The Speakers

Michael Matsuda is a nationally recognized 21st century educational leader known for innovation, entrepreneurship, and compassion. Under his leadership, the Anaheim Union High School District has built a new educational model incorporating “reverse engineered” career pathways in partnership with higher education, private, and non-profit sectors, which have extended and transformed educational opportunities for all students.

Since becoming superintendent in 2014, Mr. Matsuda has earned several accolades, including: one of twelve national “Leaders to Learn From” Award from Education Week Magazine, the “Visionary Education Leadership Award” from Cal State University, Fullerton, the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE) Administrator of the Year Award, and an honorary “Doctor of the University” from Chapman University.

Cathlin Goulding, Ed.D., co-directs the YURI Education Project, which develops educational resources for cultural institutions and PK-12 students. She started in the education field as an English and poetry teacher at a public high school in the East San Francisco Bay Area. YURI has created educational materials for the WNET Group's Mission U.S. and American Masters series, WETA's The Asian Americans, Third World Media's Resistance at Tule Lake, Mikva Challenge, Wing Luke Museum, and Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.

Currently, she teaches future public school teachers and instructional leaders at the City University of New York, San José State University, and Teachers College, Columbia University.

Andrea Kim Neighbors (she/her/hers) serves as the Manager of Education Initiatives for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), where she collaborates with educators and Asian American and Pacific Islander content specialists on the development of APAC’s National Education Program.

Liz Kleinrock is an award-winning classroom teacher. As the founder of Teach and Transform, she also works as an antibias antiracist facilitator for schools, organizations, and companies across the country. She is also the author of Start Here, Start Now: A Guide to AntiBias and AntiRacist Work in Your School Community.

Dr. Virginia Loh-Hagan is the Co-Executive Director of The Asian American Project. She is also the Director of the San Diego State University’s Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Center. She is a former K-8 classroom teacher and the author of over 350 books.

Haruka Noda is a senior at Portola High School and a passionate activist as well as artist. Haruka is the founder of her own organization "Murals With Message" where she educates the public about social justice and environmental change using art. She has been involved in dance and the visual arts from a young age, and she combines her passion for activism and the arts through various projects like creating murals and teaching young children. She believes that art has the power to capture the imagination and it is important for students and teachers to speak up for racial justice.

Priscilla Huang (she/her) is the founding director of the Center for Asian Americans in Action, a nonprofit organization that conducts policy analysis, engages in policy advocacy, and strengthens the policy capacity of community organizations to build a more equitable society for Asian Americans in Orange County and beyond.

Priscilla has a background in health care policy, health equity, immigrant health coverage, and reproductive and sexual health. She was a senior attorney at the National Health Law Program, and served as a consultant and senior advisor to the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders under the Obama Administration. Priscilla spent over 10 years as a non-profit advocate in Washington, D.C. working on a variety of federal policy issues impacting Asian American communities.

Dr. Wenli Jen is an educator, consultant and motivational speaker. She is the National Compliance Officer of Chinese American Citizens Alliance and Secretary for the local Los Angeles Lodge. Not only does Dr. Jen teach Asian American studies at CSUDH, she also serves on the Asian American Cultural Alliance for Sierra Madre Playhouse and API Community for PBS SoCal/KCET (Public Media Group of Southern California). She has worked in Asian American communities, primarily in education, social services, mental and behavioral health, since 1999. She is a past Vice President of National Association of Asian American Professionals - Los Angeles (NAAAP-LA) and former mentor for the APASS (Asian Pacific American Student Services) program at USC. Dr. Jen worked with diverse populations in developing strategies to increase motivation, reduce social isolation, promote resiliency and provide alternatives for health and wellness. She has developed several programs for at-risk youth and families, with special considerations for low-income and underrepresented populations with culturally competent, best practices. Dr. Jen is a two-time TEDx speaker and received her Ed.D. from USC, Ed.M. from Harvard, and B.A. and teaching and administrative credentials from UC Irvine.

Tammy is a mother, a nonprofit leader, educator, community advocate, small business owner and former corporate executive who has lived, worked, and raised her son in Irvine for the past two decades. She was elected to City Council in November 2020 in a historic win beating out thirteen other candidates to take first place. She won her seat with more than 43,700 votes, the highest vote count for any City Council candidate in the city’s history.

Juben has spent his academic and professional career as a qualitative researcher, consultant, and mentor. His current role as Principal with the Global Automotive Consulting group at J.D. Power works with every global automotive manufacturer, helping them improve the quality of their products using quantitative and qualitative customer data, primarily during the prototype stage of development. Juben is also a member of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee at J.D. Power and is the chief architect and analyst of the company’s first DEI survey deployed to the employee body. Juben is a Lecturer at CSU Fullerton, teaching Ethnic Studies through the department of Asian American Studies. As mentor and teacher, he works with current students and junior associates in order to help them better navigate their educational and/or career goals. A current member of the Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences Alumni Association Executive Committee at the University of Chicago, he leads the Data and Analytics sub-committee, using data to better serve mentor programs for current students and recent alumni. M.A., Social Sciences-Anthropology, University of Chicago; B.A., Anthropology, UCLA; Certification in Non-Profit Grant Writing, The Grantsmanship Center; Certification in Disruption Theory, Harvard Business School.

