The SOE Scholar Network is a student-run organization, consisting of UCR SOE graduate students. Our mission is to promote academic, social, and professional development across SOE graduate programs through directed programming and networking. We also aim to build and maintain a sense of community within current SOE students, alumni, faculty, and staff.
Meet the 2025 Scholar Network Officers
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President - Emily Dech
Emily Dech (she/they) is a Ph.D. student in the Education, Society, and Culture program at the University of California, Riverside. Their doctoral studies focus on how to support, retain, and increase teachers of Color through racial affinity spaces amidst district institutionalization. Emily is also the Outreach and Communication Coordinator for the Institute for Teachers of Color Committed to Racial Justice (ITOC) and the President of the UCR School of Education's Scholar Network. Prior to her doctoral studies, Emily taught elementary school in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Stockholm, Sweden, facilitated racial affinity spaces for teachers of Color at her previous school districts, and created an online guide for schools to create their own affinity groups for teachers of Color as part of their master's capstone
Role description:
The president shall oversee the general activities of the organization, such as generating and/or approving meetings, elections, communication with University community members and other external groups. The president meets regularly with Graduate Program Administrator, Heather Killeen, and serves as the liaison between administration and the organization. -
Vice President - Stephanie Gutierrez
Stephanie Gutierrez (she/they/ellx) is a second-year PhD student in Education Society and Culture under the School of Education. She currently works with the Leveraging Inspiring Futures Through Educational Degrees (LIFTED) BA prison education program, teaching a writing course that explores the theory of abolition with incarcerated students. In their research on abolitionist pedagogies, carceral logics, and fugitive scholarship, Stephanie is investigating what brings educators to work for abolition in their communities and how they embody these ideologies while living within the United States empire. Being a first-generation, formerly incarcerated, student parent, ellx is combining her lived experiences in the Inland Empire with a scholarship that centers marginalized communities' wisdom while enduring systems of oppression under settler colonialism and white supremacy. Stephanie's focus is on the mechanization of epistemicide and necropolitics to keep BIPOC, low-income, unhoused, disabled, and LGBTQ communities from engaging with their histories of resistance, preventing their health, and maintaining their exploitation through criminalization. Stephanie received her B.A. as a triple major at UCR in Education, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Public Policy. She hopes to find a career that will balance her work with the community for a healed future with academia.
Role description:
The vice president shall assist and be active in all presidential duties and will act as president in the absence of the active president. The VP is also responsible for coordinating the participation of their and all other SOE Network officers’ attendance and represent the SOE Scholar Network at mini-SOE meetings that occur quarterly. -
Director of Operations - Luke Rabelhofer
Luke is a doctoral student in the Educational Psychology program. His research focuses on spatial thinking and embodied cognition in STEM teaching and learning, specifically the ways gesturing and drawing can enhance student comprehension. He received a BS in aerospace engineering and MEd in science teaching from the University of Minnesota. Prior to starting the doctoral program, he worked for 9 years as a secondary science teacher in Minnesota, Illinois, and California.
Role description:
The director of operations shall be responsible for taking meeting minutes and keeping written records of organization activities, and be responsible for induction of new members which includes correspondence and completion of paperwork in accordance with the larger SOE Scholar Network organization. -
Director of Communications - Marcia Gonzalez
Marcia Gonzalez (she/her) is a doctoral student in the School Psychology program at UC Riverside. She is interested in supporting underrepresented families and providing the appropriate information to aid their students during their K-12 journeys. Her research interests include facilitating social-emotional learning (SEL) programs and building a stronger community between families and schools. Marcia currently serves as the Director of Communications for the School of Education Scholar Network.
Role description:
The director of communications shall be responsible for publicizing events, keeping a record of and managing social media promoting the SOE Scholar Network organization to the larger UCR community. -
Director of Special Events - Lara Jimenez
Lara Bertholdo Jimenez is currently a Ph.D. student in HEAP program. Lara's intersectional research interests include utilizing critical theories to understand historical and current racial, socioeconomic, and educational inequities that impact college athlete and academic support staff within college athletic centers. She is originally from Somerville, MA and just transferred to UCR in fall 2024 after having spent four years at Texas A&M University. When she is not studying she works part time for a non-profit called the Brazilian Women's Group, dedicated to empowering and supporting Brazilian immigrants. she also enjoys cooking and, most important, eating amazing food!
Role description:
The director of special events shall be responsible for planning/publicizing quarterly social events and collaborating with outside parties in relation to outside event appearances (i.e. guest speakers, etc.). -
Director of Professional Associations - Edwin Rivera Castellanos
Edwin L. Rivera Castellanos is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. His research explores the intersections of race, space, and policy in education, with a focus on how Latina/o communities shape and sustain practices of innovation, resistance, and belonging in schools. He is developing a dissertation project that draws on archival research and community perspectives to recover overlooked educational histories and consider their implications for equity-focused curricula and policy. Edwin also serves as a Research & Writing Fellow at the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), where he contributes to national efforts to advance racial justice in education and beyond. In his free time, he enjoys playing guitar, singing, and spending time by the ocean.
Role description:
The Director of Professional Associations will serve as a liaison between SOE graduate students and the American Educational Research Association (AERA). This includes assisting in the Graduate Student Council (GSC) efforts to increase graduate student awareness of both AERA and GSC, disseminate information that is germane to the plight and progress of graduate students in e-mail or the most appropriate format and communicate with Director of Communication to ensure we are informing graduate students of AERA division related activities informing graduate students of AERA division related activities. -
Director of Alumni Relations - Ariana Romero
Ariana E. Romero, M.A. (she/her), is a Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education Administration and Policy at the University of California, Riverside. Her research focuses on college pathways, justice-centered change, peer interactions, and placemaking in universities.
A first-generation college graduate and proud transfer student, Ariana began her academic journey at Riverside Community College before earning her B.S. in Human Services from California State University, Fullerton, and her M.A. in Postsecondary Educational Leadership with a specialization in Student Affairs from San Diego State University. She has worked with and developed organizations serving underrepresented communities and is committed to producing research and mentoring scholars to increase the presence of historically marginalized groups in academia.
Outside of her academic work, she enjoys poetry, art, hiking, gardening, and photography.
Role description:
The director of alumni relations shall be responsible for developing and maintaining relationships with SOE graduate program alumni. This includes conducting research into alumni whereabouts, compiling a database of alumni, and assisting in the development of networking opportunities between alumni and current students. -
Director of Special Relations - Anthony Briseno
Anthony Briseño (He/Him/His) is pursuing his Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration and Policy program at the University of California, Riverside. Anthony is a first-generation college student who was born and raised around the Bakersfield, CA area, where he earned his B. A in Sociology and M.S. in Educational Counseling with an emphasis in Student Affairs at California State University, Bakersfield.
Due to his personal experiences with the Juvenile Justice System and previous work with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, he is interested in disrupting the school-to-prison pipeline, juvenile justice education reform, early college higher education access, incarcerated student education programs, and community college transfer initiatives.
Role description:
The department representative is responsible for attending and serving as liaison between GSA and the department. It is expected that the representative attends monthly General Student Council (GSC) meetings, serves as the voice of their department voting appropriately on matters that would support the graduate students they represent, and to share information learned at GSC meetings with their colleagues.