Karen Hunter Quartz
Director
Karen Hunter Quartz spearheaded the design team behind the RFK UCLA Community School, which opened in 2009. In 2017, she served on the design team for a second site, the Mann UCLA Community School. She currently oversees a portfolio of research-practice partnerships at both schools designed to advance democracy, inquiry, and change. Her research agenda , teaching, and writing focus on new school development; the struggle to recruit, prepare, and retain good urban teachers; the measurement of effective teaching; and the use of data and research to improve practice in schools.
Karen earned her Ph.D. in Education at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Marisa Saunders
Associate Director, Research
Marisa Saunders has served public schools nationwide for over 25 years as a researcher and practitioner. Her primary areas of research focus on K-12 transformation efforts that address longstanding educational inequalities, like community schooling. In her current role, she explores the influence of teacher leadership on school improvement efforts, and student outcomes.
Marisa earned her Ed.D. from the Harvard University.
Leyda W. Garcia
Associate Director, Professional Learning
Leyda W. Garcia served as the principal of the UCLA Community School for ten years, during which she and the UCLA CS team worked to transform public education through practices that authentically elevate and center student and community voices. As a scholar and practitioner at the UCLA CCS, she serves emerging community schools across California with the State-Transformational Assistance Center (STAC).
Leyda earned her Ed.D. at Loyola Marymount University.
Brenda Benitez Alcantara
Program Coordinator
Brenda was a student at UCLA Community School from 2009 to 2018. She went on to Wellesley College where she completed her B.A. in Education and Latinx Studies. Prior to joining the center, Brenda worked as a college advisor creating and facilitating college readiness programming for high school students in Los Angeles and Detroit. In her current role, she works with Horace Mann UCLA Community School and her alma mater, UCLA Community School to support events and projects.
Sunanda Kushon
Partnership Lead
Sunanda Kushon is a founding teacher at the Mann UCLA Community School where she currently serves as Partnership Lead and Improvement Science Coach. She has also served as a Faculty Advisor for UCLA’s Teacher Education Program. In her current role as the Partnership Lead, she seeks to strengthen K-12 and University partnerships.
Wendy Salcedo-Fierro
Partnership Lead
Wendy Salcedo-Fierro is a former Lead Teacher at the UCLA Community School where she was also a guiding teacher for UCLA’s Teacher Education Program. In her current role as the Partnership Lead, she seeks to strengthen K-12 and University partnerships. In addition to her work at the UCLA Community School, Wendy is also deeply invested in state and national school transformation efforts. As an NEA partner in the State Transformational Assistance Center, she supports California’s Initiative for Community Schools Implementation. She also helps build and support the national network of Teacher-Powered Schools where she partners with teams in developing collaborative leadership practices for student-centered learning. She is driven by social justice and a passion to democratize schools.
Dandan Yang
Research & Evaluation Specialist
Dr. Dandan Yang earned her Ph.D. in Education from UC Irvine in 2022 and completed her postdoctoral training at the Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development. She joined the UCLA Center for Community Schooling in 2024 as a Research and Evaluation Specialist, supporting the California Community School Partnership Program (CCSPP). Her current work focuses on developing the multiple measures specialization program, conducting quantitative and qualitative data analysis for the annual performance report, and supporting the center as a state transformation center for the CCSPP. Dr. Yang holds a B.A. in English Language and Literature from China and an M.A. in TESOL from USC.
Jeffrey Yo
Research & Evaluation Specialist
Jeffrey Yo is an educator and scholar who has been part of the center for several years. Currently, he is dedicated to researching how community schools can serve as a strategy to improve teacher retention, with a particular focus on teachers of color. His research focuses on teacher-child interactions, particularly how teachers’ racial-ethnic identity influences the academic and social development of their students.
Before joining UCLA, Jeffrey worked as a middle school science teacher in Chicago and Northwest Indiana, as well as serving as a teaching assistant. He earned both his Ph.D. and M.A. in Human Development and Psychology from UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies (SE&IS) and holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago.
