Mike Beebe (he/him)
Facilitator and Co-author of Facilitating Towards Racial Justice deck
Mike Beebe decided to take his passion for leadership development training and start Leadership for Change in 2004. Since then, he has worked with thousands of individuals and groups to help develop their leadership skills. Mike has over 25 years of experience managing youth and adult leadership programs and is passionate about partnering with young people to create positive social change. His experience includes directing Penny Harvest Seattle, a youth philanthropy and service learning program, JustServe AmeriCorps, a youth anti-violence program, TEEN LINK, a hotline for youth answered by youth, and serving on the Board of Directors for COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), a national organization advocating for the rights of GLBT families.
In 2013, Mike and a team of training colleagues launched F.A.C.E. (Facilitating Awareness and Change for Equity) Consulting Collaborative in an effort to provide stronger support to individuals, groups, and organizations striving to create a more equitable world.
Colette Cann (she/her)
Facilitator and Co-author of Facilitating Towards Racial Justice deck
Dr. Colette N. Cann is an associate dean and associate professor in the University of San Francisco (USF) School of Education. Before coming to USF, she served for over ten years at Vassar College as an associate professor of Africana Studies and Education, as a class advisor, as a house fellow in a residence hall, and as the director of a community college transfer program. In addition, Dr. Cann worked with Vassar students to establish the RISE Center for Racial Justice.
Dr. Cann’s scholarship has allowed her to collaborate with teachers, students, and community organizations and has appeared in journals such as Race, Ethnicity and Education; Whiteness and Education; Urban Education; Journal of Peace Education; Qualitative Inquiry, and Cultural Studies <–> Critical Methodologies. Dr. Cann is the co-author of The Activist Academic: Engaged Scholarship for Resistance, Hope and Social Change; and Rise for Racial Justice: How to Talk About Race with Schools and Communities.
Rochelle Celedon (she/ella)
Facilitator
Rochelle‘s journey in youth development began in her junior year of high school when she joined Buena Vista Child Care as a junior camp counselor. Her passion for supporting youth was always evident even as a youth herself. Today, she is the Executive Director of Program at Buena Vista Child Care in San Francisco”s Mission District.
Rochelle‘s commitment to youth extends beyond her local community. She lived in El Salvador, teaching English to learners of all ages. Now back in her hometown she continues to serve the youth of San Francisco. With almost 20 years of experience in youth development (Spark Deck workshops included!) Rochelle‘s passion to serve youth and adults who serve them is rooted in community.
Brett Collins (she/her)
Facilitator and Co-author of Supporting Youth with Disabilities deck
Brett Collins (she/her) is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 20 years of experience in the overlapping fields of mental health, education, and social justice. Her service to San Francisco began as a counselor for disabled youth and progressed to include directorship of programs in both Mental Health and Early Childhood Education. As a former Faculty Lecturer in the Special Education Department, Brett’s approach to facilitation and training is firmly rooted in the Universal Design for Learning and Anti-Oppressive Practices. As a disabled person and parent in a neurodivergent family, Brett brings a unique perspective and passion to promoting family-driven services.
Masumi Hayashi-Smith (they/them)
Facilitator
Jenny Hicks (she/her)
Facilitator
A co-founder of JVH Empower, Jenny Hicks is a joyous, creative, and heart-minded co-creator who believes that by empowering one person, you can empower many.
She cultivates ecosystems of belonging where all are seen and heard through the power of joy combined with lived experiences, studies in Human Resources Management, DEIB, Action Planning, Focus Conversations, and Conseuse Building. She also has expertise in Project Design & Management, Brokering Partnerships & Resources, and Data Collection & Analysis.
She is known for asking thought-provoking questions that help identify strengths—holding those strengths and creating a space where people feel safe to identify and express areas of growth. Then, using a strength-based approach, she shares resources and strategies to help a person improve and take action to achieve the outcome that meets their needs and community.
She is committed to co-creating engaging in-person or online activities where participants feel safe, brave, and nurtured as they learn, collaborate, and are empowered to take action rooted in equity and love.
Natalie Guandique (she/her)
Facilitator
Natalie Guandique, Chief Program Officer at Mission Graduates, always wanted to be a teacher since before she could remember. Her passion for working with students led her to experience classrooms around the globe, teaching English both in Spain and Tanzania and teaching 4th and 5th grade in the South Bronx of New York City. Natalie joined Mission Graduates as an after school teacher and now oversees the alignment, continuity, and professional development of our Extended Day Programs and staff.
