Mark Valdez is a director, writer, and cultural organizer who partners with communities, organizations, civic institutions, and others, using theater and creative tools to address community needs and to lift up community voices and stories. He joins Trustees Without Borders interviewers Sarah Plummer and C. Meranda Flachs-Surmanek to talk about being lost, being seen, and through imagination planting seeds for community change.

Mark  Valdez 2022-04-18

Dr. Michelle Ramos brings a diversity of experience to her role as Executive Director of Alternate ROOTS and founder of Ramos Coaching. Ramos applies critical race theory and lived experiences to disrupt long standing white supremacist structures and systems. Her work focuses on shifting power to black, brown people through pushing boundaries, challenging the status quo and reflecting values of equity and justice in her day to day practice. Before leading Alternate ROOTS, she worked as managing director for the Vera Institute of Justice New Orleans and program officer for the Women’s Foundation of California. She serves on the boards of Dance/USA and Performing Arts Alliance.

A licensed attorney with a Ph.D. in cultural psychology, Ramos has significant organizing experience and has committed her career to serving communities and individuals adversely impacted by issues of race, gender, disability, class, socioeconomics, inequitable laws, and systemic oppression. She has consulted for over 20 years nationally and internationally.

She is the proud mother of Broadway choreographer Ellenore Scott. Since retiring from her own dance career, Ramos has continued to teach dance, has competed as an Ironman triathlete and now enjoys her Southern New Orleans lifestyle.

Michelle Ramos 2022 - 03 - 18

In this episode we talk with Dr. Rolf Mueller and Dr. Ulmar Grafe.  Dr. Mueller directs the Center for Bioinspired Science and Technology at Virginia Tech and is appointed Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and affiliated as faculty in Electrical Engineering as well.  Dr. Ulmar Grafe is a Professor of Biology at the University of Brunei Darussalam.  Together they are collaborating on a joint international lab with multiple major grants from the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.  Their Twitter feed, UBD-VT Lab, has over 10,000 followers from 149 countries. The interview includes a recording made by Dr. Grafe in the Kubah National Park of a night time soundscape with frogs and insects.