Our Team

Gretchen Lopez (gelopez@syr.edu), Faculty Director of the Intergroup Dialogue Program, is Associate Professor of Cultural Foundations of Education and associated faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies. Professor Lopez applies a multidisciplinary, multi-method approach to studying inequality and the impact of social justice education. Her main research focuses on race and critical pedagogy in higher education and she has extended this work to engage high school students and consider the significance of university-community partnership. She led the university’s participation in the Multi-University Intergroup Dialogue Research Project, a nine-institution study of the educational benefits of intergroup dialogue for undergraduate students (Lopez & Zúñiga, 2010), and co-authored ”Intergroup Dialogue: Engaging Difference, Social Identities, and Social Justice” (Zúñiga, Lopez, & Ford, 2015). Professor Lopez received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (B.A., Psychology, Cornell University), and her work has been recognized through an Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award, the Racial Justice Award from Interfaith Work’s Community Wide Dialogue to End Racism, and the Syracuse NAACP Youth Council Image Award for Education. Pronouns: she/they/gretchen

Diane Swords (drswords@syr.edu)  has a Ph.D. in Social Science from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, with a certificate in University Teaching and Certificates of Advanced Studies in Women’s and Gender Studies and in Conflict Resolution. Her research interrogates race, class, and gender in social movement strategy and democratic leadership. Her latest writing examines how intergroup dialogue attends to differences in power; and in how dialogue supports coalition building in student activism. As an instructor in Sociology, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Cultural Foundations of Education, across twelve years, she has co-facilitated Intergroup Dialogue on Race and Ethnicity, Intergroup Dialogue on Gender, Dialogue on Socioeconomic Inequality and Education, and Dialogue in Action: Faith, Conflict, and Community. Diane participates in dialogue and anti-oppression efforts outside the university including workplace anti-oppression workshops and in-service training for public school teachers. She chairs the Nuclear Free World Committee of Syracuse Peace Council. Pronouns: she/her/hers

Steven Contreras (stcontre@syr.edu) is originally from the Bronx, NY. He graduated from Fordham University in 2011 while majoring in Sociology. He then moved to Syracuse, to work at Syracuse University where he earned his Master’s degree in Cultural Foundations of Education. Steven currently works at SUNY Upstate where he serves as the Director of Student Retention. His primary focus is working with students of color, rural students and low-income students. His interest for working with students started in undergrad when he was a student leader and Resident Advisor (RA) on campus. As a First-Generation college student himself trying to figure out college, Steven developed a passion for helping students navigate higher education. Steven finds dialogue a powerful tool and has participated and facilitated several dialogues including: Conversations About Race and Ethnicity (CARE) at Syracuse University, Men Against Social Stigma (MASS) at Buffalo State College, and Unsafe Spaces at SUNY Upstate. He has co-facilitated Dialogue on Race and Ethnicity and currently serves as a graduate assistant for the program. Pronouns: he/his/him

Easton Davis (edavis13@syr.edu) is a doctoral candidate in the Cultural Foundations of Education program at Syracuse University and is pursuing a certificate of advanced study (CAS) in Women’s and Gender Studies. Easton joined the team in 2019 as the Graduate Assistant for the Intergroup Dialogue (IGD) program and co-facilitates the IGD course on Race and Ethnicity. In his past roles, he worked as a College Success Coordinator at Summer Search – a national youth development and college success organization in New York City and as an Academic Advisor at Reynolds Community College in Richmond, VA. In both complementary roles, he learned how vital developing students’ voices were in achieving success and the role of cultural capital in resistance to deficit-based theories, particularly for students of color. Easton also has co-facilitated Conversations About Race and Ethnicity (CARE), a Division of Student Affairs, Office of Multicultural Affairs co-curricular initiative, and the Transformative Dialogue for student leaders in the college of law. He has served as a Teaching Assistant for the Selective Studies in Education program and instructor for the Summer Start program through University College at Syracuse University. Easton’s recent project, Homebase BIPOC Dialogues, a five-week co-curricular dialogue series, invited undergraduate students to explore elements of creative and cultural resistance rooted in love through poetry and dialogue. By centering Black bodies and (re)defining well-being, Easton’s dissertation topic seeks to understand creative and cultural resistance in education that creates more opportunities for educators and students to unlearn racism and situate the body as a site of reclamation. Easton holds a MS in Cultural Foundations of Education from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree in Sociology with a minor in Black studies from Randolph-Macon College. Pronouns: he/him/his

