I am a product of public K-12 education. I attended Little Rock Central High School, and also spent 8-11th grade in public schools in Australia. I majored in both mathematics and international relations in college, earned my MA in the Great Books program at St. John's College, and moved to Minnesota to pursue a doctoral degree in Cognitive Science at the University of of Minnesota. I worked in a brain science lab, a computational linguistics lab, and finally graduated from a lab that focused on motivation and decision making.

I began my career as a math tutor and teacher, teaching grades 7-12 at a small IB school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since finishing my education I have worked for several educational technology companies (Infinite Campus, Edmentum, NWEA), and currently lead the Learning Engineering team at Digital Harbor Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to empowering under-served communities through access to technology.

Emilia Gonzalez Avalos (She/Hers) is an immigrant

born in Mexico City and raised in Minnesota. She

joined her father years after he left their town looking

for a better future for his family. Family separation,

border consciousness and transnational economy

shaped Emilia to dedicate her career to work with the

low wage worker community and organize people's

power towards social, racial and economic justice.

As Executive Director, Emilia transformed Navigate

MN from an undocumented student network to a

statewide multi-entity Latino powerhouse in deep

relationship and accountability to meatpacking,

service, construction and janitorial workers and their

families now known as Unidos MN. Born out of the

DREAMer movement and with a tradition of youth

organizing, Unidos MN continues to cultivate young

people's leadership through powerful campaigns and

programs that not only aim at reducing structural

harm but deploy an abundant vision for a multiracial

democracy that works for everyone.

Emilia is recipient of the 2022 Bush Fellowship, the

2020 Ohtli Award (an honor the Mexican

Government gives to Mexican citizens living abroad),

the 2017 OutFront MN Innovator Award and the

2016 MLK Distinguished Service Award by

Governor Dayton’s Council on MKL. Emilia is an

alumna of the Hubert H. Humphrey Public Policy

Fellows Program and attends the University of St

Thomas for a BA in Theology and Individualized

Studies