Dr. Mark Bender holds a doctoral philosophy degree from Oregon State University, a master’s degree in agriculture from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, a bachelor’s in agriculture from California State University, Fresno and an associate of arts from San Joaquin Delta College. He is currently serving as professor and chair of the newly formed Department of Agricultural Studies at California State University, Stanislaus, a partnership between the university and California community colleges. Prior to holding this position, he served as dean of the Agriculture, Environmental Sciences and Technical Education Division of Modesto Junior College from 1997 through 2002. Before serving as dean he taught environmental horticulture and agricultural business at Modesto Junior College.

He is a recognized leader in statewide curriculum and articulation in agriculture, serving as the chair for the Statewide Intersegmental Major Preparation Articulated Curriculum (IMPAC), chair for the California Postsecondary Agricultural Articulation Collaborative and as director of the curriculum and articulation portion of the Statewide Discipline/Industry Collaborative Project for the California Community Colleges.

Proud father of 4 and even prouder grandfather of 5, he resides in Modesto, California with his wife Cindy.

A 12-year staff member of California State University, Long Beach, Rosa Carrillo currently serves as assistant director for transfer services in the office of University Outreach and School Relations. She received her bachelor’s degree from CSULB and her master’s in cross cultural counseling from San Diego State University.

Ms. Carrillo strongly believes that multiculturalism is a powerful force in higher education, and this is seen through her relationship with the Latino community at her university. Here, she is staff adviser for the Latino Student Union, a coalition of the 15 Latino student organizations at CSULB. She also serves as secretary for the Latino Faculty and Staff Association.

Marlene Chavez-Toivanen has a baccalaureate degree in mathematics education and a master’s in curriculum and instruction from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces. In 1995, she began her post-university career teaching mathematics for Dona Ana Community College, shortly before teaching middle school students. Eventually, she realized her heart was in higher education and continued teaching math for New Mexico State University Grants Campus.

Since then, she has received the Donald C. Roush Award for Excellence in Teaching at New Mexico State University. Ms. Chavez-Toivanen, a tenured assistant professor, is currently pursuing associate professor status. As the institutional coordinator of the Alliance for Minority Participation Program (AMP) on her campus, she is highly interested in creating parity among cultures in the field of mathematics. She is also parliamentarian for Delta Kappa Gamma International Psi Chapter, a teaching society for women, a member of the Board of New Mexico Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges and faculty adviser for the Phi Theta Kappa student honor society at NMSU Grants.

Marlene’s interests include cooking, digital photography, computers and traveling with her husband Dwayne. They reside in Grants, New Mexico and will be expecting their first child in October.

Dr. Cesar Cordero-Montalvo’s field of expertise lies in experimental optics and physics of condensed matter. He holds a doctoral degree in physics of condensed matter and a master’s degree in optics, also from Pennsylvania State University. His bachelor’s is from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras in physics and mathematics.

Dr. Cordero-Montalvo has conducted postdoctoral research on nonlinear interactions between light and matter as a visiting scholar at Harvard University in a research group under Dr. Nicholaas Bloembergen, a Nobel physics laureate. He has also authored and coauthored several articles on the optical absorption of two photons by the electrons in atoms with a 4f configuration. He assisted in the development of other research in nonlinear optics at Harvard during several subsequent summers and attended Summer Schools of Physics held at Trieste and Erice, Italy.

While serving as a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, he obtained grants from the National Science Foundation to establish a laboratory of optical spectroscopy of condensed matter with pulsed sasers at the school’s Department of Physics. The laboratory remains active, although Dr. Cordero-Montalvo is now primarily involved with academic administrative duties.

Some of his hobbies include reading and traveling.

Born and raised in New York City, Herbert Cortez received a bachelor’s degree in policy analysis and management with a concentration in Latino Studies from Cornell University. Mr. Cortez is the founder of Mexican Americans Initiating Zealous Empowerment (M.A.I.Z.E.), a nonprofit organization that focuses on the promotion of higher education to the Mexican community in New York City. This experience motivated him to complete a master’s in public policy from Pepperdine University. Studying there allowed him to participate in a fellowship with (NALEO) National Association of Latinos Elected Appointed Officials. Currently the organization’s program manager for the Pipeline to Success program at California State University, Monterey Bay he serves Latino students with career interests in agricultural, watershed and natural resources. The program creates for them a support system and connects students directly with research and internship experiences to enhance their academic performance. As a fellow, Mr. Cortez hopes to gain academic and professional experience to use in developing an effective pipeline model for Latino students focused on science career goals at his home campus.