Jersey Cosantino (they/them), a former K-12 educator, is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Foundations of Education, holding certificates of advanced study in women’s and gender studies and disability studies. Jersey’s scholarship resides at the intersections of Mad studies and trans studies. Utilizing disability and transformative justice frameworks, their research centers the experiences and subjectivities of Mad, neurodivergent, trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals. Through oral history and autoethnography, Jersey seeks to construct Mad trans archives that create pathways and portals to Mad trans futures. Using Mad trans methodologies that challenge sanism, ableism, and transmisia, Jersey’s research confronts medical model discourses and the pathologizing gaze of the psychiatric industrial complex. Jersey identifies as Mad, neurodivergent, queer, trans, and non-binary and is white with education and citizenship privilege. They are a co-facilitator for SU’s Intergroup Dialogue Program’s course Dialogue on Racism and Anti-Racism, a co-editor of the International Mad Studies Journal, and consulting editor for the Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education. Jersey holds a MA degree in high school English education (‘14) and a graduate certificate in mindfulness studies (‘19) from Lesley University, and a bachelor’s degree in English and studio art from Wellesley College (‘09). For the past four years, Jersey has engaged in peer support work via an abolitionist framework as a volunteer call operator with the Trans Lifeline.

D. Romo (diromo@syr.edu) is a first-generation Xicanx doctoral candidate in Cultural Foundations of Education (CFE) at Syracuse University and is a Publicly Active Graduate Education (PAGE) Co-Director at Imagining America. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) they worked on publicly engaged scholarship initiatives in their neighborhood through the Pico Neighborhood Association (PNA) and Pico Youth and Family Center (PYFC) to address issues of access to affordable housing and overdevelopment, unequal educational resources, and culturally relevant/sustaining pedagogies that recognize the experience, knowledge, and values of young people of color. It was within academic and community spaces that their interest in social justice education and activist-scholar identity emerged and they have continued to do this work in Syracuse, NY. While working on their M.S., Romo worked at SU’s Intergroup Dialogue Program (IGD) as Graduate Research Assistant and co-facilitator for the Dialogue on Socioeconomic Inequality & Education. As a doctoral student, Romo has worked with the high school/university partnership as a co-facilitator at a local alternative high school in the Syracuse City School District (Cultural Voices, Lit Arts). Cultural Voices is an English course that provides youth a space to analyze their individual experience as related to structural systems of power and privilege; and Lit Arts is an after-school program bridging art-based social justice education and intergroup dialogue to promote youth activism and civic engagement. Pronouns: they/them/theirs

Atiya McGhee (atmcghee@syr.edu) is a doctoral student in the Cultural Foundations of Education program at Syracuse University and is pursuing a certificate of advanced study (CAS) in Women’s and Gender Studies. Atiya’s work and research broadly spans various disciplines such as queer studies, disability studies, fat studies, and Black studies. Atiya identifies as a fat Black woman/non-binary queer person from the Bronx, NY. Using (auto)ethnography and intergroup dialogue, their research examines what a possible fat pedagogy outside the classroom can look like that critically interrupts “body terrorism” (Taylor, 2022) and the negative “body talk” associated with fatness. Atiya co-facilitates Politics of the Body: Fatphobia and Body Talk, a six-week co-curricular dialogue series that invites undergraduate and graduate students to reflect on their relationship to their body and fatness, particularly fatphobia and how it intersects with other systems of oppression to contribute to body terrorism (Taylor, 2022). Before attending Syracuse, Atiya worked for several years in Residential Life at various institutions. Atiya holds a Master of Education in Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration from the University of Vermont, and a BA degree in Creative Writing and Literature from Wheaton College (MA). Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs

