Meet Our Leadership Team
The work of the OERI is guided by a team consisting of a Faculty Coordinator, Area Representatives, Project Monitors, and a Communications Lead. The ASCCC divides the state up into 4 geographic regions. Our structure ensures that we are distributed across the state and can be deployed to visit – virtually or in-person – any of our 115 accredited colleges as needed.
Michelle Pilati
Faculty Coordinator | Psychology, Rio Hondo CollegeContact Michelle
Michelle has been actively involved in the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) for over a decade, representing the ASCCC in various capacities and playing a role in a wide array of state-level endeavors, including guided pathways, C-ID, Statewide Career Pathways, the Student Success Task Force, and the implementation of SB 1440. Previously she served as the Psychology Editor for MERLOT (Multimedia Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) and was a founding Editorial Board member and served as Co-editor of the MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT), a peer-reviewed online publication that launched in 2005. Prior to her involvement in statewide work, she served as Curriculum Chair and Distance Education Coordinator at her college.
Suzanne Wakim
Regional Lead, Area A & Project Monitor | Biology, Butte CollegeContact Suzanne
Suzanne is the Distance Education Coordinator, Open Educational Resources Coordinator, Student Learning Outcomes Coordinator, and biology faculty at Butte Community College. Suzanne Wakim has designed and developed over a dozen biology courses including five online courses. She has helped write numerous textbooks and learning ancillaries including content for Nature, Discovery Education, Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative and OpenStax. She has presented on topics such as: Universal Design for Learning; Open Pedagogy for Equity-Minded Course Development; and Learning Apps for Increased Student Engagement.
Heather Dodge
Regional Lead, Area B | Librarian, Berkeley City CollegeContact Heather
Heather is a library faculty at Berkeley City College and teaches courses in information literacy, research methods, and navigating information on the internet. She served as a grant lead on several OER grants at Berkeley City College, including a Z-degree planning grant, AB-798 (OER professional development), and has coordinated training and OER discovery in the Peralta Community College District since 2016. She is passionate about reducing textbook costs for students and libraries, engaging faculty in new pedagogies around OER, and eliminating barriers to higher education. She spent the academic year ’19-’20 as a Fulbright Scholar in Norway.
Jennifer Paris
Regional Lead, Area C | Early Childhood Education, College of the CanyonsContact Jennifer
Jennifer is a full-time faculty member in early childhood education at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, CA. She is currently leading the department on their Zero Textbook Cost grant creating OER textbooks for their eight core courses (and co-authoring three of the books). She is helping lead a discipline-wide collaboration in collecting and creating ZTC and OER content for early childhood education and child development. Jennifer has hosted two ECE OER Summits and oversees an ECE OER Collaboration Google Group. This work meshes well with her passion for student success, instructional excellence, and equity.
Dave Dillon
Regional Lead, Area D | Counseling Faculty, Grossmont CollegeContact Dave
Dave Dillon is counseling faculty and a professor at Grossmont College in San Diego. He is a general counselor and teaches College Success courses. He curated a College Success OER textbook, Blueprint for Success in College and Career (Rebus Community, 2018), and has recently participated in leadership roles for statewide CCC committees. He is passionate about student success, textbook quality, affordability, access, and design.
Shagun Kaur
Project Monitor | Communication Studies, De Anza CollegeContact Shagun
Shagun Kaur currently works as a faculty in Communication Studies at De Anza College. In addition, she serves on the Academic Senate, Tech Task Force and Online Learning Advisory Group at the college, and on the ASCCC OER Task Force. Shagun has served as Open Education Coordinator and OpenStax Institutional Lead at De Anza and has presented on OER, Equity, Online Learning and Student Success. Shagun has been passionate about OER adoption and advocacy since 2014 when she co-wrote and edited a video series on Information Literacy for De Anza college and is currently curating/authoring two Communication Studies books and ancillaries on LibreTexts.
Amanda Taintor
Project Monitor | Faculty Coordinator Instructional Design and Distance Education, Reedley CollegeContact Amanda
Amanda Taintor currently serves as the faculty coordinator of instructional design and distance education for Reedley College including Madera Community College Center and Oakhurst Community College Center. In addition to this position, Amanda has also assumed the role of student learning outcome (SLO) coordinator. Prior to these roles Amanda taught as a full time child development instructor for 8 years at Reedley College.
Julie Bruno
Communications Lead| Communication Studies, Sierra CollegeContact Julie
Julie has been involved with the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges since 2010, representing the ASCCC in a variety of projects and programs including guided pathways, Strong Workforce Task Force, and C-ID. Through her advocacy work as ASCCC president, the funding for the Open Educational Resources Initiative was secured in 2018. Julie has been a faculty member and department chair in the Communication Studies department at Sierra College since 2000.