizers who believe in utilizing archives and various methods of storytelling to facilitate revolutionary political education. Her professional work and organizing praxis are guided by an undying love for the people, as well as theoretical frameworks of Black feminism, Afro-pessimism, and Black internationalism
Bryant Partida was born in East Los Angeles, raised in South Phoenix, and is currently rooted in Pacoima, California. He is currently a Professor of Chicana/o/x Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, California. Grounded at the intersections of Chicana/o/x Studies, history, and education, Professor Partida received his Bachelor of Arts from Arizona State University, a Master of Arts from CSU Northridge, and a PhD from UCLA. Bryant’s work documents the 20th-century educational histories of Mexican, Mexican American, and Chicana/o communities through a Critical Race Educational History and relational lens. He is currently expanding his work focusing on the 1970 Chicana/o boycott of Phoenix Union High School into diverse research strands that include a wider district relational analysis of race and racism in the Phoenix Union High School District between 1895 and 1982, further documenting the history of segregated Mexican schools in the Valley, and early 1900s historical Mexican and Mexican American educational social movements in Phoenix and Arizona. Bryant has also translated his interdisciplinary research skills and teaching experience to provide professional development-based history-based workshops for Ethnic Studies teachers. He has also served as a public history consultant and co-curator of Chicana/o/x educational and community history exhibits.
Mariyam Bey (She/Her) is a library professional at the African-American Museum & Library at Oakland and co-founder of Fragments of a Bip, a Post-Custodial Digital Archive and Zine operating in service of Oakland, California’s historically Black community. She holds a BA in Africana Studies from San Francisco State University and co-facilitates The Black Studies Collective, an adult reading/discussion series funded by UC Berkeley’s In Defense of Black Studies Grant held at the Oakland Public Library – West Branch. As a prospective graduate student in the coming year, Mariyam’s work explores the relationship between jazz and literary methodologies that improvise the silences in Black archival records and uncover narratives of resistance. As a Black memory worker and writer/editor of Fragments of a Bip’s digital zine, Mariyam focuses on the systemic violence that continues to plague Oakland’s most vulnerable Black residents and illuminate the storytelling capacity of the Black Captive Maternal.
Roshumba Mason is a non-traditional student from Los Angeles studying at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), studying African American Studies. Her academic interests focus on the lived experiences of Black women and non-traditional students navigating institutions that were not historically designed to support them. She is particularly passionate about learning history and understanding how past struggles, movements, and ideas shape contemporary conversations about justice, identity, and community.
At UCLA, Roshumba serves as Co-President of the Non-Traditional Student Network, a student-led community that supports students aged 25 and up, returning, parenting, and first-generation students who often experience higher education differently than traditional undergraduates. The network focuses on building community, sharing resources, and advocating for greater visibility and institutional support for non-traditional students on campus.
Roshumba is also interested in creative and community-based forms of storytelling that highlight Black women’s wellness, reproductive justice, and resilience. Through these projects, she explores how personal narratives and cultural expression can serve as powerful forms of documentation and resistance.
As a participant in the Project STAND Residency, Roshumba is interested in ethical approaches to documenting student activism and preserving stories of communities that are often overlooked or misrepresented in institutional archives. Her work is guided by Black feminist thought and emphasizes research practices grounded in care, consent, and accountability.
Through both scholarship and community engagement, Roshumba hopes to contribute to conversations about equity, representation, and the preservation of marginalized histories.
Rebecca Pattillo is an archivist and public historian dedicated to inclusive archival practices and community engagement. As Assistant University Archivist for Research Services and Student Engagement at Duke University’s Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, she focuses on documenting student life — particularly the records of historically underrepresented groups — while providing reference services, primary source instruction, and outreach.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are central to Rebecca’s work. Her co-authored 2021 article, “Reflections on Active Collecting During Difficult Times,” advocates for community-centered, ethically grounded approaches to archival documentation during moments of crisis. Previously, as a tenure-track Metadata Librarian at the University of Louisville, she worked on digital collections and co-created “Uncovering Racial Logics,” a public digital project exploring institutional racism and community resistance in Louisville’s history.
Her earlier career spans museum archives, historical societies, and documentary editing with the Frederick Douglass Papers. Throughout, she has championed collaborative authorship, accessible scholarship, and archives as tools for challenging dominant narratives.
A white, southern, first-generation, queer woman, Rebecca brings her own identity and lived experience to her work, with particular passion for mentoring emerging professionals and advocating for ethical labor practices in the field.
Kimora-Aoki Morley is a political science and African American studies student from California Polytechnic State University, Pomona. She has been involved in organizing efforts in Northern California, ranging from fighting for LGBTQ+ rights in public schools to protesting hiring biases towards Black educators. She has digitized Freedmen’s Bureau records of racial violence in the post-Reconstruction era, emphasizing the importance of consistent record-keeping to preserve history. She is passionate about education policy, analyzing the long-term negative impact of an education system without diversity, equity, and inclusion programming and admissions; modern-day minstrelsy in artificial intelligence targeting Black communities on social media; and conducting a cross-eras analysis of collective mobilization political efforts in the Black community. With these research interests, Kimora is eager to pursue a doctoral program in Black Studies and Policy to apply imaginative thinking to advance a more equitable education system, drawing on her personal experiences in the school system and collaborating with her counterparts in activist spaces.
Chaz Matthews is a second-year English and pre-law student at Spelman College, originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Growing up in a city marked by both cultural richness and structural inequality, Chaz developed a deep commitment to advocacy, storytelling, and social justice that continues to shape her academic and professional path.
At Spelman, she is actively engaged in initiatives centered on youth empowerment, political education, and community advocacy. Through organizations including Students Demand Action, Afrekete, and The Spelman BluePrint, as well as volunteering with STEAMSport aftercare, she works to create spaces where young people recognize their power as advocates and storytellers. Her focus areas include gun reform, civic participation, and documenting student activism.
Academically, Chaz is drawn to the intersections of identity, activism, and representation in media and literature. She is particularly interested in how archives, language, and cultural narratives preserve the histories of marginalized communities and social movements. She believes that documenting grassroots activism is essential for equipping future generations with the knowledge of struggles and strategies that have driven meaningful change.
Looking ahead, Chaz hopes to pursue a career in law, combining legal advocacy with public engagement and storytelling to expand opportunities for communities historically excluded from decision-making spaces.
Juan is a first-year Ph.D. student in UCLA’s Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. As a queer Afro-Mexican scholar, his research centers on interethnic histories connecting Black and Brown communities. His primary focus is the largely overlooked history of the Underground Railroad to Mexico (1810–1865), which documents how the Mexican government and its civilians aided enslaved Africans seeking freedom in a country where chattel slavery was broadly prohibited. Juan argues this history is essential to understanding the Anglo-American conquest of the Southwest, revealing that Southern efforts to annex Texas were directly tied to Mexico’s role as a refuge for the enslaved. His goal is to share this history with African American and Mexican communities to foster stronger cross-cultural solidarity.
Juan is also deeply committed to social justice research. Through UCLA’s Million Dollar Hoods and Archiving the Age of Mass Incarceration projects, he works to preserve public records documenting LAPD misconduct and police violence against racialized communities. He has also contributed to UCLA’s Mapping Deportations project, which traces the history of U.S. immigration enforcement as a racially discriminatory system targeting non-white communities.
Outside academics, Juan enjoys hiking, horror films, video games, music, and is a devoted animal lover.