Diego Castro Gomez
Graduate Student Researcher
Diego is a first-year doctoral student in Education at UCLA’s School of Education & Information Studies. His theoretical and empirical work interrogates how immigration influences undocumented students’ access and trajectories in higher education. Centering undocumented students through critical frameworks, his research offers a nuanced reimagining of college access and educational preparedness.
Juno Yingzhi Dong
Graduate Student Researcher
Juno Yingzhi Dong is a Ph.D. student in the Human Development and Psychology program within the Department of Education at UCLA. Her research interests include teachers’ language practices, demographic characteristics, beliefs and ideologies, and self-efficacy. She is passionate about conducting research that supports culturally and linguistically diverse students and educators. Before joining UCLA, Juno earned an M.A. in Humanities with a concentration in Linguistics from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Global Studies and French Studies from Colby College.
Amaesha Durazi
Graduate Student Researcher
Building on her background in developmental psychology research and experience in early childhood education settings, Amaesha is pursuing a doctoral degree in the Human Development & Psychology division at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies. Her research focuses on children’s developing understanding of identity and social inequality. As an applied researcher, she aims to bridge research, practice, and policy to address social issues related to child development, education, and families. In her work with the UCLA Center for Community Schooling, Amaesha utilizes qualitative research and storytelling to support and document the implementation of community schooling as part of California’s State Transformational Assistance Center.
Amaesha holds an M.A. in Education from UCLA and a B.A. in Psychology from Vassar College.
Natalie Fensterstock
Graduate Student Researcher
Before joining UCLA, Natalie dedicated five years to teaching middle and high school English in the Bay Area of California, where she also mentored new teachers. Her research interests lie in examining how community schools function as a coherence strategy for whole child policy initiatives, district systems, and school practices, with a focus on the intersection of education, policy, and social welfare.
Natalie holds an M.A. in Social Sciences and Comparative Education from UCLA.
Andrés Fernández-Vergara
Graduate Student Researcher
Having extensively evaluated educational policies and programs in Chile and Latin America, Andres is interested in how community schools collect and utilize data, focusing on the types of data they prioritize and how various levels of policy leadership, make informed decisions based on this data.
Andres holds an M.P.P., and an Industrial Engineering B. Sc. from Universidad de Chile.
Rebekah Kang
School Leadership Fellow
As one of the founding teachers of the RFK UCLA Community School, Rebekah M. Kang helped start and develop signature learning programs such as the Seminar Program and Integration Program for students with disabilities. She is also a National Board Certified Teacher, a UCLA Writing Project Fellow, and Teacher-Powered Schools Ambassador.
Lauren Kinnard
Graduate Student Researcher
Lauren taught elementary and middle school students for almost a decade before returning to graduate school to study how children and adolescents develop their racial identity and how this process unfolds in and is influenced by school contexts. Lauren supports emerging community schools across California with the State-Transformational Assistance Center and supports publication of the Community Schooling Journal.
Lauren earned her M.S. in Education from Georgia State University.
Nadia Sabat Bass
Graduate Student Researcher
With ample experience in evaluation of educational programs, in community schools and in early childhood centers, and a research interest in measurement and evaluation, Nadia Sabat Bass joined the UCLA Center for Community Schooling in 2022. She is a doctoral student in the Social Research Methodology Division at the UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies. Her current work is focused on the formative value of educational measurement to advance equity, particularly around the development and use of multiple measures and local measures. She holds an M.A. in Global Policy Studies and a B.A. in Philosophy.
Flora Zempleni
Graduate Student Researcher
Flora is a PhD Candidate in UCLA’s Department of Education. Her research interests center around language, language ideologies, immigration, and qualitative research methods. Her current research explores language brokering experiences and how to bridge the learning that occurs in language brokering to school contexts. Flora holds an M.A. in Learning and Communication in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts from the University of Luxembourg, as well as a B.A. in French and Global Studies and a B.J. in Journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Community School Interns
RFK UCLA COMMUNITY SCHOOL
MANN UCLA COMMUNITY SCHOOL
