Session Speakers

Alex Gomez, Director of Talent Acquisition, is a Cal alum. He has been at UC Berkeley for 23 years, moving from a student to an administrator. Alex received his BA in Anthropology and, since graduating, has been working in the recruitment and talent acquisition space. Alex was...Read more about Alex Gomez (he/him)

Amy Louise Casey Azuma (she/her) brings a heart-centered approach to her roles as L&S College Adviser and Lead of the L&S Sophomore Outreach and Engagement Team. She is deeply committed to naming and amplifying the incredible gifts, skills, and experiences of her students...Read more about Amy Azuma (she/her)

Charlotte Cowden is Associate Director on the Principal Gifts and Strategic Initiatives team at University Development and Alumni Relations. She provides holistic support to the Assistant Vice Chancellor with a special focus on prioritizing workflow, strategic projects and team...Read more about Charlotte Cowden (she/her)

Charron Andrus received her B.S. in Organizational Leadership from Biola University and her M.A. in Gerontology from the University of Southern California. She has been with the University of California for 10 years, serving at both the Davis Health and Berkeley campuses....Read more about Charron Andrus

Clarissa first worked as an Employment Assistant in Central Human Resources in UC Berkeley in 2001. She had the pleasure of being a part of the PeopleSoft eRecruit Project Team implementation and was a witness on how our paper application process moved into an electronic process...Read more about Clarissa Fermin

Colin works with individuals, pairs, cross-functional initiatives, in-tact teams, and organizations to maximize talent development and success potential. Colin is a Senior Talent Strategy Partner...Read more about Colin Gerker-Junsay (he/him)

Cynthia Pristash is an instructional designer with a background in graphic design that blends visual design, multimedia, and innovative technologies to enhance learning. She received her bachelor's degree in Print Management from the Engineering and Applied Sciences College at...Read more about Cynthia Pristash (she/her)

Danny Ceballos, MBA, MAOD, is the CEO of Unleashed Consulting – and is a seasoned organizational leader, management trainer, and executive coach with 25 years’ experience in for-profit and nonprofit management.

Danny has worked with hundreds of...Read more about Danny Ceballos (he/him)

An innovative strategist in California, a state with the fifth-largest economy in the world, Eleanor has expertise in creating, leading, and developing collaborative, high-performing teams.

She also dedicates her time to growing nonprofits. Eleanor...Read more about Eleanor Pepples

Faye Snowden has 21 years in higher education serving in various information technology leadership and senior project management roles. Faye’s entire career has been focused on the information technology field. Her broad experience includes computer operations, help desk design,...Read more about Faye Snowden (she/her)

Gert joined UC Berkeley and the Technology Program Office in September 2020. For the previous 20 years, Gert was based in Massachusetts where he worked in both software startups and consulting companies, primarily as a Project, Program and Change Manager. ...Read more about Gert Reynaert

Heidi Church (she/her) brings a human-centered design lens to her role as the Instructional Design Lead on the L&S Sophomore Outreach and Engagement team. Equal parts College Adviser, Communications Strategist, and Learning Experience Designer, she’s building a more easeful...Read more about Heidi Church (she/her)

Isela Peña-Rager (she/her/ella) has been working in higher ed in a variety of capacities since 2003 and most recently became an assistant director and the inaugural DEIB consultant at L&S Office of Undergraduate Advising. She has degrees and certifications in art, applied...Read more about Isela Pena-Rager (she/her/ella)

James Kato (he/him) is the Assistant Director for the Center for Support and Intervention, where he coordinates support for students in crisis and oversees the amazing staff driving the Center’s violence prevention and addiction recovery work. Prior to joining his current department...Read more about James Kato (he/him)

Originally from Wyoming, Jason Joyce, M.B.A. is a thought leader and change agent in Higher Education, with a special focus on leadership development and emotional intelligence. He has designed programs and coursework at Columbia University and Loyola Marymount University and is...Read more about Jason Joyce (he/him)

