Kate Dickinson-Villaseñor founded Educating Changemakers to move from intent to impact—cultivating socially, emotionally, and culturally competent educators and leaders, inspired and equipped to change the world through inclusion, connection, and innovative social action.

Kate has led initiatives, educator professional development, and facilitated faculty training related to social emotional learning, cultural competency, critically reflective anti-bias practice, family and community engagement, and social justice in K-12 schools and higher education for the last 20 years. Kate holds an Ed.D. in Organizational Change Leadership from the University of Southern California and her M.Ed. in Special Education from the University of San Diego. Kate’s research examines the social emotional and cultural competency of educators in their ability to lead inclusive classrooms and teach for social change.

Erica Diamond is a mentor teacher and instructional leader in anti-bias education and early literacy development in San Diego, with over 15 years of experience in early childhood education and K-5 classrooms. Currently, she is a Learning Experience Designer at Design39Campus in San Diego where serves as a member of her school’s Literacy Capacity team and Open-Walled Learning team, and implements design thinking as a creative problem-solving process—helping students design meaningful solutions to complex real-world challenges. She holds a B.A. in Child Development and an M.A. in Human Development-Social Change. Erica attended the Columbia Teachers College Reading and Writing Institutes where she studied the process of guiding students and teachers as they author richly literate lives for themselves. She is passionate about children’s literature and anti-bias education.