Martha Desmond is an associate professor in the department of Fishery and Wildlife Sciences at New Mexico State University. Her areas of emphasis include avian ecology and conservation biology.

She completed her doctoral degree at the University of Nebraska and postdoctoral experience at Texas A&M University–Kingsville and the Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua. As a fellow, Mrs. Desmond is eager to learn more about program development, including tactics to (1) identify key national and regional needs and link these needs with opportunities for students; (2) strengthen partnerships NMSU has with USDA and other government institutions; (3) provide students with innovative experiential learning opportunities and integrate these experiences into the classroom environment; (4) and internationalize curriculums and enhance the cross border management of our shared natural resources.

Luz Maria Galbreath was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in foreign language education and linguistics at the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara. She also completed a master’s degree in Spanish literature and linguistics at California State University, Fullerton. She has taught Spanish to American and Japanese students enrolled at the UAG's school of medicine as well teaching English as a second language at the American Language Program. She is a certified court and administrative hearing interpreter and has joined the American Translators Association in New York and the Court Interpreters Association of California.

Ms. Galbreath is highly involved with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), the Southern California Consortium of Hispanic-Serving Institutions, the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, the Southern California Forum for Diversity in Graduate Education Planning Committee, the Hispanic Outreach Taskforce Education Committee and the National Charity League.

Currently the director of the Ortiz Programs and assistant director of the Cultural Center at Whittier College, Ms. Galbreath provides academic, social, career and financial aid guidance to minority and first-generation college students. She also advises several ethnic organizations on campus and coordinates cross-cultural and educational events.

She has an interest in learning about diverse groups of people and the expression of their culture through art, in particular through their music and dance.

As director of student services at the College of the Sequoias, Wlliam L. Garcia is committed to serving students—especially those from underrepresented communities.

He can relate to these students intimately, as Mr. Garcia was a first generation college student whose primary language was Spanish. Mr. Garcia was born to Mexican immigrant parents in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the oldest of three children. Despite facing language and societal obstacles, he was admitted to Georgetown University and received a bachelor’s degree in foreign service. While at Georgetown, William remained passionate about public service and he soon developed an interest in education studies. This interest eventually led to a master’s degree in educational administration at Santa Clara University. There, he worked for five years in admissions and outreach for the undergraduate and law schools.

For the past three years, Mr. Garcia has overseen the Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS), the Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education (CARE) and the California Mini Corps programs at the College of the Sequoias. As a fellow, he looks forward to learning about new partnerships, grants and other opportunities that will serve the student population of California’s Central Valley.

Dr. Editte Gharakhanian received her bachelor’s in biology from George Mason University in Virginia and her doctoral degree from UCLA. She was an American Cancer Society post-doctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology before joining the faculty at California State University, Long Beach. She has been in the Department of Biological Sciences at CSULB since 1990 and is the current chair of the department.

Her specialized area of research is the trafficking of proteins within the cell. Specifically, her laboratory is investigating new genes in trafficking to the lysosome. Defects in trafficking to the lysosome are associated with various diseases, including Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr. Gharakhanian’s research at CSULB has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs. A recipient of the NSF Career Advancement Award, her research has been published in prominent journals including Cell and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

During her fellowship, she looks forward to exploring funding opportunities for student research and communicating the need and the value for master’s-level support mechanisms at such agencies as USDA, NSF, NIH, and DOE. Most importantly, she is eager to establish dialogues she can bring back to her university.

Dr. Gharakhanian has an eleven-year-old son and a fourteen-year-old daughter. She and her husband enjoy family outings, film festivals and concerts.

Dan Hostetler has served California State Polytechnic University, Pomona for 31 years. He received his bachelor’s in agronomy and master’s in agricultural science from the same institution. Following graduation, he worked with two large farming companies in the San Joaquin Valley before returning to Cal Poly Pomona in 1976. He has been the department chairman of the Horticulture/Plant and Soil Science Department at the university for 15 years.

Dan is a member of the American Society of Agronomy and past board member of the California Chapter, American Forage and Grassland Council, and the California Alfalfa and Forage Association. He recently served 12 years as chairman of the Southern California Agricultural Land Foundation, a land conservancy group in Chino. He has been awarded the outstanding teacher award from the College of Agriculture and Gamma Sigma Delta, the national honor society for agriculture.

Mr. Hostetler has taught various agronomy classes, including some focused on crops and farm management. He also coaches a successful crops judging team which competes in national events.

He resides in Chino Hills, California with his wife Melinda and their three sons, aged 25, 21 and 18.