Linzy Andre (landre@syr.edu) is a native New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA and MSED from Hunter College, at City University of New York. In Fall 2022, she became a doctoral candidate in Counseling and Counselor Education with the Department of Counseling and Human Services. She is also pursuing a CAS in Women’s and Gender Studies and another in Instructional Design Foundations. Linzy has 8 years of post-graduate clinical mental health counseling practice experience, including 4 years in private practice. Her experiences as a person who sought help through counseling, a counselor-in-training, practicing counselor, and as a counselor education student have inspired her research interests. She is working on her dissertation, which takes a much-needed critical lens to the diverse experiences that Black women counselors have in their journeys to becoming counselors, with particular emphasis on their experiences with woundedness and healing prior to their decision to become a counselor. She has conducted research regarding the endorsement of therapeutic factors amongst counselors-in-training while engaged in group counseling skills coursework and experiential growth groups. She is currently conducting research projects regarding Black counselors in private practice; from the perspectives of women of color on student success; and utilizing intergroup dialogue as an intervention and assessment tool for how undergraduate students think about their embodiment of fatness. Pronouns: she/her/hers

Faculty Affiliates

Meredith Madden serves as facilitation coach and affiliate with the Intergroup Dialogue Program at Syracuse University. She has published research on educational equity, social and racial justice, and curriculum and pedagogy including in peer-reviewed journals such as Equity and Excellence in Education and with the University of Illinois Press. Her recent book publications include Dear Students: 10 Letters to Transform and Empower Your Higher Education Journey, and Rise for Racial Justice: How to Talk about Race with Schools and Communities (co-authored with Colette Cann and Kimberly Williams Brown). Her teaching experience includes teaching as a middle-school special education teacher in the Bronx and Finger Lakes regions of New York State and she has over fifteen years teaching experience in higher education including at Hamilton College, Utica University, and Mohawk Valley Community College as well as Syracuse University. Dr. Madden received her Ph.D. in Cultural Foundations of Education from Syracuse University, a master’s degree in urban education from Mercy College, a master’s degree in public policy (social policy concentration) from George Washington University, and BA in sociology from William Smith College. Her work with SU Intergroup Dialogue students was recognized for innovation in academic achievement through the Chancellor’s Award for Public Engagement and Scholarship.

Courtney Mauldin is Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership in the Teaching & Leadership Department in the Syracuse University School of Education. Her scholarly research focuses on amplifying the voices and leadership practices of youth of color with particular attention to how youth perspectives are central to reimagining and transforming K-12 leadership and schools. In her most recent project, Dr. Mauldin uses a critical arts-based approach with elementary-aged youth to co-construct educator resources, influence school policy change, and integrate youth voice into the school setting in meaningful and innovative ways. Dr. Mauldin facilitates the Central New York Educators of Color Dialogue and runs the teen book club, The Breedlove Readers which she co-founded in Syracuse in Spring 2020. Prior to joining Syracuse University, Dr. Mauldin completed her doctoral degree at Michigan State University in Educational Leadership with a specialization in Urban Education.

Suzette Meléndez is Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Teaching Professor, at the Syracuse University College of Law. Professor Meléndez’s scholarly and teaching interests are in the area of family law, domestic violence and the delivery of legal services to women and children. She has directed the Children’s Rights and Family Law Clinic and teaches Family Law. In addition to litigation experience, Professor Meléndez has engaged in policy work on issues affecting litigants and practitioners including state and county domestic violence working groups, local and state bar associations, and judicial committees. She continues to work extensively on issues pursuing access to justice and the equitable treatment of all within the legal system as well as in our academic environments. Together with Intergroup Dialogue Program collaborators, Professor Meléndez developed and currently facilitates the Transformative Dialogue for Law Student Leaders. Professor Meléndez joined the College of Law in 2002; she earned a juris doctor from the University of Connecticut School of Law and a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton.