UCLA CBC
Photography: The Atlantic by Azeb Tadesse
THE TEAM.
Walter Allen, PhD
DIRECTOR
Professor Walter Allen is the Allen Murray Cartter Professor of Higher Education and Distinguished Professor of Sociology and African American Studies. His research focuses on educational inequality, social institutions, and social policy. Professor Allen has extensive experience in institutional review and assessments and has served as external team leader for Quality Assurance reviews of higher education institutions. He has also served as advisor and consultant to academic, government, business, and the courts on issues of diversity and equity. Dr. Allen earned Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in Sociology from the University of Chicago and the B.A. degree at Beloit College (WI). He grew up in Kansas City, Missouri under Jim Crow segregation. Media interviews include: The Oprah Winfrey Show; McNeil-Lehrer Reports; CBS Sixty Minutes; NBC Evening News with Tom Brokaw, British Broadcasting Corporation, GLOBO (Brazil), Jet Magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur, Chicago Tribune, Black Enterprise, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and U.S. News and World Reports. Read more…
Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, PhD
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
Professor Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, Vice Chancellor of Graduate Studies Emerita, Professor of Anthropology and Professor of Psychiatry Emerita, who has over 40 years of higher education development expertise and as an administrator in higher education. She has had a wide breadth of international experience over the course of her multifaceted career including projects in Samoa, Belize, Jamaica, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and Mali. She is an anthropologist by discipline with vast experience in higher education administration. She served as UCLA Dean and Vice Chancellor of Graduate Studies, where as head of the Graduate Division she had responsibility for graduate admissions, graduate student financial support, graduate academic affairs, and the periodic assessment of UCLA’s doctoral and masters and degree programs. She has also held administrative positions as Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, and Director of the Ralph Bunche Center for African American Studies. Read more…
Azeb Tadesse
DEPUTY DIRECTOR
Azeb Tadesse is Deputy Director of the CBC. She has worked at the World Bank, UCLA African Studies Center and has consulted with the African Union. She has directed projects funded by USAID and Fulbright Hays-GPA. Her research focuses on intersection of technology and education and examining the integration of educational technology (EdTech) in higher education institutions. Her expertise includes program management and Monitoring & Evaluation.
Abye Tasse, PhD
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Abye Tasse, Ph.D., is Chief of Mission, Project TELEMA Congo Brazzaville at the Ministry of Social and Humanitarian Affairs. He is also Associate Researcher at the « Institut des mondes africains » IMAF, Paris, France. He has been on secondment by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development of France to higher education institutions and education ministries in United Comoros, Mauritania, and Ethiopia.
Patricia del Pilar Martinez Barrios, PhD
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Patricia del Pilar Martinez Barrios, PhD, has been Deputy Minister of Higher Education of the Ministry of National Education of Colombia (2012-2014), Rector of Fundacion Universitaria Los Libertadores (2020), Rector of the Technological University of Bolivar (2002-2012), General Director of the Colombian Institute for Higher Education and Evaluation- ICFES (1998-2002), Secretary of Education of Bolivar (1998) and Secretary of Education and Culture of Cartagena (1995-1997). Lecturer at several universities in the country and abroad. Director of various K-12
educational centers. She has led the development of educational policy and innovation in Education at the organizational, local and national levels, and is in possession of the"Simón Bolívar" Medal of the Ministry of National Education, and received the Cartagena Civic Prize "Behave well with Cartagena" as the best public officer in education.
Edmund Aalangong, ADB
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Edmund Aalangdong, ABD, is Head, Planning and Policy Department at the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) where he is responsible for coordinating and developing policies for tertiary education regulation in Ghana. He is a development policy planner with vast experience in local governance and rural development and regulating education systems along with project planning and management. With a strong interest in research and thematic analysis, Aalangdong has consulted for national and international development patterns (Ghana Institute of Local Government Studies, Canadian International Development Agency – District Capacity Building Project, ActionAid Ghana, UNDP and the EU-Micro Project for sustainable Development) delivering capacity building programmes and projects. Currently, Aalangdong coordinates multinational programs such as the World Bank Africa Centres of Excellence Project (ACE I and II) and the IFC Employability skills project.
Yasmine U. Dyson
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Yasmine Dyson has more than a decade of experience working in international development. With primary expertise and interest in creating social impact, she has worked on several rural development initiatives focused on efforts that enable smallholders and women farmers particularly, to participate in socio-economic growth. Her comprehensive experience includes assignments in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Tanzania, Senegal and the United States. Yasmine is skilled in analytical research, project management, capacity building and social safeguards analysis. Yasmine has a master’s degree in law and development and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, she is fluent in French and conversant in Kinyarwanda, Swahili and Lingala.
Kiana Billot-Vasquez
PROGRAM REPRESENTATIVE
Kiana Billot-Vasquez is a recent graduate from Colgate University where she double majored in Educational Studies and Behavioral Neuroscience. She is interested in the relationships between race, language and culture within higher education institutions. In her senior thesis, which was awarded High Honors, she explored how non-American English accented professors within higher education perceive their accents and how that intersects with their racial identity. She plans to continue this line of research in graduate school in the near future. As a Program Representative, Kiana will provide programmatic and administrative support for CBC projects and research activities.
RESEARCH
ASSISTANTS.
Ph.D. Candidate
Higher Education & Organizational Change
Chantal Jones, M.Ed., M.A.
Ph.D. Student
Higher Education & Organizational Change
Kiana Foxx, M.A.
Ph.D. Student
Higher Education & Organizational Change
Audrey Devost, M.A.
Ph.D. Student
Higher Education & Organizational Change