Dr. Shonali Laha is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and a fellow of the Honors College at Florida International University. She holds a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, a master’s in environmental engineering from the University of Alabama and a doctorate in civil engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Her professional interests include physiochemical and microbial processes affecting the fate of organic and inorganic contaminants in natural soil and water systems, hazardous waste treatment technologies and environmental protection in developing countries. Dr. Laha is a registered professional engineer in the state of Florida.

She teaches classes on environmental chemistry and bioremediation, water and wastewater treatment plant design, environmental modeling and introductory environmental engineering. She also teaches seminars for the Honors College. Her research deals primarily with the fate of hydrophobic organic contaminants.

The daughter of a German mother and an Indian father, she was brought up in a multicultural and multilingual environment. Her driving interests are habitat and wildlife preservation and protection. She enjoys traveling to the Serengeti and other National Parks in Tanzania.

Gary Nathan Leger is the agricultural education instructor at Robertson High School in Las Vegas, New Mexico where he has served for seven years. He received his bachelor’s in agriculture and master’s in economics from New Mexico State University. After a successful career in agribusiness, he turned to teaching in 1990.

Mr. Leger and his students have won several state and national awards and recognitions. He has led student teams to five state championships and one national championship title in Future Farmers of America competitive events. The Las Vegas FFA chapter has been recognized as a National Gold Emblem Chapter in 2005 and 2006.

He was recognized by “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers” for five consecutive years, and was named the New Mexico Agricultural Education Teacher’s Association outstanding young educator for 2005. Mr. Leger has also been a participant in several important FFA educational initiatives, including the Ag Educators Ins-service and the LifeKnolwedge Delta Conferences. He is an officer for the NMAETA and a member of many local civic, agricultural, educational and religious organizations.

Marvin Francis Lozano is a college professor and small business consultant. He has twenty years of experience teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in business administration with a strong emphasis in international business. He consistently receives excellent teaching evaluations from students and administrators and is skilled in developing and implementing traditional and online curriculum for business administration and international business at the college level.

He is highly practiced in small business consulting, packaging of small business administration (SBA) loans, commercial bank domestic and international small to middle market lending, business lending to professionals, community based lending to small businesses, bank branch management, and small business management. Marvin has a master’s degree in management and policy from the University of Arizona and a bachelor’s in business administration from Arizona State University. In addition, he has taken post-graduate courses in business and educational leadership at the University of New Mexico. Marvin is a full-time faculty member of business administration at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

He and his wife Miquela, a clinical psychologist, have a teenage daughter named Larissa and two German shepherd puppies named Eiko and Eisha.

Hernan Maldonado has worked for the College of Engineering at California State University, Fresno for the past nine years. He is currently the director of the MESA Engineering Program and the Engineering Pathways Program. The programs provide academic advising, tutorial services, academic excellence workshops, leadership development, scholarships and professional development to all undergraduate students in the College of Engineering.

He has garnered industry support for the development of future engineers. During Hernan’s service with MEP, the program has grown from 150 students to over 1300 students and has been recognized as a model student retention program. He serves on the MEP Statewide Executive Committee, which provides direction to all ten undergraduate programs throughout the state of California. Hernan has assisted federal and state programs, such as the Hispanic College Fund, with the development of their conferences and programs. He is an adviser to several academic and cultural student organizations at CSU, Fresno and has held various leadership roles in academic and social committees.

The son of farm workers, he was born and raised in the Sacramento Valley of California. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Latin American History with a concentration in United States/Mexico relations and a minor in Chicano Studies. He then settled in California’s Central Valley, where he continued his studies at California State University, Fresno and obtained a master’s degree in public administration.

Marisela Linares de Mendoza serves as the recruitment and retention specialist for the Math & Science Department at Columbia Basin College in Pasco, Washington. She provides leadership to four federal programs: Pipeline Enhancements to Recruit, Support and Invigorate Student Transitions (USDA grant); the Northwest Engineering Talent Expansion Partnership; the Computer Science, Engineering Mathematics Scholarship Program (NSF); and the Transition Mathematics Project, Phase II. These programs are developed to strengthen the pipeline between K-12 and higher education for nontraditional students who have an interest in pursing science, technology, engineering and math careers.

As the first female in her family to attend college and major in a male-dominated field—math—she knows firsthand the struggles of underrepresented students and their families. At the college she is tasked in creating innovative teaching and learning strategies to enhance the institution’s vision of providing access to a high quality education to all students.

Her education background includes a master’s in education leadership from Washington State University and a bachelor’s in actuarial sciences from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City.

