Meet Our Team
Co-Principal Investigators
Dr. Christine Whitcraft
Professor, Biology & Director of the Environmental Science and Policy Program
Christine.Whitcraft@csulb.edu
Dr. Whitcraft has over 15 years of experience as a faculty member and marine ecologist at CSULB. As a faculty member in both Biological Sciences and Director of Environmental Science and Policy (ES&P), she focuses her research on how human activities impact coastal ecosystems and how we can work collaboratively to design solutions to large-scale environmental challenges.
Dr. Whitcraft's teaching includes a range of upper-division biology and environmental sciences courses, including Conservation Biology, a service-learning course with a focus on helping convert students' desire to save the earth into practical, solution-oriented actions with local community partners. Connections with these same community partners provide the backbone to her wetland research.
Dr. Juan M. Benitez
Executive Director, Center for Community Engagement
Juan.Benitez@csulb.edu
Dr. Benitez has over 25 years of experience as a faculty member and in university leadership at CSULB, leading efforts around community and civic engagement and the public good. As a faculty member of Latinx History, he has helped to lead community-centered, placed-based initiatives throughout Southern California in partnership with organizations like the California Endowment, the California Community Foundation, and the Advancement Project.
At the Center for Community Engagement, he oversees campus-wide community engagement programs, projects and initiatives such as but not limited to: service learning (and other high-impact practices), community-based participatory and action research and key campus-community partnerships, activities and events. He has helped raise over $3 million toward community and civic engagement projects in the region; working with hundreds of community organizations and groups, thousands of students and community members, faculty, educators and other key stakeholders and systems leaders.
Dr. Beth Manke
Professor, Human Development & Director of the Long Beach Community Internship Program
Beth.Manke@csulb.edu
Dr. Manke has over 20 years of experience building institutional capacity at CSULB for equity-anchored undergraduate internship programming. As a faculty member, Dr. Manke served as coordinator for HDEV 470, the required internship course in Human Development and directly supervised over 400 students in their internship placements. As Associate Dean for the College of Liberal Arts, she created a centralized internship office and a college-level internship course.
In 2021, Dr. Manke initiated the Long Beach Community Internship Program (LBCIP), a collaborative effort between CSULB and Long Beach nonprofits, which closed the loop on the Long Beach Promise and built bridges back to the community for students to work, live, and thrive. To date, the program has placed 166 student interns with over 60 nonprofit organizations. To support LBCIP, Dr. Manke has raised over $350,000.
Her current internship efforts are focused on the College Corps program at CSULB, the scholarship of internship programming in higher education (including her recently published book with Routledge), and the newly launched Academic Internships Office housed in the Center for Community Engagement where Dr. Manke serves as the Senior Faculty Fellow.
Staff
Michelle Chang
Director, Academic Internships Office, Center for Community Engagement
Michelle.Chang@csulb.edu
Michelle brings a wealth of experience in the area of internships and career readiness. She was formerly a staff member in the Career Development Center and served as the Internship Specialist in the CLA Dean's Office for several years where she built and ran a very successful college-wide internship program.
She is the co-founder of the Long Beach Community Internship Program and Design Your Long Beach, whose mission is to provide access to and equitable participation in local paid internships for Long Beach hailing students. Additionally, she supports multiple campus-wide internship initiatives.
As the Director, Michelle will help to establish and lead an Academic Internships Office within the CCE. She will provide the necessary institutional infrastructure to support, scale, and sustain equity-anchored academic internship programming that will advance student success across CSULB.
Kristal Domme
Internship Program Assistant
Kristal.Domme@csulb.edu
Ms. King is an alumna of CSULB, graduating with a degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice in 2021. She brings a wealth of internship experience to College Corps @ the Beach: she is an alumna of the Long Beach Community Internship Program (LBCIP), completing a semester-long internship with Transformational Living Homes, and served as the Student Outreach and Communications Coordinator for LBCIP for eight months following graduation.
Faculty Fellows
Dr. Elaine Villanueva Bernal
Lecturer, Chemistry and Biochemistry
Elaine.Bernal@csulb.edu
Dr. Bernal has been a lecturer from the CSULB Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry for over 16 years. Dr. Bernal is a published researcher and experienced facilitator for STEM faculty professional development in higher education and K-12, and serves as a leading expert in science education and educational technologies.
Dr. Bernal currently oversees student outreach, engagement, and professional development programming for two NSF projects that ensure equitable access to research and industry projects for historically marginalized students in STEM. In 2020, they were appointed to be Chemistry Editor for the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching and in 2021 partnered with the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education Cooperative for Educational Technologies as their STEM Digital Learning Strategist for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Dr. Bernal also hosts their related podcast, the Frontiers Podcast.