A native San Franciscan, Natalie received her undergraduate degree from Syracuse University in Inclusive Elementary and Special Education and holds a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Vanessa Hernandez (she/they/divine being)
Facilitator
Vanessa Hernandez is a queer dreamer, creatrix, facilitator and curator of brave spaces. She is devoted to the process of co-creating nurturing spaces that embody love, healing, justice, wellness and abundance. She is a practitioner of the following emergent strategies in healing, justice and liberation: healing centered facilitation, communities of practice, individual & collective health & wellness, shared leadership development, equity & belonging, youth development, transformative coaching, building beloved community, training design, facilitation and subtle energy healing.
Julie Lake (she/her)
Project Manager and Facilitator
Julie Lake is a Professor of Legal English at Georgetown University Law Center. She holds an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University in Applied Linguistics, a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies from Oberlin College, and a CELTA certificate from the Berlin School of English.
Throughout her career, Julie has managed various large-scale projects, including guiding several educational initiatives at Georgetown University Law Center and Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.), running the headquarters office of an Israel experience program for teens (New York, NY), and managing several community- and school-based programs at a neighborhood justice center (Philadelphia, PA). She currently works as a Legal English Professor at Georgetown University Law Center supporting multilingual law students. In this role, she assesses the needs of this population and designs and offers language programming to help students find their place and voice in law school. Her international teaching experience, spanning over 15 years, includes teaching English for Academic Purposes at the university level in the U.S., offering conversational English classes in Berlin, Germany, and facilitating teacher training courses in the U.S. and Cuba. Julie also has a robust research background with studies that have investigated pragmatic language processing, reading comprehension, and best practices for needs analyses.
Julie’s present focus is designing and implementing ESL/ESP pedagogy that is rooted in social justice education and strives to create inclusive classroom spaces for her students.
Christina Lopez (she/her)
Facilitator
Christina, born and raised in San Francisco, received her B.A. in Ethnic Studies and Media & Cultural Studies from UC Riverside. Born and raised in San Francisco, she knew she wanted to come back home and work with students from her hometown. She enjoyed her service year at a middle school in San Jose but found her place with Mission Graduates in 2014. It was here that she was finally able to reconnect with the Mission District community, where she herself attended school.
With a decade of experience, Christina started as an after school teacher where she was able to bring in learning spaces focused on literacy with her Camp-Read-a-Lot blocks and STEM, leading an all-girls STEM enrichment for 3 years. Christina is now the Director of Staff Learning and Development at Mission Graduates and remains passionate about creating inclusive environments for San Francisco youth by facilitating learning spaces for after school staff to gain the confidence to create these spaces themselves.
Fong Marcolongo (she/her)
Co-author of Facilitating Towards Racial Justice deck
Fong Marcolongo is Vice President of Youth Development and Education at Be the Change Consulting. Her expertise resides in program design, staff development, youth development, and specializes in creating interactive visual frameworks for group collaboration and strategic visioning. Fong has over 10 years of working in the nonprofit sector, where she served as a direct line staff, Site Coordinator, Program Director, and Curriculum Developer. Fong uses her graphic facilitation skills to lead participants in their process design using creativity to achieve fruitful outcomes. She studied Global Affairs at the University of San Francisco.
Atiya McGhee (they/them)
Facilitator and Co-author of Facilitating Towards Racial Justice deck
Atiya McGhee is a first generation Black college graduate student queer, non binary scholar. They received their B.A. in Creative Writing and Literature from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and M.Ed in Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration from the University of Vermont. They are currently a Ph.D student at Syracuse University in the Cultural Foundations of Education program.
Eva Jo Meyers (she/her)
Co-Founder, Author, and Facilitator
As a trainer and consultant for youth-serving programs, I heard over and over again that time is limited, that learning opportunities need to be embedded into the work staff are already doing, and that a little support goes a long way. These three realities led me to the idea of using a deck of cards as an easy means of making the best use of valuable staff time and resources. Along with Oscar, I have co-authored and published over 20 Spark Decks, written multiple books, and facilitated thousands of hours of workshops in support of more empowered people and workplaces.
Over the course of my career, I studied the influences of culture on pedagogy as a Fulbright Scholar in Thailand, working with newly legalized alternative schools that were introducing innovative ideas to the traditional Thai educational system. I have also worked as a Spanish bilingual classroom teacher in New York, as an education director with the Boys and Girls Clubs, and launched and managed the Expanded Learning Collaborative Technical Assistance Project, a cutting-edge city-wide out of school time capacity-building project in San Francisco.
To learn more about me and my work, visit www.evajomeyers.com. You can contact me at eva@spark-decks.com.