Mr. Montoya is currently the Affirmative Action/Diversity and Multicultural Center director at Colorado State University, Pueblo. He has also served as the assistant vice president for the Multicultural and Academic Affairs Department at the University of Northern Colorado, and as the assistant dean at Metropolitan State College of Denver.

During his more than 25 years in higher education, Mr. Montoya has managed or been involved with the recruitment and retention of undergraduate students. He has also managed TRIO programs and cultural centers. Mr. Montoya has also been responsible for enrollment management, the budget allocation process and personnel training.

Mr. Montoya has also been extensively involved in local community affairs and organizations. He has served in several capacities in the following organizations: Image de Denver; National Image, Inc.; Denver Public Schools Hispanic Education Advisory Council; the Hispanic Annual Salute; the League of United Latin American Citizens; the Pueblo African American Concern Organization; the Colorado Department of Education Teacher and Special Services Professional Standards Board; and Mayors Federico Peña and Wellington Web’s Hispanic Advisory Board.

Lindsay Ono was born and raised in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley in Bakersfield, California. The son of a Japanese American nurseryman, Mr. Ono developed a love for plants and landscaping from his family’s business.

He received his education from Bakersfield College and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in ornamental horticulture. Mr. Ono has taken on a wide range of horticultural jobs for over 25 years, working for several retail landscape nurseries, assisting a rose grower and collaborating with a horticultural educator in a federal prison.

He is an assistant professor of environmental horticulture at Bakersfield College. In addition, he is the faculty adviser for the Bakersfield College Agriculture Ambassador Program. He is a member of the California Agricultural Teachers Association and works with the California Statewide Career Pathways Project—Discipline Work Group. He also is the organizer of Garden Fest, an event that highlights the Bakersfield College Agriculture program and brings the community together by combining educational garden seminars and fundraisers for community garden clubs.

Mr. Ono is a talk show host of the Country Garden Radio Program, a Saturday morning gardening program in the Bakersfield area, and he is also a board member and technical adviser for the Tree Foundation of Kern, a non-profit urban reforestation group.

He has been married for 18 years to his Puerto Rican wife Marie and has two sons, Nick, 17 and Joe, 11.

Dr. Andres Aguilar was born and raised in the greater Los Angeles area. He received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Humboldt State University. He then went to the University of California, Los Angeles for graduate work. He specializes in the population and conservation genetics of island foxes, with a specific interest in the variability of immune system genes.

After receiving his doctoral degree, he received support from the University of California Office of the President and the Ford Foundation to pursue post-doctoral research at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the National Marine Fisheries Service. While at Santa Cruz he studied genetic variation and population structure in a number of species (salmon, trout, rockfish and otters). Andres is currently an assistant professor at the new University of California, Merced. His research interests include evolutionary, population and conversation genetics.

Dr. Wilfredo Colon is an associate professor and dean of the School of Science and Technology at Universidad del Este in Carolina, Puerto Rico. He also held the position of assistant deputy director for research at the University of Puerto Rico, Agricultural Experiment Station. He has worked internationally as an associate professor at the Pan-American School of Agriculture, Zamorano in Honduras.

He has a master’s in crop protection and a bachelor’s in agronomy and soils from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus. He obtained his doctorate in environmental horticulture from the University of Florida.

Dr. Colon has worked with USDA-ARS as an Agricultural Research Technician at the former Plant Stress and Protection Unit in Gainesville, Florida and with the Tropical Agriculture Research Station, Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. Dr. Colon’s research interest is focused on agricultural water quality in the South Coast of Puerto Rico. He has edited the 1996 (Honduras), 1999 (St. Lucia), 2001 (Trinidad and Tobago), 2003 (Grenada) and 2004 (St. John) Proceedings of the Caribbean Food Crops Society Annual Scientific Meeting.

He enjoys traveling, and has done so extensively throughout the Caribbean, Central America and South America.

Dr. Segun Ogunjemiyo obtained a bachelor’s in meteorology from the Federal University of Technology in Akure, Nigeria. He completed his master’s degree in agriculture from University of Gent in Gent, Belgium and he obtained his doctoral degree in micrometeorology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

His research interest lie in the areas of land surface-atmosphere interactions, particularly measurements and modeling of surface fluxes of heat, carbon dioxide, water vapor and other greenhouse gases over agricultural and terrestrial ecosystems, with the primary aim of improving our understanding of the role of vegetation in the global climate change. His current research is focused on addressing air pollution problems in California Central Valley.

He joined the faculty at California State University, Fresno’s geography department in August 2005.