Kiah Combs

Educator with over 10 years of experience in a variety of alternative learning environments including outdoor environmental camps, summer camps, tutoring and mentoring programs, in-school support, and preschool aged classrooms. My roles have included after school and youth events support, camp counselor, assistant camp director, summer transition program teacher, tutor, behavioral health mentor, learning efficiency instructor,  preschool teacher, graduate student researcher, and assistant for higher education student employment programs. As an administrator for these programs I provide support for a large cohort of students, staff, faculty, and directors by recruiting, interviewing, and hiring students, guiding them through the onboarding process, providing mentorship to student employees, managing personnel files, executing communication with on and off-campus stakeholders, and providing administrative support to my program manager, center director, and faculty members. In addition, I assist the program manager with tracking funding budgets, projecting future funding, and making program decisions based on these estimations such as hiring, promotions, and professional development opportunities for our students. By attending and participating in all department wide staff meetings, I collaborate with the center team to implement logistical planning and events execution for both program activities and annual center events and represent the center in a variety of professional settings.

As an undergraduate student of Biology I: 

• Engaged in complex quantitative research projects involving developing, implementing, and reporting
  on independent research projects using statistical software to run statistical tests, generate graphs, and
  summarize and report findings including future implications for research contribution
• Was accepted and participated in a semester long Marine Science term involving collecting qualitative and
  quantitative data in the Cayman Islands and contributing to the longest running data set of its kind in
  the Caribbean as part of Dr. Bart DeStasio’s bi-annual research team’s work
• Conducted an in-depth literature review on the emerging field of Cultural Neuroscience and presented
  findings through art and visual representation at the end of year Biology showcase

As a masters student my program focused on the on the relationships between schools and communities, how institutions have historically worked to perpetuate inequity, and the ways in which this positionality can better be utilized to facilitate better systems of living for families and communities. For my thesis research I:

• Developed and executed an independent research project on homeschooling in a rural area of
  California in conjunction with a broader research project on activism and parental rights within
  conservative movements in California led by Dr. Danfeng Soto-Vigil Koon
• Implemented research practices such as completing literature reviews, providing geographical context
  of the study, recruiting participants, conducting interviews, and collecting and analyzing qualitative data
• Contribute to growing research on the third major wave of educational activism from mothers in the
  US by reporting on the ways in which homeschooling is a form of protest and regaining parental rights
  against power structures for families in rural areas with intent to publish findings