Maybelle Miranda (she/her)
Facilitator
Maybelle is the Senior Director of STEAM Initiatives for the YMCA of San Francisco, overseeing and shepherding the Y of SF’s coordinated STEAM efforts. She holds dual Master of Arts in Bioethics and Master of Biomedical Science, and was so moved by the quote, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit (Aristotle);” that she decided to move to the Bay Area to pursue a career in Youth Development. In her professional roles, she’s been an expert consultant, trainer/teacher, convener/organizer, and facilitator. She has a fundamental belief in the value of everyone’s perspectives in contributing to rich conversations to increase shared understanding and belonging.
Sharon Ng (she/her)
Facilitator
Sharon is known for her innovative and culturally centered auxiliary programs ranging from children’s foreign language classes and activist girls’ maker camps to place-based service-learning programs that educate children to be compassionate, curious, and courageous young citizens who take action for social good. She possesses a Master’s in Public Administration from the NYU Wagner School of Public Service and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia, and is currently the Community Engagement Director at the Children’s Day School in San Francisco. As a dedicated multicultural educator and community builder, Sharon is ideally suited to nurture the sense of belonging and connection which is an essential part of the Spark Decks mission.
Sharon resides in San Francisco, where she enjoys working in her community garden and hiking Bernal Hill daily with her mini poodle Qiqi (Mandarin for “energy”). She is an avid reader and an adrienne maree brown enthusiast. She hails from Vancouver, Canada, and loves to open-water swim all year round; you can find her at China Beach on Sunday mornings. She loves traveling with her family internationally – she can be found with her two daughters on the hunt for delicious local street eats and global handcraft markets, whatever destination she visits here and abroad.
Quarry Pak (she/they)
Facilitator and Co-author of Supporting Youth with Disabilities deck
Quarry is a project manager in the Health, Safety and Support Department of the Marin County Office of Education and an equity-focused leadership coach for the UC Berkeley School of Education. As an educational leader, licensed psychotherapist and clinical supervisor, she has worked with school sites for over 20 years to implement comprehensive health education, social emotional learning, and school-based wellness services in order to redesign systems to transform young people’s experiences at school. She has lectured in Bay Area graduate social work programs on the topics of educational policy, group, family and community work. Quarry holds a BA in Psychology & Women’s Studies from Pomona College and an MSW from UCLA.
Public Profit
Creator of Everyday CQI Spark Deck
Public Profit helps mission-driven organizations deepen their ability to learn from data, make great decisions, and improve the effectiveness and quality of their services. Public Profit creates a balance between the research-based ideal and practical realities of evaluation in the real world.
Terrence Riley (he/him)
Facilitator
A Bay Area native, Terrence has made it his life’s work to serve those who are often most marginalized and under-resourced. Currently, Terrence serves as the Founding Director of the San Francisco Literacy coalition where he and his team work in support of the school district’s literacy goals. A self-proclaimed life-long learner, Terrence received his B.A. from the University of Southern California, his M.A. from the University of the Pacific, and is a graduate of the multiple cohort-based leadership programs. He also, currently serves as a Strategic Advisory for Michael L Younger’s 2026 Gubernatorial Campaign as well as serving as a Commissioner on the OUSD Measure G1 Oversight Commission and is on the board of directors for the Regional Parks Foundation. Outside of work, Terrence enjoys spending time with his wife, Brandi, and their two children exploring various parts of their hometown in Oakland and the greater Bay Area.
Stephanie Rynas (she/her)
Co-author of Facilitating Towards Racial Justice deck
Stephanie Rynas is the Executive Director, Operations & Member Resources for the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA). In this role she works with the board to steward the association, shepherds the strategic plan and develops and supports members resources.
Stephanie received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan; M.B.A from Santa Clara University; and Waldorf Teacher Education Certificate from Rudolf Steiner College. Prior to her current role with AWSNA, Stephanie was the School Administrator at the Waldorf School of the Peninsula for 10 years, supporting its growth to full PreK-12 on two campuses. Before finding Waldorf education, Stephanie worked for many years in marketing and management in Silicon Valley companies, where she studied the art of collaboration and meeting facilitation.
