Keynote Speakers

Sandra de Castro Buffington is a Filmmaker and Social Impact Specialist that leads a team supporting efforts to improve health and livelihood outcomes for adolescent girls and young women in low- and middle-income countries. She focuses on entertainment for social impact cultivating local champions and collects data and evidence to better understand social norms and their influences. As a leader, strategist, and producer of social impact entertainment to uplift women and young girls, Sandra has ignited new narratives of cultural transformation worldwide. She has worked in 50 countries over 20-plus years and founded the UCLA’s Global Media Center for Social Impact and served as the former Director of USC’s Hollywood, Health & Society program. As co-producer of the award-winning film BRAINWASHED: Sex-Camera-Power and executive producer of the new film #SHOUT, from India, Sandra has called for urgently addressing the gender divide through film and television. Sandra has been awarded multiple honors such as being named one of the “Nation’s 100 Most Influential Hispanics”” by PODER Hispanic magazine and received the USAID Maximizing Access and Quality Outstanding Achievement Award, Brazil’s Award for Leadership in Bahia State, the World Film Institute’s American Riviera Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award, The Female Eye Film Festival’s Honorary Maverick Award, and a Presidential Citation from the Society for Public Health Education.

Dr. Jose Luis Zelaya is a former Texas A&M University student, A-WHOOP! From his days as a homeless child in one of the most dangerous cities in Honduras to his migration to the United States as an unaccompanied minor, Dr. Zelaya speaks of higher education as a beacon of hope for families and communities. In 2006, Dr. Zelaya was a first generation college student and became the first one in his family to graduate from high school as well. Dr. Jose Luis Zelaya graduated from Texas A&M University with a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies, a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction specializing in English as a second language as well as a Ph.D. in urban education. He ultimately owes his personal and academic achievements to the great sacrifices of his family, broad systems of support, mentors, and his strong personal desire to succeed. After his graduation, he founded Dr. Zelaya Educational Consulting, LLC, where he would continue his vision of serving the community. For the past two years, the company has passionately served students, educators, and families in the state of Texas and throughout the nation.

Sonia Nazario grew up in Kansas and in Argentina, has written extensively from Latin America about Latinos in the United States. She has been named among the most influential Latinos by Hispanic Business Magazine. In 2020, Parade Magazine named Nazario one of “50+ Most Influential Latin-American Women in History.” She is a graduate of Williams College and has a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She has honorary doctorates from Mount St. Mary’s College and Whittier College. Sonia Nazario is an award-winning journalist whose stories have tackled some of this country’s most intractable problems — hunger, drug addiction, immigration — and have won some of the most prestigious journalism and book awards

Dr. Carlos Martínez-Cano (he/him/él) is a native of the Chihuahuan desert along the U.S./México borderlands. He is an anthropologist and currently holds an assistant professorship at the University of Washington (Seattle) in Learning Sciences and Human Development. He is a proud graduate of Texas A&M University (’99, B.S., Agricultural Development – WHOOP!). Dr. Martínez-Cano’s undergraduate experiences prepared him well as he went on to earn a Master of Arts in Foreign Language Education (with a focus on Teaching English Language and Literature) from a certain university in Austin, as well as an Ivy League PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, where his dissertation, “From ‘Disengaged’ to Digital: Young Latino Males as Emergent Technology Experts,” won the Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award from Penn’s Graduate School of Education the year it was published. He is a visiting affiliate at New York University’s Center for Faculty Advancement and a research affiliate with UT Austin’s Project MALES. He has published work in Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Phi Delta Kappan, Cultural Anthropology, and Anthropology News. All along the way the heart of Dr. Martínez-Cano’s work has remained in serving individuals and communities from Chicanx, Latine, and Mexican-origin backgrounds. His first experience as an educator was as an undergraduate literacy volunteer for a Texas A&M custodial staff member studying for their GED. He has been an English teacher in South America, a 3^rd grade bilingual teacher, a high school English-as-a-Second-Language teacher, and an informal mentor to middle school boys in a “New Latino Diaspora” town in Pennsylvania. Among his most treasured memories from his childhood in El Paso are the large (30+ cousins!) family holiday gatherings – la comida, las canciones, y tanta risa. Gig ‘em!