Our team
Director
Kiran Katira
Kiran Katira is an East-African, Asian-Indian woman, born in Kenya and raised in England. She received her Ph.D. in racial ideology through the department of Educational Thought and Socio-Cultural Studies at the University of New Mexico. For the past twenty years, she has worked with local community organizers and leaders through the University of New Mexico's Community Engagement Center (CEC). At CEC she facilitates the growth and development of diverse local youth who apprentice with strong community leaders. Kiran is on the advisory board for the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Justice, RWJF Center for Health Policy and she served as the inaugural chair for the Provost's Diversity Council at UNM. She is on several governing boards, including the NM Asian Family Center and Dorn Charter Community School. Kiran is a national trainer with the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, where she conducts undoing racism workshops across the nation. She also teaches university courses, which focus on anti-racist education, peace and justice, and critical pedagogy in/with the community.Program Coordinators & Staff
Magda Dathe
Vanessa Apodaca
Vanessa Apodaca identifies as a Mexican-American and Chicana who was born and raised in a historic neighborhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her Masters of Science Degree in Community Health Education from the University of New Mexico (UNM) and for the past 13 years has worked with New Mexico communities including her own home community in creating access to programs that address the social determinants of health. She currently works with the UNM Community Engagement Center where for over 6 years she has served in various roles to facilitate the leadership development of local people of color to serve in community-based projects. Her training in promoting racial justice is credited to her Parent’s-Christina and Monserrate Apodaca; the staff and students at the UNM CEC; the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond; the Anti-Racist Training Institute of the South West; and many beloved community leaders, mentors, and elders in New Mexico.
Akila Ravichandran
Akila is from India and has been in this country for the past 18 years. Having obtained a graduate degree in Physics from India, she completed her master’s degree in Secondary Education and then in Special Education. It was when she started working in public schools, she found her passion to serve children and family that are underrepresented in the community and the need to hear their voices. Her association with CEC started as a graduate assistant and continued for a couple of years where she learned more about the importance of working with the community, to address the issues that they are facing. She currently serves as a Program Coordinator at CEC and is heavily involved in designing and delivering bi-weekly training for Public Allies and the management of Public Allies online web-based reporting system.
Tabitha King (She, Her)
Tabitha is a first-generation UNM alumna with an evolving passion for highlighting the inherent assets of both individuals and communities. Homegrown from Alamogordo, New Mexico, these passions guide her in uplifting sustainable pathways to economic wealth and health equity for local BIPOC communities. With an earned Bachelor of Science in Psychology. Tabitha's goals are to continuously, yet humbly, center the well-being and economic freedom of local communities in her future graduate studies. Her relationship with the CEC began as a service member in educational programs located in the Kirtland, South Broadway, and South Valley neighborhoods before serving as a Community Capacity Builder and Public Ally. Tabitha currently serves the CEC as the FoodCorps NM Team Leader and Assistant to the Public Allies NM Program Director and Coordinator. In these roles, the majority of her focus involves supporting community partnerships, facilitating antiracist dialogues, and coaching service members in taking on culturally humble approaches to capacity building in New Mexico.
Megan Joe
Megan Joe is a Diné woman from Naakabito, New Mexico. She holds a Bachelor's degree in International Studies with a minor in Environmental Sustainability from the University of New Mexico. Megan is a recent alumna of the New Mexico Public Allies organization where she served two years (2018-2020) with the UNM Community Engagement Center (CEC). Ms. Joe is currently a Program Staff with CEC working with a team to start a NACA Inspired Schools Network K-5 school in Albuquerque's International District.
Alicia Chavez
Alicia is the FoodCorps New Mexico Associate Director. My Querencia is in New Mexico. My family has been in this area longer than our combined memory recalls. Our connection to land and water ensures our survival, but it also is the foundation of our community development, morals, and values and from which my responsibility to community stems. Community organizing is my background and is the strategy I use in my work. Cookies, adventures, mountains, rivers, and being a tia is what feeds my heart.
Graduate Assistants and Community Capacity Builders
Erick Hernandez
Erick (he, him) is a first-generation UNM alumnus originally from Torreon, Mexico, and raised in Deming, New Mexico. Having witnessed the power of education and the doors it has open for him, Erick has a deep passion for education and the role that it plays in a child's future. He is currently a teacher resident in the Albuquerque Teachers Residency Program (ATRP) and is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Elementary Education at the University of New Mexico. At CEC, he serves as the communication capacity builder.
Ambar Espinoza Angeles
Ámbar Espinoza Ángeles is a first-generation Mexican student at the College of Nursing at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. After completing nursing school, she plans on continuing her education by obtaining a Master’s of Science in Nursing with a concentration in Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. She is a Capacity Builder at the CEC Service Corps and was the Recruiter for Public Allies New Mexico. She also shares the role of Main Point of Contact, reaching out to students in our current cohort as well as doing one-on-one check-ins.