Karalee Wong Nakatsuka is a veteran middle school US History teacher. She was recognized as the Gilder Lehrman California History Teacher of the Year and a top 10 National Finalist in 2019. She serves on various history teacher advisory councils including the American250 History Education Advisory Council and the iCivics Education Network. She is a member of many education and history organizations including California Council for Social Studies (CCSS), National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), and International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). She was honored to be featured in Time Magazine’s September 2021 issue “From Teachers to Custodians, Meet the Educators Who Saved a Pandemic School Year” and she is the co-author of “Bring History and Civics to Life: Lessons and Strategies to Cultivate Informed, Empathetic Citizens.” Karalee is passionate about utilizing technology to engage and excite students, sharing the stories and the places where history took place, building community in her classroom, helping students to see themselves in the story of America, and preparing students to develop as empathetic, informed, engaged and active critical thinkers and citizens who care and make a difference in the world. When she’s not teaching, she can be found going on history vacations with her family, collaborating with fellow history teachers across the country, attending and presenting at history conferences and professional development, and hanging out with her amazing social studies friends on Twitter.

Kelly Fong is a fifth-generation Chinese American, historical archaeologist, and Asian American Studies scholar. She holds a BA in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley and a minor in Asian American Studies and a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of California, Los Angeles with a graduate concentration in Asian American Studies. Her interdisciplinary research uses material culture as a lens to study Asian American history through the items that people used and left behind. She is currently a lecturer in the Asian American Studies Department at UCLA.

Dr. Thuy Vo Dang (she/her/hers) is Curator for the Southeast Asian Archive and Research Librarian for Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine Libraries. She has a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from UC San Diego, with expertise on Southeast Asian diaspora, oral history, ethnography and community archives. Her current work advances community-centered archives practice, an approach that centers the preservation and access to histories of historically marginalized groups. She is co-author of the books, A People’s Guide to Orange County (2022), an alternative history and tour guide of Orange County that documents sites of oppression, resistance, and transformation, and Vietnamese in Orange County (2015), a visual history of the largest Vietnamese diaspora. Thuy serves on the board of directors for Arts OC and the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association.

Nancy is a 5th grade teacher from Irvine, CA in her 25th year of teaching. She shares her passion for teaching on her social media channels as FancyNancyin5th and hopes to raise awareness on topics such as inclusion and diversity and social emotional learning.

Staci Yamanishi is an 8th grade teacher in Southern California, though she has taught multiple subjects across grades 5-8. Staci has worked in both charter and public school spaces, and focuses on bringing diverse stories and student backgrounds into classroom spaces.

Tuyen Tran received her Ph.D. in History from UC Berkeley. She studied twentieth century US History and Asian American History, particularly the history of Southeast Asians in America. She joined the Statewide Office of the California History-Social Science Project (CHSSP) at UC Davis in 2008. The CHSSP's network of scholars, teacher leaders, and history educators provides instructional support for K-12 history teachers. As the Assistant Director, Tran constructs, seeks, and manages grant programs, including the Library of Congress's Teaching with Primary Sources Program, Teaching California (in partnership with the California Historical Society), and curricular materials aligned to California's History-Social Science Framework.

Jane Hong is associate professor of US history at Occidental College, where she specializes in U.S. immigration and engagement with the world. She is the author of Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion (University of North Carolina Press, 2019). Hong’s current project, under contract with Oxford University Press, uses the history of Asian American evangelicals as a lens to explore intersections of race, religion, and politics since the 1970s. Hong has led K-12 teacher seminars for the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History, consulted for TV programs including Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and penned op-eds for the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. In 2020, Hong appeared in two episodes of the PBS docuseries, Asian Americans. She received her Ph.D. in history from Harvard and her B.A. from Yale.

Tavleen Kaur (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies. She researches contemporary hate violence on the bodies and buildings of communities of color in the U.S. Kaur’s teaching, research, and community work bring together art, architecture, film, hate violence, media, and social justice.

Larissa Lam directed the award-winning documentary Far East Deep South, which aired on the PBS/World Channel series, “America ReFramed.” A proud UCLA Bruin, She has been featured on NBC News, USA Today, TEDxand has been a contributing author to the L.A. Times and the Asian American anthology series, “A Melting Pot of Thoughts.”

Sherry Williams is the founder and President of Bronzeville / Black Chicagoan Historical Society. She has advocated for more inclusive use of publicly-funded spaces. As a founding member of the Chicago Cultural Alliance, Sherry was also a resident historian at Illinois State Historic Sites and continues her work at universities, libraries, and vacant lots across the City.

Kate is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Make Us Visible. She is also a K-12 Curriculum Editor for the PBS Asian Americans docuseries and the Program Manager of the Asian American Education Project.