Click here to meet our Executive Committee

Jonathan K. London

Jonathan K. London is the Director of the Center for the Study of Regional Change and a Senior Researcher in the Department of Human and Community Development. Jonathan conducts research on rural community development and environmental justice. He has extensive leadership experience in non-profit management, participatory research, and community engagement. He holds a Masters of City and Regional Planning and a Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from UC Berkeley.

Starla Speich

Starla Speich is the CSRC’s first Administrator, handling all operational systems for the Center.  Before becoming a member of the Center she spent several years in sales and marketing for a national bedding manufacturer. Starla is active in event planning for her children's school and sports organizations and counts wife and mother as her favorites of her many positions over the years. She holds an A.S. degree in biotechnology and general science and is pursuing her B.S. in Biological Science.

Raoul Liévanos

Raoul S. Liévanos is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology and a graduate researcher with the Center for the Study of Regional Change and John Muir Institute of the Environment: Environmental Justice Project, UC Davis. Based in the areas of environmental sociology and organizations and institutions, his research is focused on the institutionalization of the environmental justice movement and the politics of sustainable development.

Alida Cantor

Alida Cantor is a second year Master Student in Community Development at the University of California at Davis.    She assists with outreach activities and materials for the Center for the Study of Regional Change.  Alida is interested in regional planning, sustainable agriculture, environmental justice, food systems, land use, and participation.  She is a member of Students for Sustainable Agriculture.

Leticia Jáuregui

LETICIA JÁUREGUI is a second year Master Student in Community Studies and Development and in Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California at Davis. She received a Gifford scholarship to conduct research on collective Mexican migrant remittances.

Gerardo Gambirazzio

GERARDO GAMBIRAZZIO is a doctoral candidate in the Geography Graduate Group and is writing his dissertation on the cultural history of Chinese immigrants in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. Gerardo is also working on a collaborative project between the Center for the Study of Regional Change and the Environmental Justice Project of the John Muir Institute of the Environment that is exploring the social equity dimensions of regional-scale planning in California. He is also working on GIS mapping of housing poverty in the San Joaquin Valley.

Tometi Gbedema

Tometi Gbedema - After his BA & MA degree in Translation in 1997 at Université du Benin in Lome, Togo, West Africa, Tometi worked as Assistant Manager at EGK Bruce Translation and Interpreting Cabinet. He also worked as Mathematics and English teacher at Lycee de Baguida in Lome before moving to the US. Tometi tremendously shows his qualities and capabilities in whatever he does. Tometi is a doctorial student in the Geography Graduate Group. http://communitydevelopment.ucdavis.edu/people/students_bios/Tometi-Gbedema.html

Kendra Bridges

Kendra Bridges is a first year master’s student in the Community Development Graduate Group.  Through the Center she works with the Coalition on Regional Equity, a collaborative project linking land use to equity outcomes in the Sacramento region. Her interests concentrate around affordable housing and access to opportunity for low-income communities. A native Sacramentan, Kendra received a BA in Sociology from UC Santa Cruz, and lives in Sacramento with her husband John, an attorney.