Board
Alan Marks, J.D.
President
Alan Marks is a graduate of Stanford University and University of Texas Law School, is a licensed attorney in New Mexico and Texas and a licensed teacher and administrator in New Mexico. Marks taught at Rio Grande HS in Albuquerque from 1978-92, and was named NM Teacher of the Year in 1989. He founded South Valley Academy, a charter high school in 2000, and built and directed the school until 2008. He has helped hundreds of minority students from across New Mexico successfully apply to and graduate from the nation’s top private colleges and universities. He is the founder and president of the Center for Educational Initiatives. He has served on many city, county and state boards, public involvement committees, task forces, and non-profit boards.
Dr. Shelly Valdez
Director
Dr. Shelly Valdez is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna Tribe, located in central New Mexico, and Hispanic descent. Shelly’s educational background includes a Bachelor of Arts degree in Elementary Education, Master of Arts in Bilingual Education, and Ph.D. in Multicultural Teacher Education focusing on research in the area of Science Education. Shelly has worked in the area of education for 38+ years and currently owns & manages an educational consulting business, Native Pathways, (NaPs), LLC, located in central New Mexico. An important component of NaPs focuses on world views in science education, primarily Indigenous science.
Shelly’s interest and passion for Indigenous science has influenced her approaches in the fields of education and evaluation, as well as interdisciplinary partnerships. Why a focus of Indigenous Science in education? Shelly grew up in a rich environment that fostered learning from a cultural worldview and the outdoors. Her father, the late Robert C. Valdez, was her mentor and her true teacher, in that he was able to take her western academic preparation to a deeper level. It was her father who helped her understand the connection between school learning and her Pueblo worldview, giving her a culturally rich, community-based education.
This environment and the gifts of knowledge her father shared with her influenced her decision to pursue the field of education and ignited her advocacy and passion for decolonizing educational and evaluation processes. Shelly is a traditional pueblo potter, trained through the gifts of knowledge transferred to her from her mother. She utilizes this art form to amplify her passion and work within a Science of Place.
Maria Martinez Sanchez, J.D.
Vice President
Maria Martinez Sanchez is a native New Mexican, born and raised in Albuquerque. She attended Albuquerque High School and New Mexico State University. She received her law degree from the University of New Mexico in 2008 and has worked in the public interest field since becoming an attorney. She worked at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty for six years, where she fought to improve the living and working conditions of New Mexico's farm and dairy workers. Since 2014 she has been a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, defending New Mexicans' constitutional and civil rights.
James Povijua
Director
James Povijua began his career as a print journalist at The Santa Fe New Mexican and earned an Associated Press award for Investigative Journalism for his coverage of Native American education in New Mexico. James has an extensive background in community and labor union organizing. In Illinois, as Campaign Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, he led a years long state-wide campaign to pass the “Illinois Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.” The legislation extended basic labor protections to domestic work—a profession that is predominantly made up of women and women of color. The bill was signed into law in 2017 and domestic workers are now protected by the state’s: Minimum Wage Law, One Day Rest in Seven Act, Wages of Women and Minors Act, and Human Rights Act. Later, as Coordinator of Community Organizing at SEIU Local 1—among the nation’s largest unions—he organized a diverse citywide coalition in Chicago to support a city ordinance that created a pathway for low-wage workers organizing at O'Hare International Airport to win their union.
Currently, James is the Policy Director for the Center for Civic Policy (CCP), a 501C3 advocacy organization focused on fostering broad, inclusive civic engagement among New Mexico’s diverse and underrepresented communities, through policy work, voter engagement, and issue education campaigns. At CCP, James supports the policy and advocacy initiatives of more than 40 partner organizations, whose issue areas include: inclusive democracy, immigrant rights, early childhood education, workers’ rights, reproductive justice, economic justice, the environment and climate equity.
James grew up in Los Pachecos, NM and holds a BA in Industrial Labor Relations from Goddard College, VT. He is a proud member of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, the birthplace of Pueblo Revolt leader Po’Pay
Juan Abeyta
Secretary / Treasurer
Juan Abeyta has over 40 years of experience in developing, coordinating and evaluating educational and social justice programs for underrepresented communities. He currently serves as coordinator for La Red del Rio Abajo, a social justice collaborative of 13 community service organizations that have established a collective impact initiative in Albuquerque’s South Valley. He recently assisted in the establishment of the Listo Nuevo Mexico campaign, a coalition of organizations dedicated to the full integration of immigrants in New Mexico by ensuring low-income immigrants access to social and legal services to obtain citizenship and administrative relief, fostering leadership development in the immigrant community and promoting economic and civic engagement.
In the early 1980’s he helped establish the first online educational network, CAPNET, among rural schools in New Mexico. He has served as a consultant to federal and state agencies including the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories, the State of New Mexico, the WK Kellogg and McCune Charitable Foundations, as well as universities across the country.