The Virginia Latino Higher Education Network (VALHEN) is an organization designed to serve as a networking structure for individuals in colleges, universities, and the community -at-large, to communicate, advocate, organize, research, and identify resources which support and work towards the success of Latinos in higher education in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The VALHEN Board includes (in alphabetical order):
Carlos Campo (Treasurer) currently serves as the Chief Academic Officer and Vice President of Academic Affairs of Regent University in Virginia Beach. Dr. Campo's career progression includes more than 20 years in education. After teaching English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) for ten years, he joined the College of Southern Nevada (CSN) in 1998 as an English professor. Dr. Campo advanced to dean of arts and letters in 2005, then to director of academic partnerships, and finally to interim vice president of academic affairs before accepting his current position with Regent.
In 2007, Dr. Campo was recognized as Outstanding Educator by the Clark County (Nevada) Commission, Educator of the Year by the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce and was given the Champion of Education Award by the National Latin Business Association. In 1993, the UNLV Foundation honored his dissertation, Friendship in Arthur Miller, as the Dissertation of the Year. Dr. Campo is an active member of the Arthur Miller Society; he hosted their 11th annual conference in Las Vegas in 2006.
Mirta M. Martin (Vice-President) serves as the Special Assistant to the Chancellor for the Virginia Community College System. Prior to this assignment, Dr. Martin served as the Special Assistant to the President of John Tyler Community College and the Executive Vice President of the John Tyler Community Foundation, where she provided leadership in building an effective development and outreach program. She received her Baccalaureate from Duke University, with a triple major in Political Science, Psychology, and French. She has an MBA from the University of Richmond and a Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University with a concentration in Strategic Management and Leadership.
Previously, she directed executive education and workforce activities at the University of Richmond, Robins School of Business. She also has over fourteen years experience as a tenured faculty member and administrator. Dr. Martin started her career in the banking industry, serving in her last position as Senior Vice President for First Union Bank.
Judy Mejia (Secretary) is the Program Manager for the Richmond Families Initiative at the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement of the University of Richmond. Mejia leads the Center's community engagement efforts at the newly opened University of Richmond Downtown campus. She earned a B.A. with honors in Communication with minors in Latin American Studies and Business Management from George Mason University, Fairfax Campus. She also holds an M.A. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Education, Teachers College, in Education Policy.
A Richmond native, Mejia worked for five years in education policy and research for the New York State Education Department and for the New York City Council Education Committee. Prior to her return to Virginia, she managed university-community partnerships in the Bronx and Harlem for both the City University of New York's Lehman College and Columbia University's Teachers College.
María Nieto-Shahsavarian (Board Member) holds a dual appointment as an Outreach/Development Specialist for the Pathway to the Baccalaureate Program and as a Spanish Instructor for the Department of Languages and Literature at Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC). She holds a Master of Arts in Foreign Language and a B.A. in Government and International Politics.
She has over 20 years of experience at NVCC, where she has served in various capacities on three of the college’s campuses, including Program Manager and Medical interpreter (Spanish/English) at the Medical Campus. Ms. Nieto-Shahsavarian is a native Peruvian, with extensive multicultural and global experience.
Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones (Board Member) is Associate Dean in Residence and Director of the Office for Diversity Programs at the Graduate School, an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science, and a member of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech. Pérez-Quiñones holds a D. Sc. in Computer Science from The George Washington University. His research interests include human-computer interaction, personal information management, user interface software, digital government, and educational uses of computers.
Dr. Pérez-Quiñones is a member of the Coalition to Diversify Computing, where he co-directs the national program Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates in Computer Science and Engineering. He serves on the editorial board for the Journal on Educational Resources in Computing. For 2008-2010 has been included in the IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor program.
Maricel Quintana-Baker (President) serves as Associate Director for Academic Affairs and Planning at the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). She is responsible for coordinating Virginia's Outstanding Faculty Awards and the Virginia Doctoral Nursing Loan Repayment Program, coordinates the Agency's Statewide Strategic Plan, and conducts research on higher education policy. She is a member of the National Advisory Board for the Computing Alliance of Hispanic Serving Institutions and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities' Higher Education Research Collective (H3ERC).
Dr. Quintana-Baker currently serves on the Virginia Council on the Status of Women and on the Executive Board of The Women's Network, the state affiliate of the American Council on Education's Office of Women in Higher Education. She has also served for five years on the Virginia Latino Advisory Board and is a founding member of the Central Virginia Chapter of LULAC (League of Latin American Citizens). She held an Oakridge Institute for Science and Education Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the National Science Foundation's Division of Education and Human Resource Development. She holds a Ph.D. from American University, and is a graduate of the Management Development Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education and of Leadership Metro Richmond.
Emily Sumner, Esq. (Community Representative) is an immigration
attorney at Challa Law Offices in Richmond, with a focus in university immigration. She speaks Spanish, having lived in Salamanca, Spain, and regularly advises clients on complex immigration matters in their native Spanish. Ms. Sumner is also co-chair of the Immigrant Outreach Committee, a division of the Virginia State Bar, dedicated to educating other lawyers on legal issues relevant to the immigrant community.