Inez Barragan, MEd
Council Term: 2020-2023
HSI STEMLink Project Director
Inez Barragan is a Grants Project Director overseeing a $5.4M, Dept. of Education award focused on advancing STEM and high tech opportunities for Latinx and low-income students at Mission College, located in the heart of the Silicon Valley region. Inez attended Santa Rosa Junior College and University of California Davis, earning a B.S. degree in Applied Behavioral Science (ABS). She found her passion for higher education leadership while working as a Reentry & the ABS major advisor at UC Davis. Shortly after graduation, Inez worked in economic development -rural development lending- deepening her understanding of deeply marginalized people in our country, including our Native & tribal communities, migrant farmworker-families, and our disenfranchised poor, among others. As her daughters’ reached their teens, still a single-mom and longing to be in higher ed., Inez began working as a Student Activities Coordinator for the Science Educational Equity program at Sacramento State University. After earning her Masters in Higher Education Leadership while working at Sac State, Inez then served as the Diversity and Educational Programs Coordinator at the Center for Biophotonics Science & Technology at UC Davis. Eventually, Inez moved back to Santa Rosa to serve her former community college as their EOPS-CARE and CAFYES Director, until the HSI STEMLink Project Director position was announced in 2016. Inez’s Personal message: I am a Mexican-American, first generation college graduate with over 20 yrs. of grant management experience, and I seek to advance the preparation and opportunities of Latinx and low income students into STEM and high tech careers. I greatly value my experience supporting our students and emerging HSIs across any of the three CA higher Ed systems: CSU, UC and Community Colleges. More recently, I led my college’s participation in the Kickstarter program under Arizona State University and continued working with the ASU team on the design of the STEM-ESS Project. I have lived in Michoacán Mexico and northern CA for most of my life. I spend my free time with family and friends, hiking, cooking, attending basketball games, live concerts, on long-distance cycling trips in the summer, and watching movies in winter.