2021-2022 IRP Participant Bios

Mario Echeverria

Adan Escobedo

Kelly León
Kelly León (she/her/hers) has taught for seventeen years in a large, secondary school district in southern California. She started as a bilingual history/geography educator and AVID teacher/coordinator at a school on the California/México border. Subsequently, she worked as a curriculum and professional development specialist for the school district’s central office where she helped redesign the ninth-grade geography course. Becoming highly vested in that work, she returned to a school site to teach the course and co-lead an interdisciplinary cohort of ninth graders called the “Global Scholars.” 

Additionally, Kelly co-leads the Generation Global single-subject credential cohort in the School of Teacher Education at San Diego State University, where she also teaches graduate courses. Kelly is a teacher leader for the California Geographic Alliance and the California Global Education Project at USD. She completed her undergraduate degree, bilingual teaching credential, and M.E.d in Policy Studies in Language & Cross-Cultural Education at San Diego State University and is currently a third-year doctoral candidate researching collaborative efforts to conceptualize and enact ethnic studies curriculum in secondary schools.

Kelly works as a research assistant for Dr. Reyes Quezada and is a research coordinator for an ethnic studies evaluation project led by Dr. James Fabionar, who also serves as her dissertation chair. Outside of work and study, Kelly enjoys spending time with her family and hiking. Email: kleon@sandiego.edu 

Jennifer Manglicmot

Zulema Reynoso 

Tommy Royston
Tommy Royston (he/his/him) has over 20 years of experience helping nonprofit, public sector, and community health/public health organizations define, refine, and achieve their mission. Mr. Royston currently serves as a lead instructor for executive education at the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy and is a consultant working with several community health centers across the US. Tommy has held leadership positions in his home state of Tennessee as well as in Washington, D.C. While in DC, he served as the Director of Operations, Training and Technical Assistance for the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), a nonprofit membership association representing over 8,000 Federally Qualified Health Centers across the US. 

He received a master’s in education from George Mason University and an undergraduate degree in sociology at Randolph-Macon College. Tommy has served on several nonprofit boards and committees including being a former board member and board secretary of an FQHC in Sacramento, California. When now working or studying, Tommy enjoys running, hiking, and spending time with his partner and his four-legged children Boomer and Rodeo.

Mr. Royston is a 3rd-year doctoral candidate and his dissertation topic is looking at how LGBTQ+ focused Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) conceptually define and operationalize culturally competent healthcare through workforce education and training. His dissertation chair is Dr. Suzanne Stolz. Email: troyston@sandiego.edu 

Karla Sanchez

Dianne Torres

Sobeida Velazquez

IRP Participants – use this link to share your bio and photo: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PuwdD9sNmXazShwB_aGsCACPG-4D3ZAyTGiO5OQgsfw/edit?usp=sharing