Our Team

Documentary Filmmaker

Nina has been working as a filmmaker, anthropologist, and teacher for 35 years. Between 2008 and 2017, she served as Filmmaker in Residence at American University, teaching documentary film and digital storytelling and founding the Community Voice Project, which produced 80+ films for 25 non-profit organizations in the greater Washington D.C. area. Before that, Nina worked for 20 years for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), where she created films and programs for and by workers. In 2006, she wrote, produced, and directed the film Through the Eye of the Needle, which tells the story of Holocaust survivor and artist Esther Nisenthal Krinitz. Nina’s latest film, Landscape of Power: Freedom and Slavery in the Great Dismal Swamp, tells a story of agency, resistance, and resilience among escaped slaves living in swamp communities for more than 200 years. After living on the East Coast all her life, Nina moved to the Bay Area in 2018, to be near her children and grandchildren and continue her film and digital storytelling work.

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, San Jose State University

Nikki is a teacher, writer, performer, and researcher focused on the relationship between performance and racial and transnational identity within African diasporan communities. In the classroom and in the field, Nikki uses performance to facilitate dialogue around issues of identity, social justice, and interpersonal and intercultural dynamics. Nikki is also a solo performance artist whose work interrogates issues of race, gender, and migration through storytelling. Her work has been staged at the Marsh Theater (San Francisco), Links Hall (Chicago), and the Chicago Cultural Center. She believes that through storytelling, we uncover strategies for critically examining and transforming ourselves and our communities. Nikki holds a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington.

Professor Emeritus of Education, University of Washington Bothell

Jane’s teaching and research focus on social class and social mobility through education. Recently, she has focused on ways in which new forms of participatory digital media enable the inclusion of more voices in deliberations about civic and cultural life. She developed a graduate certificate in Critical Digital Teaching and Learning (which includes coursework in digital storytelling), and in 2018 was recipient of the tri-campus Distinguished Teaching Award for Innovation with Technology. Jane is a co-editor of four books on class, mobility, and education, as well as the creator (with the nonprofit Class Action) and facilitator of the First in our Families project, in which first-generation college students, faculty, and staff create and share digital stories of being First. Her chapter on this project, Mediating Stories of Class Borders: First Generation College Students, Digital Storytelling, and Social Class, appears in the Routledge International Handbook of Working Class Studies. BA from University of Wisconsin Green Bay in Educational Studies; M.Ed. from Eastern Kentucky University in Special Education; Ph.D. from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in Foundations of Education.

Independent Educator and Consultant

Janet’s time as the Executive Director of the Lifelong Learning Centre (LLC) at Bermuda College led to her current working partnerships with the National Museum of Bermuda, the Educational Travel Graduate Consortium, the Graduate Advisory Council of University College Cayman Islands, the Grow Society, and the Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Taskforce. Janet is also a visiting adjunct professor at the Teacher’s College, Columbia University AEGIS doctoral program, where she uses Boal’s theatre of the oppressed “image theatre” to explore models and theories of racial identity. She continues to teach, undertake research, and co-supervise graduate students across multiple disciplines. B.A General Studies, University of the West Indies (St. Augustine); M.A Area Studies (Commonwealth) University of London; M.Sc. Marketing, University of Strathclyde; Diploma in Teaching, Learning & Course Design in Higher Education, Institute of Education, University of London; Ph. D Continuing Education, University of Warwick.

Associate Professor, Department of History and Mexican American Studies, University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley

Maritza’s research and publications focus on Mexican American education in the Southwest, including bilingual education, desegregation cases, policies, practices, and programs aimed at Mexican American students, and educational and civil rights activism. She is the Project Director of Historias Americanas: Engaging History and Citizenship in the Rio Grande Valley, a professional development program for local K-12 history and Social Studies teachers that is funded by a U.S. Department of Education American History and Civics Education grant. Maritza enjoys teaching history, spending time with friends and family, wogging (walking/jogging), playing the piano, and cultural events. She holds a MA in Latin Studies from San Diego State University, and a MA and PhD in History from the University of Arizona.