Jeannine Wonderling (she, her, hers) is currently Assistant Manager for Penn State World Campus Education Alliance Programs. She provides leadership in building and maintaining strong relationships with Penn State's Education Alliance Partners and assists in engaging these...Read more about Jeannine Wonderling (she/her)

As an experienced system administrator and software developer, Jeffrey has developed the skills, habits and practices to solve difficult problems in IT as well as some areas of design and UX. He has focused on Google Developer technologies, email servers, Linux, and programming...Read more about Jeffrey Williams (he/him)

Jennifer Mora began her career in higher education advancement at UC Berkeley with the Cal Alumni Association (CAA) in 2007. During her 11 years at CAA, she launched new programs and initiatives, including implementing a multi-channel annual giving program and leading their...Read more about Jennifer Mora

Jessica De Anda (She/her/ella) grew up in an immigrant household in Southern California both food and housing insecure. Her experiences as a first generation Latina student in higher education studying Biology, Chicanx Studies and Education drove her to become the culturally...Read more about Jessica De Anda (she/her/ella)

Jolie Lam, MBA, PhD, is the Surgical Robotics / Digital Health Program Manager in the CITRIS and the Banatao Institute. She was a Programmatic Officer for the Foundations of Machine Learning at EECS; and she previously worked as an Academic Officer for the Guizhou-Berkeley Big...Read more about Jolie Lam (she/her)

Julie is a skilled facilitator, speaker, and coach whose specialties include individual and team leadership assessment and development, organizational change and culture, strategic planning, competency modeling, meeting facilitation, diversity/equity/inclusion, executive...Read more about Julie Staggs (she/her)

Kelly Crabtree, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is the training director for UC Davis Learning and Development, the employee learning and development unit for the UC Davis. With over twenty-five years in UC Davis Human Resources, Kelly has observed and experienced the many facets of...Read more about Kelly Crabtree (she/her)

Kevin M. Reyes returned to UC as Merced’s Talent Development Manager in 2019 where he focuses on strengths-based, self-reflective, and competency-based employee/leadership development. Before returning, Kevin provided leadership development, safety leadership, and workforce...Read more about Kevin M Reyes (he/him)

Kristian Dawson (She/Her) is a motivator, teacher, and advocate for healthy and meaningful communities in higher education. She is dedicated to advancing the fields of higher education admissions & advising within a DEIBJ framework, and advocates for workplace cultures that...Read more about Kristian Dawson (She/Her)

In my role as the Director of Student Life, my mission is to identify and implement systems of support for the 11,000+ graduate and professional students at UC Berkeley. I collaborate with other staff to design and develop programs and workshops that teach students skills they...Read more about Larissa Charnsangavej (she/her)

Luke has been a Conflict Resolution Specialist since 2014, providing mediation, coaching, training and facilitation to workplaces, families, neighbors, community organizations and individuals. He has worked internally with non-profit organizations and higher education...Read more about Luke Wiesner (he/him)

Prior to starting her own online coaching business, Maria Malik worked at Stanford University as a Research Administrator. As someone who was petrified of Public speaking, Maria realized how important speaking skills are for professional and personal success. That is why she went...Read more about Maria Malik (she/her)

Merideth Wakeman is an inspirational talent development professional who has deep, corporate level experience as a senior internal consultant and executive coach. She is as comfortable working with individual contributors and managers as she is coaching C-Suite executives and...Read more about Merideth Wakeman (she/her)

Michelle Logarta (she/her) is a L&S College Adviser with the passion and drive to serve students’ needs. In her role she advises undergraduate students in L&S. She is committed to advising underrepresented students as a member of L&S Sophomore Success Committee, the L...Read more about Michelle Logarta (she/her)

Mira Roseman joined the Technology Program Office in June 2021 as a Sr IT Project Manager with two decades of project management experience in the healthcare and retail industries. She has worked with established organizations as well as startups, managing both local and global...Read more about Mira Roseman (she/her)

