Mentoring Alliance Program Conveners
Santiago Guerra
Crown Master Teacher for The Instructional Coaching Program, W.M. Keck Director of the Hulbert Center for Southwest Studies, A.E. and Ethel Irene Carlton Professor in the Social Sciences, Associate Professor of Southwest Studies
sguerra@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6647
Bio
Amy Kohout
Associate Professor, Historyakohout@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6525
Bio
Amy Kohout joined the History department at ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï in 2016, after serving as Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Environmental Studies department at Davidson College during 2015-2016. She earned her B.A. in history from Yale University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Cornell University. She works on U.S. cultural and environmental history, and her research and teaching interests include the U.S. West, American empire, the Civil War and Reconstruction, museum studies, the history of natural history, world’s fairs, and the craft of writing history.
Amy’s first book, Taking the Field: Soldiers, Nature, and Empire on American Frontiers is forthcoming with the University of Nebraska Press, as part of their new Many Wests series. In 2020-21, she held the David J. Weber Fellowship for the Study of Southwestern America at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University. She is a 2022-2024 participant in the .
Her work has been published in Museum History, Sustainability Science, Rethinking History, The Appendix, and A Companion to the History of American Science. Amy has worked on public-facing, collaborative projects centering historical research and writing; she was a co-founder of , a digital site where historians recommend books they love, and before that she served as an editor at , a journal of narrative and experimental history.
Scott Kryzch
Associate Professor, Chair, Film & Media Studies
skryzch@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6890
Bio
Scott’s areas of teaching and research concern psychoanalytic theory, film theory, popular culture, and political media.
Jean Lee
Associate Professor, Environmental Program
jeanlee@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-7536
Bio
Kate Leonard
Professor, Art
kleonard@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6367
Bio
Christina Leza
Associate Professor, Anthropology
cleza@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6131
Bio
Christina Leza is an associate professor of anthropology and advisor for the Indigenous Studies and Linguistics thematic minors. Her research and scholarship focus on Indigenous rights, grassroots social justice movement, and social discourses about race and ethnicity. She is the author of Divided Peoples: Policy, Activism and Indigenous Identities on the U.S.-Mexico Border (University of Arizona Press), and she is currently writing a textbook about the linguistics of racism and antiracism (Routledge Press). Her service and leadership have included serving as faculty advisor for the Native American Student Union and the Udall Foundation Scholarship, investigating Title IX cases, co-chairing the Diversity, Equity & Advisory Board, and serving on the Faculty Executive Committee. She was a member of CC’s External Review of Racism Steering Committee, and she has served on various other committees focused on issues of diversity and equity at the college. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Citizens Project, a Colorado Springs nonprofit organization committed to empowering our community to engage in local democracy and to embrace equity and inclusion.
Andreea Marinescu
Associate Professor, Chair, Spanish & Portuguese amarinescu@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6737
Bio
Jane McDougall
Associate Professor, Mathematics & Computer Science
jmcdougall@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6275
Bio
Luis David Garcia Puente
Professor, Mathematics & Computer Science
lgarciapuente@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6543
Bio
Luis David García Puente is a Mathematics and Computer Science professor at ºÚÁϳԹÏ. He grew up in Mexico City and received his B.S. from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, both in Mathematics. After postdoctoral appointments at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and Texas A&M University, he joined Sam Houston State University.
Luis is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society for contributions to applied algebraic geometry, including algebraic statistics and geometric modeling, and for broadening participation in the mathematical sciences. He is a member of the SIAM Activity Group on Algebraic Geometry, the Latinxs and Hispanics in the Mathematical Sciences Community, and the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science.
Corinne Scheiner
Maytag Professor, Comparative Literature, Russian & Eurasian Studies
cscheiner@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6238
Bio
Corinne Scheiner joined the Program in Comparative Literature at ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï in the fall of 2000. She earned her B.A. in foreign literatures (French and Russian) from Pomona College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Chicago. She teaches a wide range of courses on literature and literary theory for the major in comparative literature and the minor in world literature.
Her research and teaching interests include translation studies, specifically self-translation; literary bilingualism; and the 20th- and 21st-century novel in French, Russian, English, and Italian, in particular the works of Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov, and David Foster Wallace. Her work in these areas has been published in a number of edited collections, including the Modern Language Association’s Approaches to Teaching Lolita. Her current project is on the abject and its role in the production of selfhood in the fiction of David Foster Wallace.
Her interests also include the practice and teaching of comparative literature. Her work in this area has been published in Comparative Literature and Profession and as part of the American Comparative Literature’s Association’s decennial reports on the State of the Discipline.
Tina Valtierra
Crown Master Teacher for The Instructional Coaching Program, Associate Professor & Chair, Education Department, Ray O. Professor of Exemplary Teaching in the Liberal Arts
kvaltierra@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-7146
Bio
Tina Valtierra is an Associate Professor and Chair of Education at ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï and Crown faculty center's inaugural master teacher. Dr. Valtierra spent over 15 years as a K-12 classroom teacher, instructional coach, and educational consultant. Her expertise is in literacy, curriculum, and instruction, emphasizing anti-racist, diversity, equity, and inclusive (ADEI) studies. Her research examines urban teacher preparation, focusing on promoting teacher reflection, identity, and thrival. She is the author of , co-author of , and a two-time recipient of the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum (AATC) distinguished article award for her scholarship on teacher identity formation. Her upcoming book, Tools to Thrive: Priming Early Career Teachers to Flourish in an Era of Attrition, will be published in 2024 by Teachers College Press. Her courses, such as Youth Organizing for Social Change, Critical Multicultural Education, Culturally Sustaining Teaching, and Inclusive Pedagogies in Literacy, Curriculum & Instruction, inform her research and course syllabuses.
Naomi Wood
Associate Professor, Chair; Director of FGS, Spanish & Portuguese
nwood@coloradocollege.edu
(719) 389-6519
Bio
Dr. Naomi Pueo Wood is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Department Chair, and NEH Distinguished Teacher in the Humanities at ºÚÁϳԹÏ. She is also the founder of CC Mobile Arts, a mobile arts program featuring a 16-foot box truck equipped with a fold-out stage, concert-capable sound system, film projection, art supplies, and solar generator geared towards showcasing BIPOC local artists and expanding the access of visual and performing arts within Colorado Springs and the greater Southwest Region. Relatedly, her research emphasizes queer pleasures as a site of resistance to dominant narratives of queer pain and suffering. Her publications feature analyses focused on embodied histories expressed in literature, dance, music, and visual arts. Her current in-progress book project, Cu, Cuir, Queer Latinoamérica: Theorizing Transgressive Identities through the Arts, seeks to trace “queer” as an identity category, verb, and concept as it is manipulated, subverted, and contested by visual and performing artists throughout and across the Americas. Her recent work has been published in Latin American and Latinx Visual Cultures, Letras Femeninas, Chasqui, and Ámbitos Feministas.