Aminta Steinbach (she/her)
Facilitator and Co-author of Facilitating Towards Racial Justice deck
Aminta Steinbach is the Director of Climate, Culture, & Equity at Be the Change Consulting. In her 20 years working with young people, Aminta has been a Program Coordinator, Youth Leadership Instructor, and Program Director. Aminta majored in Community Studies, has studied Recreational Program Design, and is a Certified Self Defense Instructor. Her areas of expertise as a capacity builder include Cultural Competency, Health and Safety Awareness, and Community Building. Aminta is an enthusiastic cheerleader for her coaching clients, listens attentively, pays attention to details, and acts as a compassionate guide through even the most difficult transitions.
inabel Uytiepo (they/isuna)
Facilitator
inabel offers community deep collective Care, somatic forgiveness and ancestral wayfinding journeys as a queer Ilocano-Chinese multidisciplinary wholistic healing arts practitioner for individuals and groups. inabel is an intuitive, certified clinical hypnotherapist, meditation practitioner, master bodyworker, contemporary and ancestral maternal lineage holder of manual and subtle therapies for digestive and reproductive systems via neuromuscular, visceral, inter-dimensional, quantum and energy presencing via Healing is Giving. inabel is also a co-convener for the grassroots cross-racial solidarity organization Peoples Collective for Justice and Liberation. inabel’s most recent endeavor is sharing their life’s explorative work in co-creative journeys called the Wayfinding Collective
Arika Virapongse (she/her)
Facilitator and co-author of A Guide for Community Stewards
Arika is a community engagement consultant and social-ecology researcher. Arika works with nonprofits and organizations to help them engage and build their communities. She is passionate about environmental conservation and social equity. Her most recent community engagement projects have focused on building community around regional climate change resilience and for open source earth science initiatives. Learn more about Arika and her work at www.middlepatheco.com
Kimberly Williams Brown (she/her)
Co-author of Facilitating Towards Racial Justice deck
Kimberly Williams Brown is an assistant professor of Education and steering committee member for Africana Studies at Vassar College. She is also a member of the Forced Migration Steering Committee and the Women’s Studies program. She holds a Ph.D. from Syracuse University in Cultural Foundations of Education, and Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Psychology from Concord University, Master’s degrees in Human Resource Management (University of Charleston) and Communication and Rhetorical Studies (Syracuse University) and certificates in Women and Gender Studies (Syracuse University) and Professionals in Human Resources.
Her scholarly areas of focus broadly are immigration/migration studies, women’s and gender studies, Black Caribbean studies and intergroup dialogue. Prior to transitioning to her Ph.D. program, she spent eight years in higher education administration in both residence life and multicultural affairs developing selection, training, and mentoring programs for students and professional staff members. She was a POSSE mentor for Students from Atlanta, GA. She is co-founder of the Intergroup Dialogue Collective at Vassar College and teaches an anti-racist class to teachers in the Poughkeepsie and Arlington School Districts.
Oscar Wolters-Duran (he/him)
Co-Founder, Author, Facilitator (retired)
I’ve been involved in education, afterschool, and summer programs for most of my life. I started in 1992 as a reading specialist for the Institute for Reading Development, and have since served as a program leader, supervisor, curriculum developer and executive director. For the past ten years I’ve had the privilege of meeting thousands of afterschool professionals throughout the country, as a trainer and coach in the areas of literacy development, classroom management, program assessment, and project-based learning. I’ve learned that after school and summer programs are natural places to make learning fun and relevant. One of my favorite sayings is that children are not buckets to filled with knowledge, but sparks to be ignited. I’m excited about the possibility of these cards lighting sparks in out of school time professionals and in the youth who attend their programs.
Oscar retired in January 2023, but remains part of the Spark Decks’ team in spirit!
Sarah Moss Yanuck (she/her & ze/zir)
Co-author of Facilitating Towards Racial Justice deck
Sarah Moss Yanuck is a K-12 Teacher/Facilitator at RISE for Racial Justice. Sarah Moss is a queer, white Jew, a K-12 teacher, and a facilitator. She does this work because ze believes in the joy, connection, creativity, and healing that are possible in our bodies, spirits, and communities when we embody love and honesty in our relationships. Ze believes that racial literacy and dialogue skills can support us in game-changing ways as we work to cultivate racial justice in our schools and lives. She holds a BA from Vassar College and currently lives in the SF Bay Area.
Anna M. Yeakley (she/her)
Facilitator and Co-author of Facilitating Towards Racial Justice deck
Anna M. Yeakley, PhD, MSW is a trainer, facilitator and consultant who specializes in dialogue group facilitation, learning, and engaging around differences in social identities and perspectives, inclusive teaching methods, and strategies for responding to conflict and difficult conversations. Anna has over 22 years of intergroup dialogue facilitation, training, program administration, and research experience, and has helped to develop new intergroup dialogue programs at 11 college campuses across the country.