Dr. Bernal was recently selected to be a Faculty Fellow for the inaugural Californians for All College Corps which develops and provides internship opportunities in partnership with local community organizations. Internship experiences focus on key issues related to climate action and environmental justice, food insecurity, and K-12 education with an emphasis on climate literacy. Her newest role is Co-Primary Investigator for a federally funded grant project designed to develop communities' capacity to create and sustain high-quality, engaging, and equitable STEAM programs for underrepresented students in middle school.
Dr. Christine El Ouardani
Associate Professor, Department of Human Development
Christine.ElOuardani@csulb.edu
Dr. Christine El Ouardani has been a faculty member in the Department of Human Development for the past ten years. Her research has largely focused on child development and mental health in the United States and Morocco. More recent research has focused on parental well-being and somatic treatments for healing trauma. She has also worked with local non-profit organizations on developing their UX and evaluation research capacities and is also an evaluation researcher for the Center for Evaluation and Educational Effectiveness on campus.
In addition to teaching courses on qualitative methods, childhood and child mental health, and life course in the Middle East, Dr. El Ouardani has enjoyed developing and teaching department and college-level internship courses over the past eight years. She has also served as the Human Development internship coordinator.
Dr. Bonnie Gasior
Professor, Spanish & Chancellor's Office
Bonnie.Gasior@csulb.edu
Dr. Gasior has co-edited three, scholarly volumes on early modern Spanish literature--one of which won the 2020 Vern Williamsen comedia book award--and has co-produced a textbook, Redes literarias: Antología del texto hispánico en su contexto histórico-cultural (2018). Her co-authored book, Internships, High-Impact Practices and Provocative Praxis in Higher Education: A Social Justice Framework Based on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, with Beth Manke and Michelle Chang, was published with Routledge (December 2023).
Since 2020, Dr. Gasior has worked as a Faculty Fellow in an additional capacity: with the Chancellor's Office as a Mental Health First Aid instructor. To date, her team has trained over 1000 faculty across the CSU to recognize signs and symptoms of a mental health challenge, to listen non-judgmentally, and to connect individuals to support services.
Her awards include the 2023 Momentum Award from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, and a system-wide Faculty Innovation and Leadership Award (FILA) for her longstanding student-centered efforts (2019). She is currently a proud master's student in CSULB's School of Social Work.
Dr. Claudia López
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Claudia.Lopez2@csulb.edu
Dr. López is an Associate Professor in the department of Sociology, teaching at CSULB for over 7 years. As a professor and practitioner of qualitative methods, Dr. López is focused on two research interests: 1) the impacts of high-impact practices on non-traditional students; and 2) the housing experiences of vulnerable populations in cities. She was a co-investigator on the HIPs@ the Beach project which examines the impact of high-impact practices on the CSULB students' success.
She is the founder and Principal Investigator of House It SoCal, a community-engaged, student-led collaboration project that examines the housing experiences of vulnerable populations in Southern California. Using student-led and participatory approaches, Dr. López is an expert on community-engaged research methods to gather data on lived experiences in the 21st century. From student success to housing, her research addresses important equity issues, from local to global scales, that contribute to the university's mission and have national to international impact.
Dr. López was a College Corps site supervisor from 2022-2024 and is currently a College Corps Faculty Fellow for 2024-2025. She has served as a faculty research mentor on campus in the University Research Opportunity Program (UROP), University Honors, and McNair programs, working one-on-one with over 25 CSULB students over the last 7 years, and was awarded the Advancement of Women Award from the CSULB President's Commission on the Status of Women for her contributions to research, mentorship, and service.
Dr. Lisa Sparks
Lecturer, Department of Health Science
Lisa.Sparks@csulb.edu
Dr. Sparks is a multi-ethnic female who has over 20 years experience as a public health professional and faculty member in the Health Science Department. In this capacity she has over 15 years experience in undergraduate- and graduate-level programming directly working with students in their internship placement and developing and fostering relationships with community-based organizations, institutions, and agencies across Southern CA. With her students, she stresses the importance of cultural competency and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
She has a special interest in first-generation student success focusing on academics and physical and mental well-being. Dr. Sparks also serves as a faculty member on CSULB's Student Health Advisory Committee and the CHHS's Health and Wellness Advisory Board.
Campus Partners
This work is made possible by the contributions from the following CSULB units.
