Faculty

Monisha Bajaj is Professor and Chair of International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco. Dr. Bajaj is the editor and author of eight books, including, most recently, Humanizing Education for Immigrant and Refugee Youth (Teachers College Press, 2023), as well as numerous articles. She has also developed curriculum—particularly related to peace education, human rights, anti-bullying efforts and sustainability—for non-profit organizations and inter-governmental...

Emma Fuentes is a Professor of International and Multicultural Education at USF. She received her PhD in Social and Cultural Studies from the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Emma is deeply committed to humanizing education grounded in love, solidarity and justice. She teaches and writes in the areas of critical social theory, racial justice and equity in education, movement building praxes and grassroots organizing for school change.

"Melissa Ann Canlas is an Associate Professor in International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco and the Project Director of USF’s AAPI Center.  She also teaches undergraduate courses in USF’s Critical Diversity Studies program. Dr. Canlas is daughter of Filipino immigrants and her scholarship focuses on generating knowledge to address injustice while also building more liberatory futures.

Her prior experience includes working with middle and high school students...

Colette Cann earned her B.A. from Stanford University and completed both her M.A. in Policy, Organization, Measurement and Evaluation and her Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Studies at the Graduate School of Education at U.C. Berkeley.  Professor Cann teaches in the areas of critical race theory, praxis and methodology, critical media analysis, intergroup dialogue in higher education, and racism in higher education.  Her scholarship has allowed her to collaborate with teachers, students and...

David Donahue is Professor of Education and previously, the Director of the McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good at the University of San Francisco. Before coming to USF in 2015, he was the Interim Provost and Associate Provost at Mills College in Oakland, California, and worked there for more than twenty years as a professor of education where he taught and advised doctoral students, teacher credential candidates, and undergraduates. He has a Ph.D. in Education from Stanford...

Rosa M. Jiménez’s research examines K-12 classroom pedagogies and theoretical principles necessary for conceptualizing and enacting critical language education and culturally responsive learning environments. She centers her research on family histories and auto-ethnographic counter-stories with Latina/o youth, immigrant students, and ‘English learners’. Dr. Jiménez has conducted classroom-based research in several K-12 contexts including Los Angeles, the California Central Valley, and Phoenix...

Shabnam Koirala Azad examines identities and experiences at the intersection of education, migration, and transnationalism. Guided by a deep interest in the relationship between education and social transformation, she explores educational spaces and materials that foster the transformation of self and society in shifting contexts. Using ethnography and participatory research, she embraces methodologies that engage deeply with communities and build the capacity for inquiry and knowledge creation...

Dr. Sedique Popal is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of San Francisco, where he teaches applied linguistics courses and coordinates the MA TESOL program. He also serves as the President-Elect of the California Association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (CATESOL). Throughout his career, Dr. Popal has taught English and applied linguistics and has trained teachers in seven countries across four continents: Asia, Africa, Europe, and North...

Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer (she/hers) is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) scholar born in Honolulu and raised between/across Hawai’i and the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an associate teaching professor of Indigenous Studies at Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, CA.  Her new book, Tender Violence in US Schools: Benevolent Whiteness and the Dangers of Heroic White Womanhood (Routledge, Nov. 2022), deploys Indigenous feminist methodologies to understand the problem of the over...

Luz Navarrette has taught courses in the USF School of Education since January of 2013. Her research interests include second language acquisition, English for multilingual speakers, K-12 education, community college education, sociocultural factors in education, Latina/os in education, and equity for racially, ethnically, socioeconomically, and linguistically diverse students. In addition to her work at USF, Dr. Navarrette teaches ESL at the community college level. Previously, she taught...

Dr. Manuel Alejandro Pérez received his EdD in international and multicultural education from the University of San Francisco. He is one of the original founders and co-director for Grupo Folklórico Los Alteños, a traditional Mexican folklórico company in Sacramento.

With 25 years of experience in traditional danza, Manuel enjoys connecting his research on identity, artful resistance, and radical imagination to social justice spaces of performance. In recent years, he has traveled to various...

Heather M. Streets comes from a family of scholars and is the sixth to earn a doctorate, which she completed at the University of San Francisco (USF). Using a term she coined called the collegiate Black space, her research focused on how Black students who attend historically White universities use online spaces for support, knowledge production, and organizing for activism. Heather’s scholarship centers her ongoing interest in deepening and expanding conversations about anti-Blackness in higher...

Susan Roberta Katz officially retired from teaching at USF in 2022 after 25+ years, but still stays actively involved by supporting students in their academic writing. In 2008, she co-founded the first graduate program in Human Rights Education in the U.S. and in 2014 received the USF Sarlo Prize for exemplary teaching. She has received two Fulbright fellowships: 2003 in Hungary at the University of Pécs and 2010 in Ecuador where she researched bilingual/intercultural education of the Shuar...