Orsolya Nadasdi is an experienced higher ed professional. With a background in retail sales and advancement, her career trajectory spans several industries and skill sets including production, development and project management. Over the past 14 years at UC Berkeley, she has...Read more about Orsolya Nadasdi (she/her)

Pamela Rich has been an internal, organization development consultant with UC Berkeley’s People and Organization Development team, a unit of People and Culture, for 4 years. She has led groups all over campus through strategic planning, team building and goal setting projects....Read more about Pamela Rich (she/her)

With 30 years of experience in the IT industry in both México and the U.S. Patricia is the Senior Business Systems Analyst for the Imagine team at Berkeley IT. The team provides enterprise document management system services to all campus departments. As the Senior BSA, Patricia...Read more about Patricia Juarez (she/her/ella)

Robert Amos has been in IT for two decades, with a focus on Public Cloud and Virtualization, he has skills of designing and maintaining large workloads on VMware, AWS (Amazon Web Services), and GCP (Google Cloud Platform). Prior to joining UC Berkeley in 2020, Robert has IT...Read more about Robert Amos (he/him)

Sam has over 8 years of technical project management in university, health care and software development settings. She has spent the last few years at the University of the Pacific where she was responsible for leading university-wide projects, including the implementation of...Read more about Sam Griffin (she/her)

Sarah Bailey is the Service Lead for Content Collaboration Services at UC Berkeley, managing Box, Google Drive, and Sharepoint, and serves as an administrator for other productivity and collaboration tools in the portfolio.

Sarah brings 13 years of...Read more about Sarah Bailey (she/her)

Siti Keo was/is a refugee who came to the United States as an infant. She grew up in San Diego and now calls the Bay Area home. She completed her doctoral degree in Southeast Asian history at UC Berkeley, where she is currently the manager of the Linguistics Department. Before...Read more about Siti Keo (she/her)

Sonya Scott has been an Adviser in the College of Letters & Science at UC Berkeley for over 21 years. Believing that each moment is a teachable moment, Sonya strives to act as a coach who will challenge, motivate, encourage, and celebrate students, while holding them...Read more about Sonya Scott (she/her)

Sydney is an instructor at UC Berkeley where she teaches Effective Leadership and Management. Sydney spent 20 plus years in the private sector working in corporate marketing for technology companies and startups. She currently runs her own C corporation ...Read more about Sydney Chaney-Thomas

For over twenty years Tiffany Reardon has been working in higher education designing programs that support students pursuing degrees in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology (STEM). In 2012, she joined UC's flagship campus by accepting a position in UC Berkeley’s...Read more about Tiffany Reardon (she/her)

Vaneese Johnson, The Boldness Coach™, is a Global Leadership Coach, Keynote Speaker, Brand Strategist and Author. She teaches, empowers, and challenges professionals to step into their Bold, Big & Bad ™ and up-level their career choices and successes with intention, ownership...Read more about Vaneese Johnson (she/her)

Veronica Padilla (she/her/ella) was born and raised in Northern California, majored in Political Science and Spanish at Cal. She started her career at UC Berkeley in 1999 as an Admissions Assistant in the School of Law, progressed to be an undergraduate student adviser for the...Read more about Veronica Padilla (she/her/ella)

Vic Sánchez (they/he) is from Monterrey, Mexico and Dallas, Texas. They have been at UC Berkeley since 2014 and have served in multiple roles in Residential Life. Vic is currently the Assistant Director of Residential Life for University Village in Albany serving students and...Read more about Vic Sanchez (they/he)

Wayne joined UC Berkeley in 2018 with over 20 years of extensive IT project management experience across multiple industries in higher education, healthcare, and telecommunications. Wayne has a proven track record in successfully managing infrastructure deployments, system...Read more about Wayne Kuang (he/him)

Yoshita Mukherjee joined the UC Berkeley, Technology Program Office in March 2020 with eleven years of prior career experience at UCSF. Her experience spans information services and technology related work in higher education and healthcare domains. She has worked with...Read more about Yoshita Mukherjee